Using the 5 C’s of Marketing to Understand Your Business’ Capabilities

In order to effectively market any business—a managed service provider or otherwise—it is important to have a pretty in-depth understanding of the business as it stands. However, this is often easier said than done. That being said, there is a helpful framework you can use to greatly simplify the process and ensure that you accomplish this level of understanding: the five C’s of marketing.

Let’s run through what the five C’s are, and how to consider them in a way that gives you the most valuable insights towards optimizing your efforts.

What Are the 5 C’s of Marketing?

The five C’s are different areas where your business’ details and specifics play a particularly impactful role in how your marketing strategy should be shaped. As such, it is important to have a thorough understanding of each of them so that you can leverage the information to your greatest advantage.

Company

Specifically in reference to how effectively your business operates and the strength of your brand, examining various details about your company gives you the data you need to not only more specifically define what it is you have to offer, but also more effectively communicate this data. These metrics—covering things like your brand image, your competitive advantages, your service offerings, and the goals you have for your company—can help you determine where your most advantageous opportunities lie, and what your best course of action will be as a result.

Customers

Likewise, it is important that you’re familiar with how your prospective and existing clientele operate. Understanding how the people you seek to do business with perceive their challenges and their priorities will help give you the ammunition you need to communicate with them. On a more macro scale, you should be examining the overall business patterns in the service area you’re targeting. This will help you finesse your marketing efforts to make them more effective at sharing your message—and can help you optimize your costs, while you’re at it.

Competitors

Of course, it’s unlikely that your business will be the only one offering managed services within a given area…and these odds get even slimmer when you take other IT providers into account as well. All of these companies make up your competition, and are therefore important for you to fully understand. Knowing what these competitors are doing and offering gives you the opportunity to focus your own efforts to counter theirs. 

Collaborators

In order to effectively serve your clientele, you almost certainly work with an assortment of other vendors and suppliers. While it may not be the first benefit that these business associates offer that comes to mind, these partners can provide some significant weight to the claims you make in your marketing. Borrowing some of their social currency to give your marketing a boost is just one of the benefits that they offer you by association. If you work with us currently, we fall under this umbrella—and if not, you should reach out to us to learn more about what we could do to support your marketing efforts!

Climate

Finally, you need to consider that there are many, many factors that can impact your business that you have little (or no) control over. Current events, like economic factors, developing technologies, and laws and regulations, can all have an impact on your business and its operations. Keeping apprised of these factors and adjusting your marketing to match them will help you ensure that you are remaining current in your messaging.

We’re Here to Help You Make the Most of Your Marketing Efforts

We have years of experience assisting managed service providers with their marketing efforts, ranging from content creation to strategy to search engine optimization. Reach out to us to learn more about what we can do for you. Give us a call at 888-546-4384 today!