By David Erwin, Director, Technology Practice & Principal Analyst

In 1960, Jerome McCarthy introduced the 4 Ps of the Marketing Mix—a conceptual framework for marketing decision-making that focused on product, price, promotion and place. The 4 Ps helped cut through the confusion to ensure business success.

Two decades later, in 1981, Booms and Bitner added 3 new elements: people, processes and physical evidence, bringing the total to 7 Ps. And if 7 is good, 8 is better and thus, various marketing and business consultants added productivity to the list.

Is there room for yet another “P” in our Marketing Mix? Today there is. We need to add one more right between price and promotion—and call it preference.

Managing customer preferences has become extremely important not only to the marketing mix, but also to the overall customer experience, which encompasses how the customer looks at, thinks and feels about your brand over the duration of the relationship.

“By 2020, Customer Experience is expected to surpass product and pricing as the key differentiator for business.” - Forbes

To drive exceptional customer experience moving forward, brands will need to enable the individual to decide their personal preferences for the interactions and touchpoints as they engage with their organization. Doing so will require leveraging technology to receive, record and maintain the how, when and where of individual customer preferences.

Madison Advisors recently released an application brief that focuses on Preference Management and how it helps brands build trust with customers to create a foundation for a long-term, mutually beneficial relationship across channels—paper, email, mobile, social and more. A copy of Madison Advisors’ research brief, Preference Management for Multi-channel Communications, is available here.

We invite you to check back often as we will be updating our blog frequently with information you can use in your business as well as new research, market studies and analyst briefs that alert you to important trends you are experiencing today and in the future.