Originally posted:  http://www.onetooneglobal.com/blog/2011/04/27/the-black-eyed-ps-of-marketing/ (04.27.11)

Remember when marketing only used to consist of the four P’s – Product, Price, Place, and Promotion? Back then businesses crafted a message, delivered it through one-way media channels – commercials, billboards, flyers – and we, as consumers, could only choose whether or not to trust this information.

Today, we still consume these one-way messages, but we rely on the wisdom of crowds for our final decision. We review ratings on Amazon and Yelp; we search the brand’s Facebook page and keywords on Twitter; or we Google “[company name] sucks” to get the other side of the story.

Seth Godin’s recent post on “Why you might choose to be in favor of transparency” sheds light on services and businesses that are resisting this change. And this will prove to do more harm than good to these businesses.  One example he uses shows a service offered to doctors, which hopes to prevent their patients from posting doctor reviews.  Obviously this is bad for patients, but it also is bad for the doctors:

When consumers get used to transparency, they’re also more interested in the quality of what you sell, and are more likely to willingly pay extra.

I constantly use Yelp to try new places that others find amazing. How many times have you asked a friend, “How many ratings does this restaurant have?” We’re not excited about the 3 reviews with 5 star ratings (thanks Mom!), but we will pay an extra few dollars for the more expensive, 200 ratings with an average of 4 stars. It’s the Yelp Peer-Pressure factor. Amazon, iTunes, and TravelAdvisor work the same way.

On the marketing side, these social tools help guide the decisions of new customers and affirm the beliefs of current ones. So, as marketers, our job now is to motivate people to rate or publish their experience for all to see, good or bad. Now our marketing strategies should be directed towards these people who post and rate their experiences because they are the ones who influence everyone else.

So grab a few more P’s for your marketing strategy –participation, preference, peer-pressure, whatever you’d like – and target and motivate the people who will honestly rate or provide comments around their experience with your brand.   And if the responses are overwhelmingly positive, let the marketing take care of itself.

And while you’re at it, you should leave a comment before you go…