Taming Customers though Promotional Marketing

If a business firm id able to control the minds of million of customers, it will earn billions as profit. It is impossible to do that. But using some promotional strategies, the mind of the consumer can be tamed by influencing their decision making power. They can be presented with material, which can be motivating and persuading. There is no magic involved in this; only the psychology of the human mind is to be studied and played with. Human mind reacts to different situations in different ways.  Some key psychological aspects can be studied in promotional marketing to get overwhelming customer response.

Curiosity is the want to explore the unknown. Humans are always in pursuit of knowledge. They want to know more than what others know. Secrets are simply hard to be kept. This desire can act as an attractive force in marketing. Like customer won't be that interested if they are told that they can be provided with successful diets. Instead they want to hear the secret of the diet plan which is being provided.

The information shouldn't be let out easily. Obviously it is important to catch the attention of the customer by interesting heading, but the content, too, should be as interesting so as to retain the interest of the reader till the end. In case of cross-titles or sub-titles, the initial ones will always have the advantage of developing more curiosity than the following sub-titles.

If the content speaks about why the customer should select so and so company or product, it will be easier for them to relate to it. Let the matter speak out and give the explanation by itself. Like supposing a company wants to sell some product before the expiry date and it's the slowest time of the season, plain advertising won't do the trick. Customers are smart enough to think that the company wants to get rid of the old stuff. Instead if the customers are provided with a discount or a limited time offer, a believable reason, they will be more attracted. Every action should have a solid reason.

Customers are greedy from a marketing point of view.  By understanding the need of the customer, a basis can be prepared for the content. Their greed should be taken into consideration while preparing the content. They should be shown how the product or company would benefit them. They want to buy benefits in the form of products. Suppose when advertising for a camcorder, say that it displays all the colors that can be seen with naked eye, instead of saying it supports 16-bit color.

Just specifying that the memory card have a memory of 2 GB isn't catchy. Instead it should be quoted that the memory card can store over 500 pictures, 100 audio songs and 50 videos. This surely will increase the customer enthusiasm. The benefits should be clearly mentioned to the customer and later other information about the product can be discussed, incase if they are looking for more. This is called listing the product features. Features reveal what the product has and benefits describe the advantages that can be derived from those features. Each feature can have more than one benefit, depending on different situations and customer needs. Lots of benefits and fewer features should always be the way to go.   

 

Marketing and Selling on Internet

 Marketing on the Internet involves online advertising to reach out to potential customers. It requires creativity like designing, development and technical aspects like marketing and advertising. Affiliate marketing, email marketing, search engine marketing and interactive advertising are all different facets of Internet marketing. It also includes sales, public relations, information management and customer service. Ever since the advent of Internet, it is widely used for all kind of purposes. Among the advantages of Internet, some helps in doing business, shopping, etc, from the comfort of the house. According to a research, a quarter of the Internet users shop online. It has also helped grow electronic commerce and Internet marketing is a part of electronic commerce. 

Direct marketing techniques like radio and television commercials, mails, and newsletters are the inspirations for Internet marketing, which involves direct response marketing strategies and is rapidly growing. Business-to-business, also known as B2B, and business-to-consumer, also known as B2C, are the two business models to which Internet marketing can be linked. B2C companies were the first to start when Internet marketing originated. They are companies that sell directly to the customers. B2B companies are meant to do business with each other.

Websites built for Internet marketing are slightly different than others. There are peer-to-peer modeled websites which are used to exchange products and services between each other. Other is name-your-price, where the customers have to specify their price range that they can spend and select products that fall in that price range. Priceline.com is an example of such a website. Amazon.com is a website which is based on find-the-best-price model, where customers can find the lowest prices. Last are online auctions sites, where items are bid. Ebay.com is an example. 

