Category Archive for "Marketing"

Though the two words are often used interchangeably, there is a significant difference between an item’s “cost” and it’s “price”. In the strictest sense, an item’s “price” is the amount that the customer pays directly to the supplier, whereas the “cost” is the total amount expended to find, buy and use the item.

For instance, imagine a hypothetical manufacturer in Los Angeles that produces medical devices. While looking for a special type of bolt for one of their devices, they narrow their decision down to two options:

Option 1:             $0.55/unit, 1,000 unit minimum, 10 day lead-time required for delivery

Option 2:             $0.65/unit, 200 unit minimum, 5 day lead-time required for delivery

On the face of it, it appears that Option 1 is the better of the two. The lower per-unit cost is significant and the minimum purchase amount is reasonable. Option 2 has a shorter lead time and a lower unit minimum, but those two factors, even combined, are not likely enough to compete with the lower per-unit cost.

Clever purchasing manager and executives, however, would have a clear answer to the dilemma: “We don’t have enough information to make an informed choice”. The quality, return rate, customizability, inventory management capabilities and customer service of the two companies offering the bolts are undefined. These factors all comprise the true “cost” of a purchase.

Imagine, for instance, if the company offering Option 2 could also include outsourced inventory management for the purchasing company, automatic stock replacement, warehousing facilities, custom spec parts and >99% reliability rating for the parts themselves. In that case, the extra $0.10 per unit would be a bargain! Imagine the savings if the purchasing company didn’t have to monitor or warehouse their bolt inventory! If bolt inventory took two hours per week and the labor cost was $16/hour (approx $10/hour plus benefits and insurance) then the upfront savings is $1664. Factor in the cost of capital to warehouse and maintain the supply and the wages required to order, inspect and replace parts, and the purchasing company could well save >$20,000 on a simple bolt purchasing decision.

As such, the true “cost” of the second option may be dramatically lower than the first, “low price”, option.

Globalization is a fact.

We are living in an increasingly internationalized market place.

Thus it is important even for small- and medium-sized companies to attune themselves to the realities of doing business with partners and customers from other cultures.

In the United States, an outgoing and affable yet diversity-conscious and politically-correct approach is generally welcomed in business transactions. But that’s not the case in a number other countries.

What we call here “friendly banter” and “small talk” may come across as “lack of respect” and an unauthorized intrusion into someone’s personal space, for example.

Or too much deference to other person’s views and preferences may again be misinterpreted in some cultures as a lack of resolution and leadership.

Even the way you write the date in a contract, for example, may lead to confusion since not a lot of people write the month first. It would be safest to start with the day, then write the month as a word, followed by a comma and then the year. For example: 27 October, 2007.

Here is a fascinating list of the correct way to behave if you are doing business in Russia (The Wall Street Journal, Oct 27-28, 2007):

1) Practice authoritative, not authoritarian leadership.
2) Build a strong organizational culture with visible foreign element.
3) Work to create an empowered organization, step-by-step.
4) Respect local rules, but play your own game.
5) Stand firm on major goals and be flexible on details.
6) Learn to live and manage in a crisis.
7) Recognize that corruption is omnipresent in Russia and must be managed.
Cultivate relationships with government agencies at all levels.

Here is the link to the rest of this fascinating article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119247792825759622.html

Many internet entrepreneurs upload a Landing Page and then wait for the money to roll in.

But usually, even if they get a good number of clicks from referral sources like PPC ads or AdWords, the visitors would not turn into subscribers, or buyers. They would not “convert.”

Here are three things you can do to increase your conversion rate.

1) Make sure the copy of your AdWord and the Title of the Landing Page are identical or use the same key phrases. Otherwise, your visitors will think they are not quite at the page they thought they would be. Disappointed visitors hesitate to do your bid.

For example, if your AdWord copy reads “Free Vacation” your Landing Page title should also read “Free Vacation” but NOT “Free Getaway” or “All Expenses Paid Vacation” etc.

2) Do NOT include ANY navigational links on the Landing Page. There should be ONLY ONE link — the button that you want your visitors to click, or the form that you want them to fill and its SUBMIT button.

If you give your visitors any chance to wonder around and “explore” other alternatives they will.

3) Personalize your registration form (if you have any) or the action button by publishing the photo of a good-looking Host, or your own photo.

The research shows that visitors convert at higher rates if they feel that the Landing Page is operated by warm-blooded humans like themselves but not by a cold server sending pages from the top of a dusty server rack somewhere.

If you are marketing your products and services through email, AOL’s proprietary mail system is your biggest challenge, whether you are aware of it or not.

Why? Because AOL has the highest percentage of rejects or “bounce-backs” according to a survey conducted by Dot Email among email marketers.

