In the 1960s, Jerome McCarthy introduced the classic 4Ps marketing mix—Product, Price, Promotion, and Place.
Over time, a customer-centric marketing mix emerged, shifting the focus from internal control to customer needs in the marketing mix. While the original 4Ps operated as an equation designed around the broader, often uncontrollable, external environment, the modern approach puts customers at the center of decision-making.
A significant shift occurred when companies placed the customer and the market at the center of this equation, moving from an internal to an external focus. This customer-centric strategy transformed marketing from a focus on product selling to solution selling. Now, understanding and meeting customer needs has become the primary driver, leading companies to innovate, explore new markets, and turn customers into brand advocates.
For companies, it is essential to understand customers — their needs, aspirations, purchase behaviors, and expectations. Successful companies are often those that anticipate customer appetite before it becomes an explicit need. This is why innovation frequently follows the well-known innovation adoption curve (Everett Rogers’ diffusion model), where early adopters experiment with new solutions before broader groups of customers follow their lead.
Understanding customers means asking questions that matter deeply to them and that are equally vital for companies aiming to succeed in developing and selling new solutions. These business questions come first, shaping strategic decisions that often determine a company’s future direction.
Questions about customers span many dimensions — from needs and purchase behaviors to brand sensitivity, market awareness, and broader external influences. They begin with interrogations such as:
These why questions form the basis of customer-centric decisions. They uncover motivations, expectations, and perceptions that drive behavior. Addressing them creates the foundation for selecting the right tools and methods later — whether through segmentation, NPS, CRM, or market research.
In today’s digital environment, where social media and influencers accelerate trends, the ability to answer the why quickly has become even more critical. It is no longer enough to react to what customers do; organizations must understand why they act as they do in order to anticipate changes and adapt effectively.
Once the why questions are clear, the next step is to determine how to address them. This is where structured approaches and tools play a key role. They transform essential customer insights into actionable strategies for marketing and business growth.
A wide range of marketing mix strategies and tools can help deepen market understanding and support a customer-centric marketing mix across the organization. These approaches do not replace the why questions — they build on them — ensuring that decisions remain rooted in customer needs and business priorities.
Some of the most effective tools include:
These tools anchor the customer within the marketing mix, transforming broad questions into specific answers. They also support cross-functional collaboration, helping marketing, sales, service, and product teams align around a common understanding of the customer.
In summary, placing the customer at the heart of the customer-centric marketing mix transforms the traditional 4Ps into a responsive, learning framework. It begins with asking the right why questions, continues with selecting the appropriate tools to answer them, and results in actionable strategies for growth.
This evolution helps companies retain customers, anticipate change, and fine-tune solutions with precision — a true customer mix advantage. By linking insights from segmentation, personae, NPS, CRM, and market research, organizations create a coherent view of their customers that informs every decision.
With the customer acting as the forward-looking “marketing sentinel,” companies can capture subtle market signals. This insight isn’t just knowledge; it’s a powerful competitive advantage, helping companies retain customers and adjust solutions precisely to their needs — driving long-term success.
© marketingdecision.org
Segmentation is much more than an exercise to group customers into segments, it is an effort to answer business needs where segmentation can provide clarity and efficiency. 
Segmentation can be implemented to resolve product positioning issues, define future products, and determine features for optimal market performance. It can also involve dedicated segmentation work to optimize distribution channels.
It’s important to note that segmentation will likely vary by country and product or group of products. In summary, segmentation serves no purpose if not aligned with key business questions that have a significant impact on company performance.
Classical segmentation challenges… and solutions: “A segmentation is discarded for a newer segmentation model”, “A segmentation is here for life”, “Segmentation is a massive effort”, “Classification versus Segmentation”, “Salespersons are usually not supportive of segmentation”, “Each customer is unique”.
The goal of this section is to offer tips for creating a simple and efficient segmentation, particularly when time is limited, and resources are constrained. The steps will adhere to classic segmentation procedures which we propose here:
Determine business objectives.
Developing personae is a crucial part of communication in a segmentation project. Ensure that this communication is comprehensive, incorporating the objectives supporting the segmentation effort. Recognize that each segmentation is tailored to meet the specific business needs it serves.
The most effective segmentation is likely the one embraced by internal stakeholders, including sales, marketing, development, service, and other functions. Transform it into a collective effort, acknowledging that colleagues may take a few months to grasp and align with the insights gained from this segmentation. Stay attuned to their needs and actively welcome suggestions for improvement.
The Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a measure of customer loyalty. Respondents rate the likelihood that they would recommend a company, product, or service to a friend or colleague. In practice, for a company, the best salespersons are often not their salespeople but the customers themselves. Satisfied customers serve as the most effective spokespersons for a brand or company. This is especially true in the world of social media, where information rapidly spreads among users, influencing those considering a future purchase.
Making the NPS score effective is not just about measuring the score; the goal is to transform it into a powerful metric for actionable insights and continuous improvement. While this may seem obvious, the ultimate aim is not merely to gauge the NPS score but to leverage it for enhancing company operations and performance.
Customer Relationship Management systems are key to support business operations in relation to customers. They support Sales, Marketing and all other functions to improve the customer experience.
Use of CRM system streamlines your operations, simplify the process for sales to make appointments, visit customers and create visit reports for instance. Information becomes available to all instantly. A salesperson that is on sick leave can be replaced more easily and more efficiently to the benefit of your customer.
CRM system transforms deeply organizations, they streamline operations making organizations more customer centric. Salespersons do not own anymore their customers as individuals, but they and their colleagues do own them. Performance and success are not a one-person success, but more of a collective success of individuals working cohesively leveraging the CRM system benefits.
Market research is an essential approach to learning from customers and other market players. It is crucial not only for this section dedicated to customers but also for all other aspects of the product mix, product/solution offering, positioning, distribution, and communication/promotion.
In this chapter, we propose several recommendations that can significantly contribute. These recommendations are not focused on the direct methods of conducting market research but rather on understanding the “why” behind it.
Clarifying the “why” is, in fact, the best approach to successfully address marketing initiatives. It determines the potential for success, ensuring that objectives are clearly defined and achievable.
In essence, having a clear “why” acts as a compass for the solitary captain on a boat. It provides guidance and proves invaluable when decisions need to be made.
© marketingdecision.org
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