There is no question that marketing as a whole is going through a major paradigm shift. Many long-held principles and practices that worked even five to ten years ago are now quickly becoming outdated as the world around us changes through technology and morphing behavior patterns of consumers.

But having said that, is it possible that the very foundation of modern marketing principles, The Four P’s are now outdated as well? They are, according to Denise Shiffman in her very enlightening book, The Age of Engage: Reinventing Marketing for Today’s Connected, Collaborative, and Hyperinteractive Culture . The Four P’s; Product, Price, Place, and Promotion have been the basis for all marketing strategy for the past 50 years, ever since E. Jerome McCarthy invented them in his 1960 book, Basic Marketing.

It could be argued that each of the Four P’s are in fact still viable as each one still exists albeit in a more complex selling environment. But I do find Shiffman’s proposal of the Six V’s very intriguing, though slightly contrived to make the acrostic memorable. They are: Venture–the deep integration of product, service and channel of distribution, Value–Creating inherent “marketingness” through unique, defendable, sustainable and engaging value, Voice–The perception created and the followers gained through vision and story, Verification–Developing credibility through proof, truth and transparency, Vicinity–Harnessing the communities and myriad voices of the live web, and Vehicle–Incorporating Marketing 2.0 strategies to attract and delight customers.

I’m convinced enough to introduce these guiding principles into my clients’ marketing strategies and will be interested to see how mainstream her Six V’s become in the marketing community.

Addictomatic searches the best live sites on the web for the latest news, blog posts, videos and images. It’s the perfect tool to keep up with the hottest topics, perform ego searches and feed your addiction for what’s up, what’s now or what other people are feeding on.

This is a great useful site!

Without a doubt, the single most destructive weapon to my time management, and hence my true productivity, is email. No matter how disciplined I try to be, planning my day the day before, listing and prioritizing my to-do list, allocating my time to each task in advance, one little action of opening my email inbox can instantly derail my best laid plans and intentions.

The psychology behind email management is an interesting study. The best organizers say to never check your email before 10AM, and Timothy Ferris, writer of The 4-Hour Workweek suggests checking it just once a day or less and letting your business associates know that in your email signature. I’m beginning to see the light, realizing I’m an email addict, (the first step in any 12 step program). I recently turned off the automatic function for checking my email, opting instead to manually press the receive button when I’m ready to read email. But I have a long way to go. I catch myself hitting the receive button every several minutes, and realize I am using it as a crutch to subconsciously (or consciously) avoid doing what is really important at the time.

The biggest challenge with email is remaining proactive and operating my day in a purposeful and meaningful way. Email has the mesmorizing power of turning me into a Pavlovic trained canine, responding instinctively to the bell announcing the receipt of email, carrying with it the promise of new opportunities, certainly, I must believe, changing my life for the better.

If our time was just stolen by the sole act of reading our email we might be ok. But the reality is, most emails lead to additional required actions; a quick reply, forwarding to a friend, visiting a website, which leads us to another website, which leads to another…(how many hours has that alone taken from our productive time?)

I believe that our ability to conquer this phenomenon in our business lives will have a great bearing on our ultimate success. Let’s get a handle on this amazingly powerful productivity tool before it has the opposite effect of what we expected, robbing us of time we could be spending with family and friends, and replacing true productivity with a false sense of being busy and getting things done.

In an online world filled with blogs and online articles by self-proclaimed marketing gurus, is there really room for one more? I believe so, since so much of what I see is either marketing industry techno-babble or online marketing-specific information, neither of which does much for the average business owner trying to cost-effectively promote their business in a hurting economy.

My blog will hopefully shed some light on tips, techniques and strategies that really help in a practical, affordable way. I’ll do my best to keep it simple enough for the layman to understand, yet cutting edge enough to keep you coming back for more.

As I see it, there is no shortage of good information out there. It just needs some filtering to bring the gems to the surface. That is what this blog is all about. I hope you enjoy it and find it helpful!

Here’s to your success,

Paul McQuade