Archive for March, 2011

Who is SocialSonya

Preparing a Marketing Plan for your product or service is a real
eye-opening experience. While we all hope that our product or
service will appeal to the masses, the truth is, that may not
happen. Assembling a Marketing Plan first and foremost forces you
to clearly define what you are selling.

From there, you define the demographics of the market for your
product or services. You research on-going or upcoming trends in
the industry, your existing and potential competition and whether
or not the market is already saturated.

And the time to analyze this valuable information is before you
spend money opening the door to your new business venture. A
marketing plan is one valuable tool that will help your business
survive.

Analyze the Market

This section plays an important role in
determining who will purchase your product or service, and why.
You need to identify such attributes as gender, age group, where
they live, their buying habits and their social values.

This section also has you look at the current economic climate
including upcoming changes in laws or technology that might
impact the delivery and/or reception of your product or service.

It’s also important to take a close look at your competition
whether it’s around the block or around the globe. The more you
know about your competition the better prepared you are to deal
with it. Know their hours of operation, their organizational
structure, their promotions, their advertising outlets, whatever
you can find out.

Identify Marketing Goals and Objectives

With the information about your target market and your
competition in hand, you can better outline your marketing goals
and the steps to take to achieve these goals.

Identify what you think are your company’s strength and
weaknesses, and the resources you have available including staff
and finances. Committing your goals and the steps to a calendar
will help keep your marketing efforts on track and provide you
with direction.

Define Marketing Strategies

Before you can determine how you will market your product or
service, you’ve got to put together a features and benefits list,
including what it has that the competition lacks. You need a
price point, packaging, and you need to decide if and how much
you are willing to offer as a discount. All of this will help you
properly position it in the marketplace. This information is the
foundation upon which all your marketing and promotional
materials are created.

Next determine the various sources available for marketing your
product or service. Some ideas include print ads, brochures, web
banners, your own web site, trade show exhibits, partnership
opportunities and promotional flyers.

Implementing and Evaluating Marketing Programs

The final two components are equally important. You’ve got to
define a marketing budget, determine how you want to spend it and
evaluate its effectiveness. Besides the marketing avenue, decide
whether or not you need to hire employees, and what training they
will need. Determine how you will motivate your employees,
including your management, so that they share your goals and
vision.

Evaluating your marketing programs is just as important as the
other steps. You may find you need to revise your marketing
efforts including lowering the price, highlighting different
features, even selecting different marketing programs. An
effective marketing plan is one that is regularly updated.

If the thought of creating a Marketing Plan has you overwhelmed,
get yourself marketing plan software. Using software will save
you time because the software knows the right questions to ask.
You fill in the answers as necessary, push some buttons, and
before you know it, you’ll be printing a professional-quality
Marketing Plan that will chart your company’s future!

Copyright © 2004 Cavyl Stewart. Get more software tips, strategies and recommendations to help you create your marketing plan by signing up for my Exclusive 100% free, 100% original content ecourse: “Simple Steps To Creating A Rewarding Marketing Plan.” To sign up please visit: http://www.find-small-business-software.com/marketing-ecourse.html

Email Marketing's Role In Internet Marketing | New Marketer's Online

When you hear the term internet marketing, what do you think of? For many, that term conjures thoughts of websites or spamming or search engines like Google,

Social Media Marketing: A Three-Legged Stool « Shoestring Branding

Social Media Marketing: A Three-Legged Stool. http://www.flickr.com/photos/marc0047/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 … Featured In. Big List – Search Marketing Blogs · Invesp landing page optimization. Powered By Invesp. Categories …

Article Marketing for Higher Conversions – How to Boost Your Sales …

Lear how to How to Boost Your Sales through Your Articles. Discover the secrets of how article marketing increase conversion rates.

Education vs Sales-Based Marketing

The marketing paradigm that can literally make or break your coaching business…

What’s the single most important process determining whether or not your coaching business is successful?

The correct answer to this question can completely change your coaching business forever. It can change your perception of your business. It can change your focus in your business. It can change how you go about operating your business. And most importantly, it can determine the success or otherwise of your business.

We asked dozens of coaches this question and got a broad array of responses. But only 4% of them were even close to the mark! Most coaches answered: quality service; number of clients; pricing; branding; advertising copy.

…And whilst all these issues are critical, the single most important process is your marketing methodology. Whilst you must have all the other elements as well, it’s your marketing methodology that ultimately determines the success or otherwise of your business.

Let us explain…

Nearly all coaches use a marketing methodology that’s a sales-based marketing methodology. This is understandable as most traditional marketing methods teach sales-based marketing methods. We’re all impacted by sales-based marketing at every turn – on TV, newspapers, magazines, billboards, radio – everywhere. And when coaches research marketing methods, they are most likely to learn about traditional sales-based marketing methodologies – print ads (in newspapers, yellow pages, journals, magazines etc), direct telephone calls, radio, flyers, direct mail letters, etc.