38.4% of those surveyed said AOL has the lowest mail delivery rate, in contrast to the Gmail which has the highest: only 7.1% said they experienced any problems with delivery.

These managers said MSN/Hotmail had the second highest mail-reject rate (21.4% of those surveyed) followed by Earthlink (17 %) and Yahoo (16 %).

AOL’s high rejection rate reflects how tough its spam filter is.

Thus the challenge for the email marketers is finding a way to make sure their opted-in AOL subscribers do receive their mail.

The solution is to include a detailed and clear white-listing procedure in your autoresponder or subscription form copy so that the members of AOL and other ISPs (like Earthlink) will know exactly how to clear and assign your mail to their “friends” or “save sender” list.

The extra work you will do in the front-end by including a clear step-by-step description of white-listing your delivery will payoff a big dividend in the back-end in terms of a higher rate of deliverability.

Social marketing platforms like MySpace (202 million members) and Facebook (46 million members) are getting more important by the month.

According to World Metrix, MySpace has received 106 million and Facebook 69 million clicks in August 2007. You have to respect numbers like that.

As the numbers tell, Facebook members are a more dedicated and passionate bunch because half of them are college students. They are major consumers of all kinds of electronics and gadgets, clothing and fashion, sports and entertainment — yet they are also an opinionated group.

If you make the decision to establish your footprint on Facebook you have to be very careful and play by the rules. Otherwise it may backfire on you.

Target, for example, is one company that managed to crack Facebook’s social code and accepted the necessity of becoming a part of the discourse before trying to sell anything.

It was a low key approach, built on the realization that college/dorm/campus experience is basically a somewhat lonely and scary experience for kids who are away from their homes for the first time in their lives.

By addressing their campus problems and concerns, Target succeeded in gaining acceptance and then offering its catalog as a “solution” to such issues.

Wall-Mart, on the other hand, neglected the specific characteristic of the youth group that Facebook caters to. It didn’t take long for Wall-Mart to realize that just offering dirt cheap products was not enough to win on Facebook.

On the contrary, the company suddenly became a target for its anti-union policy and the way it shoved small businesses and mom-and-pop stores into bankruptcy. Wall-Mart quickly shut off its discussion board but the damage was done.

McDonald’s received a similar cold shoulder on the Facebook for various reasons.

If you are considering to hang your corporate shingle on Facebook, be prepared to listen first and listen a lot before opening your mouth to praise your wares.

That’s one platform where it helps to stay low and lurk in the shadows for a while to understand the lingo, the issues and and the user profile before stepping up to the podium.

Marketing a product is half science and half art.

Underlying it all is the following ages-old principle – unless you know who your customers are, following a “marketing formula” that you have read somewhere will basically be a hit-or-miss proposition. It’ll often lead to wasting your scarce resources.

But what is the true meaning of “knowing your customers”?

Does it mean compiling their names, e-mail addresses, telephone numbers, etc.

Yes. But that’s not all.

It also means “understanding what makes them tick.”

What are their fears, dreams and desires? What are their core emotions? Why are they approaching your product or service? How your product or service will fit into their lives? Which deep seated need will it satisfy?

Take the hypothetical example of a businesswoman selling hand-made flutes imported from India.

The immediate impulse is of course to set up a web site and buy some AdWords, supported by some Article Marketing, etc.

But that just scratches the surface.

People buy drills sets and how-to books online as well. You have to think – “what kind of a person would like to buy my imported hand-made flutes? Is this the same kind of person who orders stain-removal products and vacuum cleaners online?”

When you think like that, you may realize that your prospective customer is probably a person above-average in education and income…

Someone with strong global interests and (what psychologist Abraham Maslow used to call) “self actualization” needs.

He or she might be involved in meditation or yoga; someone who likes to travel; and someone who is genuinely interested not only in arts and humanities but ethnic cultures as well.

Perhaps that hand-made bamboo Indian flute is a lot more than just a “musical instrument” for your customer. It might be a token, a symbol of achieving a “higher self,” and leading a “more meaningful life.”

With that kind of in-depth profile in hand, you might now consider marketing your flutes through yoga and meditation studios or ethnic Indian restaurants as well.

Perhaps you may want to arrange direct shipments from that “village in the Himalayas” where these flutes are actually made, complete with a photo of the craftsman working at his workshop, a video CD of the fields from where the original bamboo pipes are cut and the stages of the whole production process…

How about an official certificate confirming that 10% of the sales is donated to a local charity providing literacy classes for the local Indian villagers?

In short, you might consider anything that would give your prospective customer an “authentic experience” of a foreign culture and a chance to enjoy a higher self-image and a sense of purpose in life.

Knowing your customers in this deeper sense will always increase your “conversion rates” and is indispensable for growth and higher profits.