The companies who use Internet marketing are at an advantage. They don't need to put in huge amounts of energy and time in Internet Marketing like other traditional methods. With the help of only few resources national and international markets can be reached. Because of very low investment, even small businesses are turning to online marketing. Websites and blogs have been developed for this purpose. Internet marketing is advantageous in the sense that the data is easily available on the Internet. Newsletters can be directly sent to customers and if it doesn't contain the information they are looking for, they can search for information about the product online, make a decision and purchase it online itself.

One of the factors that hinder the growth of online marketing is delayed loading of the page. The web pages that take a lot of time to download test the patience of the consumer. To add to that, if the businesses design complex web pages with lots of graphics and animations, it will slow down the speed even more. Another minus point of online marketing is that the customers cannot feel, taste, smell or try products in order to make a good decision. To over come this, some of the online stores have created liberal return policies with the help of which the customer satisfaction is guaranteed.

Another biggest threat of online shopping is identity theft. Paying online using credit cards, e-checks are susceptible to hackers and information can be stolen and used. Many hackers and websites have been caught who were involved in buying and selling of personal information. Most of the websites have taken measures and incorporated good security on their websites. One of the best methods is encryption. When the data is being transferred between two computers; there is a possibility of a hacker intercepting it. So the data is changed by applying some encryption algorithm and is sent through the network and upon receiving, the decryption algorithm is applied to bring back the data to its original form.

Online selling is influencing all kinds of businesses like banking, advertising, music, etc. Instead of going to a store for buying cassettes and CDs, music can be bought online. Bank transactions like depositing, withdrawing, transferring funds, and paying bills are all performed online. Billions of dollars are invested every year in online advertising alone. 

Relationship Marketing

Relationship Marketing is targeted at building stronger and long lasting relationships with clients and other companies. The business is done with a strategic orientation, where the relationship is improved with existing customers rather than finding new customers. It is meant to cater to the needs of individual customers. Its major part involves studying the need of the customer and how it changes in different circumstances.

Relationship marketing applies techniques like marketing, sales, customer care and communication. The relationship is not only enhanced but its life period is increased by these strategies. And as the customer realizes the value of relationship, they are drawn closer. This marketing not only focuses on building relationship and attracting customers to their products and services but also how to retain them.

A raw form of Marketing came into existence in the 1960s. But, organizations were still facing difficulty in selling products, so a system was developed to sell low cost goods to larger group of customer. Leonard Berry and Jag Sheth originated this marketing, in 1982. It was started in B2B markets and industries, which involved long term contracts for many years.  Over the period of time, various marketing strategies were improved and relationship marketing was one of them.

Relationship marketing is applicable where the customers have many options in the market for the same product or service and the customer is entitled to make a selection decision. In such a kind of market, businesses try to maintain their clients by providing comparatively better products and good service and hence, achieving customer loyalty. And once it is achieved it becomes difficult for competitors to do well in the market. The customer turnover wasn't paid attention on as the main attention was on customer satisfaction. This kind of marketing was initially named as defensive marketing. Offensive marketing is the marketing strategy where not only new customers are attracted, but also the sales are stepped up by increasing the purchase frequency. This kind of marketing concentrates on freeing dissatisfied customers and acquiring new customers.

According to a research, the cost of retaining an old customer is only ten percent of the cost of getting a new customer, which makes sense to not to run around to get new customers in relationship marketing. And according to another research done by cross-sectional analysis, says that, a five percent improvement in customer retention is responsible for twenty-five to eighty-five percent of the profit. Usually high cost is incurred when getting new customers, so if sufficient number of existing customers is retained, there will be no need of acquiring new customers.

Once the customer trust is gained his chances of switching to other company becomes relatively less, he buys goods in bulk, he buys other supplementary goods and he starts neglecting average price variation. This maintains the unit sales volume and there is an increase in dollar-sales volume. The existing customers will be like a living advertisement. If he is satisfied with the company he will recommend it to his friends and acquaintances.

Since the existing customers are familiar with the process, it will take less time and money to educate them about the procedures putting fewer burdens on employees also and making them feel more satisfied with their jobs. The customers are divided into groups based on their loyalty. This procedure is known as relationship ladder of customer loyalty. The groups in ascending order are prospects, customer, client, supporter, advocate and partner.