But there are several extremely powerful forces at play against coaches employing a sales-based marketing methodology…

Most coaches invariably feel uncomfortable delivering a ’sales pitch.’ Coaches generally have better technical skills than marketing skills. They’re therefore uncomfortable talking about themselves and endorsing the quality of their product. This means they don’t close, and comes across to prospects as a general lack of confidence in themselves, and their product and service.

Sales marketing is extremely expensive – narrowing your net margin on your service. The more you spend to get a client the less net profit you’ll retain at the end.

Generally people are very skeptical and defensive against sales approaches. This exponentially increases the barrier of making a sale. When you employ a sales-based marketing method, most prospects have already closed themselves off to learning about your services due to their natural tendency to put up a defence against sales-based marketing.

There is no trust and rapport built through a sales-based marketing approach. For a prospect to buy from you, there needs to be an element of trust. Your prospect needs to trust that you can deliver on your promises and that they’ll gain a positive return on their investment. This level of trust is extremely difficult to build through a sales-based marketing approach.

You build no reciprocal obligation on the prospect to investigate your offer or purchase from you. It’s a natural human tendency to reciprocate in kind what’s been given to you. You can not build reciprocal obligation through sales-based marketing.

You attract price sensitive shoppers and ‘tyre kickers’ that take up a lot of your time and result in extremely low conversion.

It’s difficult to maintain contact with prospects for long enough to build rapport and trust – it generally takes 4 to 6 contacts before a prospect will buy from you.

So, we can hear you shouting “If sales-based marketing is not going to be effective, what’s my alternative to get clients?”

And the answer is… Education-based Marketing. Education-based marketing is simply the process by which you attract and convert highly-qualified clients by giving them what they want – valuable information and advice that solves their problems – and removing what they don’t want, a sales pitch.

Education-based marketing is generally undertaken by delivering Credibility Marketing techniques such as public speaking, information based teleclasses, publications, networking, hotlines, free educational give aways (such as reports, assessments, tools, ecourses), etc.

As opposed to sales-based marketing, education-based marketing means…

- You give your prospect what they really want – highly valuable information. And you take away what they don’t want – a sales pitch.

- You maintain your dignity and feel good about yourself as you never make an effort to sell.

- Your brand recognition and respect will skyrocket! Education-based marketing is the ultimate brand builder. By positioning yourself as the ‘expert’ or ’specialist’ by solving, through your education products, the most pressing issues your niche confronts. You become the only logical choice in your market.

- You can establish yourself as a credible authority as prospects depend on you as a reliable source of valuable advice.

- You significantly reduce your marketing costs – and can in fact get paid to market yourself. This vastly compounds the net worth of every client you attract – you can actually earn double the net profit with only half the clients!

- You don’t have to seek out new prospects – prospects come to you (to have their problems solved).

- You can maintain (mutually beneficial) contact with your prospects through the sales process because they don’t feel pressured by a sales pitch and value your information and advice.

- You reach prospects early during the first stages of their decision making process.

- You attract ‘moderately interested’ prospects that may otherwise be afraid to call you but are not afraid to request your information.

- Due to the high level of trust and rapport built early on you’ll be perceived as an adviser, not a salesperson, making added-value sales dramatically easier.

- You dramatically increase your referrals from prospects as they feel loyal to you – due to a relationship built on trust and reciprocal obligation and your efforts to help them – even if they don’t hire you! And your referrals will come much earlier in your relationship.

- You gain compounded advantage as your information is passed freely between prospects within your niche.

- You gain a competitive advantage because not many competitors are using education-based marketing.

- You achieve a highly leveraged advantage as you can put forward your marketing even when you are not present.

- You save valuable time as you often are delivering your message directly to your most highly qualified target audience.

As you can see, education-based marketing is the exact opposite to sales-based marketing, and can make an extraordinary difference to your business, and your enjoyment of ‘doing’ business. So, ask yourself, “How much education-based marketing am I currently doing?” and “How can I develop a marketing plan significantly comprised of education-based marketing methodologies?”

Simon Clarke has over 15 years of experience as a writer, entrepreneur and business specialist. He is also the founder and Director of the Life Coaching Institute, Australia’s leading coach training organization.

Become a Life Coach.