Participants highly appreciated our second workshop titled “Growth Strategies - Beat the Unbeatable”. They gave 4.5 stars. Here are few comments from the survey:

“The Speaker brought some excellent ideas and much food for thoughts”
“These are the Ideas that I can use in my business right away”

We at cpSphere appreciate your comments. As promised here is the presentation that you can download and share with your colleagues.

Download Presentation

Marketing is the common headache of a lot of business managers around the world, but especially here in the United States where cutting-edge technologies opened up new venues and platforms while at the same time intensifying the competition over a new generation of well-to-do consumers with fickle tastes and short attention spans.
In that struggle, after the eye-candy wears out and the dazzling animations fade into our 30-second memories, content emerges as the real currency of our information-hungry age.

In that unforgettable 1989 movie “Field of Dreams,” the protagonist Iowa farmer Ray Kinsella was told by a voice that “if you build it, he will come,” even if he happened to be in the middle of nowhere in Iowa.¼br /> Similarly, more and more businesses are finding out that, if you provide fresh and useful content, clients and customers will come no matter where they are.

One market-proven way to use content to elevate your company’s profile is to write articles in your topic and then post them to carefully selected high-traffic web sites on the Internet. The result is increased web traffic in the short run, and a higher bottom-line in the long run.

There are two different strategies that managers can follow in article marketing.

First strategy is to post the articles to a web site that attracts a lot of readers and page views in the short run but taper off eventually. Your company web links embedded into the articles and/or into the author’s info box generate new traffic for your web site and business. For example: www.americanchronicle.com

The second strategy does not provide such volume of readership right away but builds up steadily over the long run. In top-notch article web sites like www.ezinearticles.com, for example, articles posted years ago continue to find new readers and create a steady exposure.

What’s more, such sites also provide a professional interface to have the articles reprinted by web site owners and other ezine publishers. That way, your links embedded into the article gets propagated like a nuclear chain reaction. Once an original and useful article is posted on a high-traffic reprint site like Ezine Articles, there is almost no way to completely stop the generation of new readers and visitors due to the constant reprints.

If you haven’t tried article marketing in the past you should try it now. You might be pleasantly surprised with the results.

Are you on MySpace yet? 197 million registered members are at this writing, and the number is growing by almost 1 million new subscribers a week.

If MySpace were a country, it would be the fifth most populous in the world after China, India, Indonesia and the United States.

I realized the kind of marketing juggernaut MySpace has become when I did a search for “real estate” and came up with none other than Donald Trump on the first page of the search returns.

MySpace might have have started initially as a social platform for young people to find friends and dates. But in 2007, it ’s a must marketing venue for all businesses and moreover, it’s free too!

One powerful marketing lever MySpace provides to its members is the fantastic Bulletin functionality.

Basically, when you broadcast a Bulletin, your message is distributed instantly to all the “friends” you have on your friends list.

Some people have ten and others have 10,000 friends. In theory you can have millions of friends too but there is a catch – there is no automatic wholesale way to add friends. Each needs to be sent an individual invitation. And each needs to accept your invitation to become your “friend.”

That’s why building up your distribution list takes some time. But once it’s ready, you can fire away any message or offer you like to an opted-in list of people ready and willing to receive your communication.

If you haven’t considered MySpace as a way to promote your products and services, you should because the payoff can be significant.

If you don’t believe me, go ask Donald Trump.

Getting a constant supply of new prospects is a do-or-die issue for most businesses. In real estate it’s called “farming.” In some other businesses it’s called “prospecting.” But the core task never changes – finding new customers ready to buy your goods or services.

A blog post recently has started a lively discussion on the best methods of prospecting and 51 readers joined in, generously sharing their best tips and practices. (See here)

Here is a summary of the many excellent answers provided to the question “where and how does one find the next prospective client?”

• Trade shows.
• Host an information gathering “workshop” at a local hotel.
• Working the personal connections through friends and associates.
• “Member-gets-member” type of social-networking campaigns. 
• Faxing, emailing information.
• Encouraging referrals by providing “appropriate incentives.” 
• Using professional networking sites like Linkedin, Ecademy, and BNI. 
• Going back to existing happy customers for repeat sales.
• Public speaking.
• Inviting them to lunch with another satisfied customer. 
• Calling people with a good phone script in hand.
• Joining local and national professional organizations.

After all is said and done, however, I personally believe that there is no substitute to delivering a top-notch product or service to a satisfied customer and keeping up the relationship with regular business  communication. Once you establish the genuine value of your service, networking builds up its own momentum and rewards in due time.

The simple fact that genuine value is always rewarded by more business sometimes gets lost in this day and age of hi-tech wizardry and cornucopia of management “techniques.” Sometimes sticking to the fundamentals is the best long-term strategy to grow your business and raise your bottom-line at the same time.