Revitalising Your Strategy: Starting with Product Innovation to Attract New Customers

Discover the enduring power of the 4Ps of Marketing—Product, Price, Place, and Promotion—in our latest blog post, tailored for the changing dynamics of the post-COVID world. We delve into how these fundamental principles are crucial for sectors like Purpose Built Student Accommodation (PBSA), especially amidst shifts in consumer behaviour and post-Brexit market changes.

It is an old school marketing mantra, but it has and will continue to stand the test of time. The 4Ps:

• Product

• Price

• Place

• Promotion

Of course, the updated 7Ps version includes (Process, People & Physical Evidence), which has its place, but we believe the original and solid 4Ps will suffice for this blog.

But back to the 4Ps. It is not pot-luck that it starts with Product. Your product, what you sell is the most fundamental part of your business and your marketing strategy. Getting this right is the core of everything and will make your marketing and business a success. But if you have built your product for one market but then want to target another – there may be more that needs to be done before just expanding where your advertising is landing.

Whilst 2020 was the year of the unprecedented, covid, social distancing and many more. It is also the year that businesses were challenged, which produced the year of diversification, re-purposing and re-targeting. 

Businesses - micro, small, large and global - had to pivot, switch, and change how they worked and did business, alongside the products they sold and who they targeted. It was a lesson in a business's ability to be agile and adapt – quickly. Pre-covid - so often, the one thing that held back innovation and progress were the wheels of big complicated organisations getting their cogs stuck with indecision. But Covid….well it forced us to abandon caution. 

As we move forward, we are moving into a new, brave world. One where old models can quite possibly be quickly outdated and our customers are…well….different. We are all probably a bit different. And we will want different things, or potentially the access to products we previously considered is more challenging. 

In the case of student accommodation, PBSA, build-to-rent, coliving – this is still true. In 2021, and beyond, what our core customers and former targets were, may not be the ones now buying our product. In the case of PBSA, there is concern about the international market and fewer EU students post-Brexit. This is driving many PBSA providers to look a lot more closely at the domestic market.

But this isn’t as easy as just changing your Promotion to target this new market. There is a reason why second/third-year students often move out of student accommodation into HMO – price is an important one, but it’s not just that. There is still a sense of it being a ‘right’ of passage, it is about a sense of freedom, living independently, and a unique feel of the space and each bedroom. 

For PBSA, this represents challenges, but they can be overcome. This starts with how your product looks to your new market. And this often means looking at your product differently. So, for example, refocusing services and the flexible bits of the product to suit something that may attract some of those who ‘thought’ HMO was for them, but actually – like 2020 has shown us, we can think again. 

This approach is even more vital as we see the rise of the HMO and the sector getting organised with the likes of FAT Properties and We Are Kin. But it is not the right approach to just promote the same product to a different market. They are a separate market for that very reason, and they want other things. So give them that, then communicate it. 

At The Property Marketing Strategists, we believe that PBSA is likely to feel pressure from many sides – but the market is there. So going back to your Ps – start with how your product meets the needs of your new customer (or how it can adapt to meet them), flowing through Price and Place and then looking at your Promotion. Get a product that your customers want, then promote all the benefits to them. 

If you wish to discuss your strategy or look at new markets and segments to target, we can help. Get in touch.