The 5 A’s of Marketing

Amar Pandit , CFA , CFP

Amar Pandit

A respected entrepreneur with 25+ years of Experience, Amar Pandit is the Founder of several companies that are making a Happy difference in the lives of people. He is currently the Founder of Happyness Factory, a world-class online investment & goal-based financial planning platform through which he aims to help every Indian family save and invest wisely. He is very passionate about spreading financial literacy and is the author of 4 bestselling books (+ 2 more to release in 2020), 8 Sketch Books, Board Game and 700 + columns.

Philip Kotler, the Guru of Marketing, wrote this brilliant framework of the 5 A’s of Marketing in his book “Marketing 4.0”. While the 4 P’s of Marketing became the Gold Standard, I have not often seen marketers talk about this 5 A model passionately.

Here they go in the context of your business.

Awareness: People become aware about you. From “What is Amar to He is Amar, or This is what he does”.

Appeal: You Appeal to them – “I like what Happyness Factory does.”

Ask: You ask for information about them – “I want to know more about HF.”

Act: You Act – “I want to partner with Happyness Factory.”

Advocate: You become a brand ambassador – “Happyness Factory has made a real difference in my Life. You should check them out.”

You can replace Amar or HF or Happyness Factory with your own name or your firm name to utilize this framework for your prospects and clients.

Sometimes the Awareness, Appeal and Ask stage can all happen in one go (when someone reads about you and decides to directly work with you – Act Stage) and sometimes it might take a linear path.

Remember Seth Godin’s line “Marketing is the generous act of helping someone solve a problem. Their problem. It is a chance to change the culture for the better. Marketing involves very little in the way of shouting, hustling or coercion. It’s a chance to serve, instead”.

This is exactly what people should experience as they go through all the 5 steps or even a few steps with you.