Due to the advancement in computers and Internet, software has been developed to facilitate customer relationship management. With the help of this software the tastes, activities, preferences, and complaints of customers are tracked. Almost all the companies have this software in their marketing strategy, which benefits the customer as well as the company.

Thus the main aim of relationship marketing is to construct and maintain relationship with committed clients who are meant to bring profit to the company. The other benefits achieved are confidence building and social benefits.
 

Marketing and Sales: What is the difference?

Marketing and sales are one of the most important components of a business's survival in the market. While both are dependent on each other many people confuse marketing with sales and vice-versa which is a big mistake. Marketing involves designing a product according to the needs of the market and customers, promoting the product through advertising etc. and setting up a competitive price for the product. Marketing is a platform which drives sales. While on the other hand the sales process is what you do to successfully sell a product and fetch a contract. Sales and marketing together is a part of selling and one cannot do without the other. They can also be called activities. The success of a business is critical to the success of these two important activities.

Marketing is the backbone of a company's future and launching pad for the sales. While the marketing process encompasses the design of the product, advertising etc. the sales process is the execution of all the efforts which involves direct interaction with client either by in-person meeting or cold calls or by networking. But there is always an ongoing rivalry between the two, one claiming dominancy over other. The marketing people say they have an upper hand because they think it is they who designs the products, lays down the strategy and also develops tools essential for sales. They say sales are the outcome of marketing and thus should follow its directions. The sales people might not agree to this view and may be completely opposite in their opinion. They think that it is the sales people who actually sells a product and bring money to the business.

But many experts believe that marketing should play a pivotal role among the two. A successful marketing campaign makes sales easy and makes people believe that it is actually the sales people who are the dominant leaders. The most important role of marketing department is to create opportunities for the sales department. Marketing drives sales and sales drives companies' success. Marketing is like a life support for sales, one who is constantly backing up the sales department and enabling them to successfully deliver the end product. There shouldn't be a race to gain supremacy over another department but a race to win the market and customers working together.

Many businesses combine sales and marketing together but in reality they have different targets. While the sales department is interested in fulfilling the requirements of what the customer asked for, the marketing department is actually busy studying what the market demands. The goal of the marketing department is to foresee how the market will shape up in future. They should envision their product catering to the needs of the market for next few years and be ready to make design changes in their product accordingly.

It is very important that a company integrates their sales and marketing department in a well fashioned manner. It is the correct integration of these two important entities that fuels the growth of a company. The sale people should not be merely treated as the cash collectors. Each department has its own role and should go hand in hand in selling the product of the company and should be the foremost important criteria.

Five facts you never knew about gold

So you’ve decided to sell your old gold? That’s great! Did you know that selling your old and unwanted gold of a cash for gold service is one of the best ways and faster to get money quick? Not only do you avoid having to make a refund to a lender, but you will also receive your money within days! But before I go ahead and send your gold, here are five things you probably didn’t know about gold.

First of all, the price of gold has been rising over the past decade and is now at the highest. It’s incredibly unlikely that you will have to deal with this level of value for gold, then now is the perfect time to use cash for gold and sell your unwanted precious metals. Refiners cash for gold service never again be that this affects your small amounts of unwanted gold at home, so take advantage of it and make sure you send out your gold!

Secondly, what do you think is gold might not be that great. A lot of time that you may not realize that the ‘ gold ‘ jewelry and jewelry at home keep is actually gold plated and gold plated objects — generally not be favoured, or accepted, when it comes to selling your gold to be refined. To speed up the process, you might want to take the jewelry to a jeweler before sending it to a cash for gold company ensure that you won’t be disappointed.

Another thing to remember about gold is that it’s value fluctuates on a daily basis. If you plan to sell your gold, might be worth studying the market for a couple of days before you decide when the best time is to sell your gold. In this case, you might be able to land a few extra pounds when you receive payment for your gold!

