Some more marketing

Very useful articles overall. I liked one of the articles criticizing the 50-year-old 4P's approach - we clearly need an updated one! But the article fails to provide one. Oh well, I guess there will be some more research on 4P's in the future.

If I should stick to what we currently have:

Product (in my case service): Promotion of energy efficiency measures amongst residential users. EEme helps users to save on their energy bills; utilities to avoid facing harsh monetary penalties imposed by their states (when utilities fail to meet state-mandated energy conservation targets); and product/service providers to increase their business volumes.

Price: Utilities spend millions of dollars on their Demand-side Management (DSM) programs. To put this into context, Duquesne Light spends about $20million/year on their DSM program a quarter of which can be attributed to administrative costs. We will take their current spending into account for price optimization. The first article emphasizes unique product offerings for high pricing. It argues that people have more difficulty in valuing unique products. Clearly, higher prices can yield higher profits. I will think about unique product features in the next weeks.

Place: EEme will be rooted on Facebook for enhanced consumer participation and interaction.

Promotion: Although EEme will use social networks for marketing, I think about using contests and Groupon type of mass purchasing to promote EEme further.

All articles underscore the importance of simple, crisp and clear-cut value communication and building a personal connection with the customer for engagement. Although those points all sound like common sense I have yet to find ways to accomplish such tasks. How can you reach out to the customer and connect with them and help them understand your value the way you understand it? This is challenging...