Here we go again.

Another round of price adjustments. Another round of new product intros. Another round of promotions. Another round and around and around.

Round after round
Around and around and around you go, but you get nowhere. At least, nowhere you haven't been before.

You're caught in the old revolving door of marketing's "4 P's," my friend. That ancient system that's pretty much defined business marketing actions since 1957.

And it goes something like this: Companies are segmented into groups and become part of the market set. You influence and control the market's actions through product, price, place and promotion.

The problem is, using the "4 Ps" to guide your relationship marketing efforts in this new paradigm is like having Kevorkian teach you the Heimlich maneuver.

The methods haven't changed
Given the preoccupation with constant rounds of tactical adjustments to product, price, place and promotion, it's not hard to see why a lot of people have lost sight of the fact that customer relationships, not market relationships, are the only things that generate direct business value.

And whether you like it or not, you can't manipulate customers with product, price, place and promotion like you used to.

Because customers themselves are seizing control of these levers faster than Heavy D seizing control of the burger machine at McDonalds.

But the world has moved on
Price is no longer determined by the seller based on cost-plus. Instead, customers can name their own price based on new definitions of what is of value to them.

Products are no longer made in batches and pushed to customers. Now they are integrated with services to form unique value offers made-to-order in part through customer feedback.

They're in control now, Scooter
The promotional monologue of advertising at your largess and under your conditions is being replaced by dialogue at the customer's convenience. (Go here to see why we believe this is happening.)

And in case you've been visiting Anne Heche in some parallel universe somewhere and haven't noticed, even your old marketplace is being supplemented, and in some cases, replaced with a "market space" where customers determine the time, place and conditions of doing business. (Check out "The Web changes everything, the Web changes nothing" and "Products are bought, not sold" in the Change section for more information on this fundamental shift in how goods and services are exchanged.)

You're in a new place now
We happen to think it's a better place. But whether it's a better place or just a different place, it's your place now, Bucky. You're in it whether you want to be or not.

And in this new place, if you're as deeply entrenched in the "4 P's" paradigm as Rush Limbaugh in a hammock, you've got a problem.

For one thing, it's probably forcing you to consider the communications process complete when a prospect makes a purchase. Under the old "4 Ps" model, at that point the new customer returns to being lumped back into a market demographic or segment of the market. And the marketing process begins again.

Conventions don't work here
Neither of those conventions works anymore.

Once a company makes a purchase from you they are no longer part of the market. They are your customers.

And we believe you need to treat them differently than you do the market. And you need to communicate with them differently.

In fact, the communications imperative should shift to migrating them along a relationship path that moves them from a buyer to a brand advocate.

Become a migrator
To do that, you'll have to plan and integrate your communications to customers in a way that moves them down a migration path to become loyalists or advocates.

In other words, just as prospects need to receive information and incentives (we call them "gooses") to move them through the purchase path from awareness through repurchase, occasional buyers need to be enticed to move them through the retention path to become loyalists and advocates of the brand.

Those enticements include special information, special status, special offers or special membership in a community that they value and to which they can make a contribution. Essentially, they include whatever it takes to make customers advocates.

And that, we believe, requires two things. First, dialogue communications. And second, a totally different perspective on what customers are.

Shift your relationship
Both of these disciplines can help you shift the nature of your relationship from buying and selling to empowering customers around your brand. In other words, helping them do business better. Giving them information, tools and support (much of it emotional) to do their jobs better.

Put in a more philosophical way: "Give someone a fish and they'll eat for a day. Teach someone not to run a bass lure through their testicle and you'll have a deep and abiding relationship with them for the rest of their life."

If you do it right, advocates will not only generate more revenue from their own transactions, but they can be turned into some of your best salespeople. Actually bringing in new prospects and referrals and giving them highly relevant and credible reasons for buying and using your offerings.