Also remember that not every refiner out there will offer you the same price. Using comparison sites, you can be sure to choose the company that is going to offer you the best price for your gold.

Finally, cash for gold companies sometimes refuse gold, if their gemstones in them, due to complications in their removal. In this case, it is worth to get stones removed before sending out the gold. Probably even be able to sell the precious stone for a good price, anyway!

Control Software for the perfect internal Audit

Internal Audit is usually required by company management to ensure the quality and quantity of software and technical resources used.

The IT Department is responsible for audits of internal network. In addition, IT departments frequently need to reconcile their physical inventory with an electronic inventory to meet various regulatory and financial requirements. This can be really long if you are not using a professional asset management tool that lets you manage and control your entire computer and network inventory efficiently.

Beyond the hardware revision strategies, software asset management tools provide much better results such definition software products used on remote computers, a mapping file licensing products and the full functionality of system resources.

There are control software products on the market that make it much easier to perform quality audits the internal network.

-Management of all product keys in one place can become a real challenge. As a company grows more U.S. products. Allow network management tool implemented to store all data of the software in a safe place. Software automate the work and you can devote your time to more important tasks.
-Create reports and track changes purchased hardware and software in order to avoid problems during the audit on the internal network.
-You don’t have to worry about missing out on any inventory management software, because your tool is going to carry out this task for you.
-Don’t bother with manual control of your system, use the tool to version control, services and software patches.

Money is the root of this evil

A well-known economist said that currency debauching unleash the forces of destruction only a very few can see. I find what you said applies as time showed the economies of many developed countries increasingly weak today after currency games. Despite this, many people still chose to ignore the advice because currency debauching made people feel rich as you could buy more things and this was compounded by the creation of credit card in 1951 where people now could use the debit card to purchase goods. All these can be attributed to 1 the root and that is money.

Today, money is the cause of the weakening of economies because they want to control supplies of money people use to need more of their money. We need more money, more, the weaker we become, the more we are dependent on the Government. All these make the rich richer as more passive income received from interest payments by printing more money. Now let’s look at how much money has weakened the u.s. economy.

From 2000 to 2007, the largest export was America’s debt. Today, the Government of the United States issued a record number of bonds, incurring massive amounts of debt to devalue the US dollar to stimulate the economy. This caused many currency wars with countries such as Japan and also trying to devalue their currencies to maintain export competitiveness.

With such currency Wars going on, the United States will have the rack up more debt to increase the money supply and this will be an infinite loop because other Nations there will allow Exports to be less of them.

However, the United States has to do so because the economy can grow only now to get into debt. This was the reason for its growth to date. To quote, household debt to disposable income rose less than 40% in 1952 to 133% in 2007, amounting to US $ 2.56 trillion in consumer debt.

To add on, bank debt increased by 21% rose in 1980 to 116% of GDP in 2007. All these show that the United States can only grow with the debt which pose a threat to the economy. So, when the world will talk of a bubble, the bigger is in fact the American debt bubble and as a word of caution, economies around the world are following in the footsteps of the United States today.

With the debt being run today, the world economies will usher in an inflationary era where savers are losers. This is because inflation silently eating away the purchasing power of savings. Given the growing trend today for debt, inflation will rise and accelerates the rate of money eroded. So, contrary to what experts say, I don’t think that saving is good for the day.

However, while money can be the root of an evil, can also be the source of good and an example will be wealth. Sun Tsu said, know your enemy and yourself to win a hundred battles. So, a good way to be rich is to know yourself and your money. In other words, unlike economies around the world is trapped in a chasm of debt, you should check the personal cash flow and monitor the cash flow of the world for which money flows to you where to find opportunities to become richer.

So to conclude, given today’s economic situation, it is reasonable to say that money has brought us so far. Brought us growth but also dangers with it. However, to say that it’s the root of all evil is unfair and why it would be too much of a sweeping statement. However, it would be apt to make it responsible for economic weakness, because many of today’s crises are the fruits of debt.