The importance of these educational experiences are still recognized far more by Extension professionals than by potential participants. We need to reach far more persons than we do now with family strengthening information. We can learn much in this regard from the field of marketing. Marketing emphasizes understanding the target audience of educational programs through empirical research, as a prelude to or concomitant with program development, in order to tailor the programs to the needs of the audience and, thus, facilitate their acceptance. Being sensitive to these P s may help us get better participation in our programs.
Product is the total package of professional services that is delivered to the client.
In order to have a viable product, writes Weinrich, people must first perceive that they have a genuine problem, and that the product offering is a good solution for that problem. Research at this point would be to determine clientele perceptions of the problem and how important they feel it would be to do something about it. In recent Balancing Work and Family focus groups, we asked participants about what concerns they had about balancing work and family and what they believed could be done to achieve a better balance. Price includes the fee for services rendered but also includes various tangible and intangible costs a client must face in order to receive the intended benefit from the product. In studies I have done we have asked persons about how much time they felt was reasonable to devote to a program as well as what they considered to be a fair price.