The (Marketing) Apprentice

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The (Marketing) Apprentice

• Starring Allen Sacharine

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Welcome!
Allen Sacharine Chief Executive
For the next twelve minutes you will have the
opportunity to work with me on the marketing team
of AMSLIB NHS Trust. Your mission (whether you
accept it or not) is to give our worthy but much
neglected Trust Library a makeover. To do this
we will use something called The Marketing
Mix If you succeed you may even find yourself
taking home a five-figure salary (well you are
librarians, after all!)
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The Marketing Mix

• The so-called marketing mix describes those
  elements that can be manipulated to maintain
  competitive edge

Allen Sacharine Chief Executive
Team A, perhaps you could share with us what you
have found out about the marketing mix.
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Team A

• Our team has discovered that the marketing mix
  typically refers to the 4Ps (McCarthy, 1960)
• Product,
• Place/distribution,
• Pricing and
• Promotion
• As librarians we typically focus on PRODUCT. But
  we would do well to consider the other elements.

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Team A

• We should ask ourselves
• Are products distributed from a physical PLACE,
  or is the intranet, or even Internet, used for
  distribution?
• How do PRICES for library products or services
  compare with electronic Internet based current
  awareness, document delivery or bibliographic
  services? Price not only relates to fee-based
  services but equally to how individual users
  value the service.
• Finally, will the library actively PROMOTE its
  services or risk losing business to new
  information providers?

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Well that was boring and predictable!
You are supposed to be attracting an eager band
of innovative health librarians into the
wonderful world of marketing what you have
found out so far is hardly going to twizzle any
twin-sets! Do you have anything else to offer us?
Allen Sacharine Chief Executive
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Team A

• As marketing has expanded into service delivery,
  the 4Ps have been joined by three more Ps (Dibb
  and Simkin, 1994)
• PEOPLE staff selection and customer care
  training. Information services are not likely to
  be delivered by people who are unskilled or
  demotivated
• PHYSICAL EVIDENCE décor and ambience
• PROCESS efficiency of the process, delivering
  just-in-time not just-in-case. (Booth, 2000).

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Four Ps? Seven Ps? Where will it end?
Well you seem to have more Ps than Birdseye is
that the full sum of your intellectual efforts or
do you have something else to say before your
team is frozen out?
Allen Sacharine Chief Executive
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Team A

• And theres more. In specifically writing about
  library marketing, Weingand (1995) adds two more
  Ps
• PRELUDE (marketing audit the needs analysis)
  and
• POSTLUDE (evaluation).
• ErSir Allen why are you glaring at us like
  that?

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Nine Ps? Marketing Mix-Up, more like it!
Right, by now I am thoroughly P-ed off. I hope
that Team B has something better to offer?
Allen Sacharine Chief Executive
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Team B

• Well Sir Allen, our quest took us on the High Cs,
  namely to the 4C's developed by Lauterborn
  (1990)
• Place becomes CONVENIENCE
• Price becomes COST TO THE USER
• Promotion becomes COMMUNICATION
• Product becomes CUSTOMER NEEDS AND WANTS

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Now we have gone from Ps to Cs!
What deadwood have I been given for this series?
I suspect there is more wood pulp in this Board
Room than they hold in the Bodleian! If I wanted
PCs I can go to my warehouses where I am up to my
armpits in PC-1512s! Team B you literally have
seconds to save yourselves!
Allen Sacharine Chief Executive
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Team B

• But Sir Allen, the beauty of these C's is that
  they embody a much more client-oriented marketing
  philosophy.
• When we deliver a library service we need to
  consider how convenient this will be for the
  client.
• If we emphasise what the customer really wants
  (what they really, really want but that is
  Spice, not Sugar!) they challenge previous
  marketing assumptions for example, PROMOTION is
  a one-way push of information which is markedly
  inferior to the two-way dialogue of COMMUNICATION.

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Well you have at least earned a stay of execution!
I can see that the traditional idea of marketing
as reflected by the 4Ps is too product-oriented
and that a product is no good without a customer.
However I dont think that the 4Cs are anything
like as memorable as the P-words. I think that it
is just another example of PC gone mad!
Allen Sacharine Chief Executive
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Let the audience decide!

• So what do you think? Consider the two competing
  models of the marketing mix (4Ps vs 4Cs) and
  how they might apply to your service. Which is
  likely to be more useful when you are planning to
  give your library service a competitive edge?
  Record your thoughts in your portfolio.

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Sleep well

• And make your decision carefully and wisely
• After all the survival of your service is at
  stake will you survive the ProMISe FOLIO Course
  into Week Three or will you hear those dreaded
  words.? 

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Youre Fired!
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References - 1

• Booth, A (2000). Marketing a service. In Booth,
  A Walton G (Eds). Managing knowledge in health
  services. (pp. 162-172). London Library
  Association. http//www.shef.ac.uk/scharr/mkhs/cha
  pters.htm
• Dibb S Simkin L, The Marketing Casebook,
  Routledge, 1994
• Lauterborn, B (1990) New marketing litany four
  Ps passe C-words take over. Advertising Age. 61
  (41), 26.

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References - 2

• McCarthy, J. (1960 1st ed.), Basic Marketing A
  managerial approach, 13th ed., Irwin, Homewood
  Il, 2001.
• Weingand, DE. (1995) Preparing for the
  Millennium The Case for Using Marketing
  Strategies. Library Trends. 43(3)295. Available
  at http//www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m138
  7/is_n3_v43/ai_16709298

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Additional Reading

• Marketing mix (From Wikipedia, the free
  encyclopedia) http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marketi
  ng_mix
• Webber S (2005) Marketing Mix http//dis.shef.ac.u
  k/sheila/marketing/mix.htm