Managing a successful business requires reaching your target audience and making sure they’re aware of what your brand has to offer. When your team begins to create comprehensive marketing strategies, it’s highly recommended that you use marketing acronyms to promote effective and efficient communication. Marketing acronyms are abbreviations for different types of metrics, tools, and techniques.
One acronym that your marketing team should consider implementing is PDP, which stands for product, distribution, and promotion. It’s a more refined version of the popular 4Ps marketing strategy. The PDP meaning marketing involves defining a product, figuring out how it’s going to be distributed, and creating promotional materials to communicate to your audience why they need your product. In this guide, you’ll learn how to implement PDP in marketing.
What is PDP?
PDP is a marketing strategy that can be used to promote new product launches or optimize the sales of one of your existing products. Product, distribution, and promotion are three of the most integral components of a broader marketing strategy. By maintaining synergy between these components, you should be able to effectively advertise your products to existing and prospective customers.
For example, understanding your product and the advantages it offers over the competition allows you to develop promotions that your audience will engage with. The purpose of this marketing strategy is to help you boost lead generation and more effectively communicate with customers. With the PDP framework in hand, you can properly market a service or product to the public.
The Components of PDP
There are three distinct components that are part of the PDP strategy, which include product, distribution, and promotion.
Product
Before you can create a robust marketing campaign, you must first understand everything there is to know about the product or service you’re advertising. Determine who needs the product and why it will benefit them. Try to identify features or benefits of the product that the competition doesn’t provide. Your goal is to properly define the product and its characteristics so that you can effectively introduce it to your target audience.
Keep in mind that defining your product allows you to move on to the distribution stage of this process. By understanding what the product is and who it’s for, your marketing team will be able to develop the product’s life cycle.
This strategy can be applied to nearly every type of product or service. For example, let’s say that your company is about to introduce a range of hair care products, which include everything from shampoos and conditioners to styling products. When you use PDP to create a marketing strategy, identify the key characteristics and benefits of your hair care products before you begin to distribute them to customers.
Distribution
Distribution is among the most important aspects of any product marketing strategy. It allows you to identify the specific channels and strategies that you’ll use to sell and promote your product. For example, will the product be sold in brick-and-mortar stores as well as online storefronts?
You’ll also need to ask yourself how the product will be displayed. For example, an upscale cosmetic product will likely have a better chance of reaching its target audience when sold at a high-end store like Sephora. This same product may not do well when sold at CVS or Walmart. When you’re trying to find the right channels for your products, focus on getting your items in front of customers who are more likely to buy them.
There are three common types of product distribution strategies, which include intensive, selective, and exclusive distribution. Intensive distribution ensures that your products are sold across as many channels and outlets as possible. The purpose of this form of distribution is to reach as much of the market as you can.
In comparison, selective distribution involves selling your product through select channels in specific locations. This is a more targeted type of distribution that allows you to reach a portion of your target audience that’s looking for your product at a specific price. The number of locations in a single area is often capped when using the selective distribution method.
As for exclusive distribution, it means limiting the number of channels and outlets that your product is sold through. Let’s say that you’re creating a high-end product at a premium price. In this scenario, you may want to emphasize the product’s exclusivity, which is possible when you only allow the product to be sold in a small selection of stores and locations.
Promotion
The purpose of promoting a product is to convince your main audience that they need to buy it. However, they also need to know that your product is priced correctly. Promotion involves everything from public relations to advertising. Many businesses and marketing teams create promotional materials based on where the product is going to be distributed and who the target audience is.
This portion of the PDP strategy can consist of online and offline techniques. For example, you can promote your product on your website, social media, search engines, and other channels. A common promotion technique is search engine marketing, which tasks you with creating targeted ads that only trigger when a user enters a relevant search.
A myriad of products and brands have risen rapidly in popularity because of promotional materials and marketing campaigns that they’re tied with. Going back to the previous example, let’s say that your company sells hair care products. You can market the benefits through social media campaigns, educational content, and partnerships with local and popular influencers.
The Importance of PDP in Marketing
PDP should be a core component of your marketing strategy. By analyzing your product, identifying proper distribution channels, and creating effective promotional materials, you can define and achieve your marketing goals.
Once you know what the product is and how it will be sold, you can start setting specific goals for your campaign that can be measured with the right metrics, such as conversion rate and sales volume. Without a clearly defined product and marketing strategy, you may find it difficult to reach your target audience and sell your product.
PDP vs. Other Marketing Strategies
As mentioned previously, PDP is a refined version of the 4Ps of marketing, which is a technique that stands for product, price, place, and promotion. The main difference between the 4Ps and the PDP strategy is that the former also focuses on price. However, it’s risky to set the price before identifying the distribution channels and promotional methods, which is why the PDP strategy has become increasingly popular. Both of these strategies provide you with a framework that can help you develop a more structured and effective marketing campaign.
How to Develop a PDP Strategy
To create a PDP strategy, you must first research your product and find out who your target audience is. Your main focus should be on aligning PDP with your overall business goals. At first, it’s highly recommended that you focus on specific distribution channels and promotion techniques. Don’t spread yourself too thin.
If your company has only been around for a year or two, it might be best to take a calculated and cautious approach to your marketing strategy. For example, you may not have the resources needed to promote your product across social media, television, search engines, influencers, and other websites. Center your PDP strategy around the distribution and promotion channels that you’re most familiar with.
Measuring the Success of Your PDP Strategy
When you use the PDP strategy to bolster your marketing campaigns, it’s a good idea to measure some key performance indicators (KPIs). These metrics can give you insight into your marketing strategy and help you refine it. The specific metrics you use to measure the success of PDP depend on what you’re using it for. If you’re tying the PDP strategy to a product launch, some of the metrics that will help you measure success include the following:
- Active users
- Customer satisfaction
- Revenue
- Product adoption
- Conversion rate
- Number of paying customers
- Social media engagement rate
There are many tools and methods you can use to track and analyze PDP effectiveness. Consider Google Analytics when you need to measure the success of your marketing techniques. This service is free to use and gives you the tools necessary to determine how effective your PDP strategy is at helping you reach your business and product goals.
Future Trends in PDP
The PDP technique will continue to be crucial for the success of marketing strategies in the coming years. However, emerging technologies should make it easier for businesses to implement this strategy. For example, artificial intelligence and machine learning can optimize and expedite the product research process, which will allow you to effortlessly identify your target audience and learn how to make your product more appealing to them. You can also use AI to create chatbots that answer questions and resolve issues for anyone who reaches your website.
Conclusion
PDP is an aspect of marketing that allows you to create the base for your entire advertising strategy. Once you identify the product, distribution methods, and promotional strategies, you can start developing a comprehensive campaign that helps you keep existing customers satisfied while also bringing in new ones. Implement PDP techniques to start growing your business today.