STP, 4P and 7P, and the customer journey map

STP is a strategy in three steps: segmentation, targeting, positioning. The 4 Ps and 7 Ps describe the offer, and a customer journey map the road to it.

From text to the project’s position

So far we have improved words. Now we go up a floor: whom you sell to, how you differ, what the offer is made of and which path a person takes to it. These questions belong to an ordinary marketing course; we take from it three tools that any project can use, and match them with what you have already done: the levels of awareness, the customer’s job and the canvas.

STP: segment, target, position

Where from. Three steps that make up a strategy. Segmentation as an idea was proposed by the American researcher Wendell R. Smith in a 1956 article in the Journal of Marketing: a market is made of groups with different needs, and one offer doesn’t fit everyone. Philip Kotler, in his marketing management textbooks, boiled this down to the scheme “segmentation, targeting, positioning”. Positioning was described by Al Ries and Jack Trout in articles of 1969 and 1972 and in the book Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind (1981): positioning isn’t what you do to a product but what you do to a person’s mind, that is, which place you take among the others in their head.

How it is built.

1. Segmentation. We split the audience into groups that differ in needs or in their response to an offer. The classic bases: geography, demographics, behavior, values. In this course we take as the first basis the job: in the last lesson you saw that the same person in different situations hires different things.
2. Targeting. We choose a main segment. For a small project a narrow niche is sensible: one segment and one main text. “Everyone who needs it” isn’t a segment.
3. Positioning. We define how we differ, for the chosen segment, from the alternatives (and an alternative isn’t only a competitor but also “do it myself” and “wait”).

The perception map. A position is shown clearly by a two-dimensional map: two axes on which you plot yourself and your competitors. What matters in it is the axes. They must reflect what customers really choose by and what you and your competitors really differ in. The axes “price” and “quality” don’t work: everyone wants cheaper and better, and everyone puts themselves in the top right corner. But “one-off or ongoing support” or “fast or in depth” do tell them apart. Experiment in the diagram below: place three points and see what the page says about your axes.

An example with the default persona (the invented Kate Alder).

• Segment 1: “when my neighbor moved the fence, I want to understand quickly where the boundary is”. An urgent job.
• Segment 2: “when I buy a lot, I want to be sure the boundaries are in order”. A check before a deal.
• Segment 3: “when I need a report for court, I want an expert I can trust”. A professional client (an attorney).
• Main: the first: the most frequent and sharpest job.
• Axes: “one-off service or ongoing support” and “fast or in depth”.

When it works. When you need to choose whom the home page is written for, and to explain how you differ.

Where it lets you down.

• Segments by age and gender. They are easy to measure but rarely explain a choice. “Women 30 to 45” isn’t a segment but a questionnaire.
• Too many segments. Three or four are enough, the rest blurs.
• The map flatters its author. Everyone places competitors by feel. Place the points by facts: their sites, prices, reviews.
• Positioning can’t be declared. It’s not “invented”; it forms in the customer’s head from what you do and say. You can only choose what you want to be, and keep consistently to it.

Check yourself: why does the axis “price” suit a perception map badly?

Everyone wants cheaper, and everyone puts themselves in a convenient corner. A good axis reflects what customers really choose by and what you and your competitors differ in.

The marketing mix: 4P and 7P

Where from. The term “marketing mix” was introduced by the American professor Neil Borden, who spoke of it from 1949 and described it in his 1964 article “The Concept of the Marketing Mix”: a marketer, like a cook, blends a set of “ingredients”. Borden’s list was longer, and E. Jerome McCarthy simplified it to four in the textbook Basic Marketing (1960): product, price, place, promotion. For services, Mary Jo Bitner and Bernard Booms added three more in 1981: people, process, physical evidence. That makes the 7 Ps.

What each P means.

1. Product. What you offer: the services and goods in the brief.
2. Price. How much, and on what terms. Items in the brief sometimes have a price; an honest page names it as a number or a range, not “negotiable”.
3. Place. Where and how the customer gets it: at their place, online, in an office.
4. Promotion. How people hear of you: search, recommendations, communities.
5. People. Who talks to the customer and answers for the result. For services this is part of the product.
6. Process. Which steps the customer takes from the request to the result.
7. Physical evidence. What the customer can see and check: documents, reports, photographs, the premises. A service can’t be touched before buying, and this “physical evidence” stands in for a sample.

Where it lets you down. The model looks at the business through the seller’s eyes: what we offer and how we promote. That’s why Robert Lauterborn proposed in 1990 to replace it with the “four Cs” through the buyer’s eyes: customer solution, customer cost, convenience and communication. Take from the 7 Ps the completeness of the list, but check in the customer’s language: is the price clear to them, is the place convenient, is the process plain.

The customer journey map

Where from. Its roots are in service design: Lynn Shostack described in 1984 the “service blueprint”, splitting a service into what the customer sees and what they don’t. Then the practice of interface design shaped the customer journey map. In Nielsen Norman Group’s description, it’s a visualization of what a person goes through to reach a goal: stages, actions, thoughts, feelings, touchpoints.

How it is built. Along the top, the stages (notices the problem, searches, compares, gets in touch, gets the service, stays on). For each: the touchpoint (where the person meets you: search, the site, the form, a call, an email), what they do and feel, and where they are lost. A mood curve shows the lowest point.

The main rule. The path doesn’t end at the button. Touchpoints before the main action (a search, a listing on a map, a page) and after (the first meeting, the result, a request for a review) matter equally. And the most valuable thing on the map is the places where people leave. Improve those, not the stages where all is well anyway.

Open the “Customer journey” tab in the diagram. Set the mood at each stage, mark the places where people leave and see where the work is.

Perception map Customer journey

one-off–ongoing support and fast–in depthfor individuals–for companies and standard solution–tailoredcheap–expensive and worse–better quality

My project

one-off … ongoing support: 7 fast … in depth: 6

Competitor A

one-off … ongoing support: 2 fast … in depth: 3

Competitor B

one-off … ongoing support: 8 fast … in depth: 8

You stand apart from your competitors. Check that it is true and not a wish: place the points by facts from their sites and reviews.

Where it lets you down.

• A map from the head. If you haven’t talked to customers, the map is your fantasy. Mark it as such, as you did the canvas, and test it.
• One person, one scenario. A map “for everyone” is meaningless. Draw the path of the main segment.
• Huge posters. A map that can’t be read in a minute is put away in a folder. Six stages are enough.
• No actions after the map. Each exit point should give rise to a task: what to fix on the page or in the form.

Check yourself: what is most valuable on a customer journey map?

The places where people leave, and the lowest point of mood. Improvements are needed there, not at the stages where all is well anyway.

Practice

Build four tables for your project. They lie in a note, and only you’ll see them.

1. Segments. Three segments by job (not by age): “when…, I want to…”. The main segment, and why.
2. The perception map. Two axes, not about price and “quality”, and numbers from 1 to 5 for the project and two competitors. Place the points by facts.
3. The 7 Ps. The product is already filled in from the brief. Write the other six. The price as a number or a range.
4. The customer’s path. A touchpoint at each of six stages. At the stage “Gets in touch”, the main action from the brief in the same words. In the column “People leave here”, “yes” or “no”, with at least one “yes”.

The check looks at form: the jobs, the axes without price, the numbers on the map, a number in the price, the action on the path, the exit points. Whether your points on the map are right is for you to decide: check them against your competitors’ sites, not against feelings.