Coach IQ: for Intelligent coaches. [http://www.coachingclub.com.au]

Broadcast Your Brand with Coach Radio.

a new approach to advertising

Pokemon - Episode 10: Bulbasaur And The Hidden Village (1/2)

Creating Your Future with a Marketing Plan

Almost everyone who dreams of starting their own business is familiar with the fact that they should create a business plan. However, often that’s where many people stop. When you created your business plan, what did you do with it? You actually have the base for the next step, which is creating your marketing plan. Without the plan of how you are going to market your business, the business plan is just an empty jumble of words speaking of dreams and desires. The marketing plan takes those dreams and creates a strategy for how to make those dreams come true.

There are several different suggestions on how to put a marketing plan together, but all plans have at least seven or eight steps. These steps include preparing a mission statement, describing the services provided, identify and understand the competition, spell out the marketing objectives and strategies, create the action plan, and create a monitoring strategy in order to determine what works and what doesn’t.

Prepare a mission statement

The mission statement should clearly and succinctly describe the nature of your business, services offered, and markets served in just a few sentences. A mission statement is a statement of who you are and what you stand for. It answers the question of why you are in business. Although there are many, many different theories on what makes a good mission statement, here is a site of various examples; http://www.csuchico.edu/mgmt/strategy/module1/sld015.htm

List your ideal client

I cannot emphasize this enough. You have to know who your ideal client is, and what their issues are, extremely finitely in order to speak to them. You have to visually be able to see them in front of you and know what makes them tick. Be very specific in identifying your ideal client. Include age, sex, income, education, occupation, geographic region, lifestyle, attitudes, purchasing characteristics, etc. What are their values, what do they like to do. Really get clear who this person is.

Describe your services

Imagine everything you want to do, either currently or in the future. It’s ok if you haven’t done it before: If it’s a dream that you provide in-home cooking demonstrations, include that in your list. You will later determine how to make it happen. Include all details of what you offer, where and for how much. Determine what your prices must be to cover your costs. Don’t leave anything out even if you’re not sure it’s something you want to do this year.

Who is your competition?

In order to know how to position yourself from your competition, you must know who your competition is. Do some research and determine what your competition offers, how they promote, what they charge for services, and what their strengths and weaknesses are. Don’t rush through this section. Make phone calls, check the internet, and ask people you know. Feel free to call the people you find and ask questions. If you don’t feel comfortable doing that, ask a family member or friend to do it.

Marketing objectives and strategies

Marketing objectives will indicate targets to be achieved across several marketing decision areas. Examples could include such things as what products/services you wish to offer, who you plan to offer them to, how you plan to make your services known, your promotional objectives, etc. Objectives should be clear, measurable, and have a stated time frame for achievement. Objectives included should include both marketing objectives and financial objectives.

Get very specific with your objectives, such as how many clients will you have by what date, how much revenue you will bring in by what date, and exactly where these new clients will come from. Who will you include your marketing to? For financial objectives, you need to be clear about what growth percentage you expect and how you will achieve that growth.

Marketing strategy

This is your game plan to achieve your marketing objectives. You are now getting into the nitty-gritty. This is where it’s time to play and play big! The marketing strategy should include information about your product, your price, how you will promote or create awareness of your product or services, and how you will distribute that information.

Examples of basic marketing strategies include networking, brochures, ads in newspapers, various programs or presentations, press releases, to just name a few. Some may cost you a great deal, but there are many marketing strategies that cost you very little or just your time. Gauge what your time is worth and how busy you are to determine how much of these strategies you will do on your own. You will further determine this by the next step, however.

When a strategy works, repeat it. If it fails, and you did it right, drop it. Learning to develop strategies that work for your particular situation and personality will take time and practice.

Create the action plan

Once the objectives and strategies have been developed, put together an action plan describing the steps that need to be taken in detail. This is your actual game plan for how you will accomplish all that you have written about in your business plan and previously in the marketing plan. It will include what the specific objective is, exactly what and when the steps will be taken, what results you expect to see, the marketing tactics you will employ and so on. This will be your template for your marketing calendar that you will create in the following step to creating your business.

Monitor results

By monitoring results, you can determine which of your strategies are working and which are not. Identify strategies that generate increased business. This involves tracking and evaluating clients’ responses to each marketing strategy. Conduct regular surveys in order to find out what clients like and don’t like.

Client comments are invaluable for creating or enhancing your market literature. With permission, these comments can be used as testimonials.

Creating a marketing plan is not something enough people take the time to work on. I have found this to be the hardest part for anyone in small business and have had to spend many hours, myself, struggling over some of these answers. I can’t emphasize how important it is to do this work, however. Skipping this step can mean the difference between success or failure. Many people who start a small business are aware of creating a business plan, and stop at the stage of the small market plan topics listed in the business plan. However, the business plan is just the first step. The marketing plan is not the final step, either! This document is the template for creating your marketing calendar that will set your projects in motion for the year. You are creating your future with the marketing plan, and then watching that future become reality with your marketing calendar.

Marjorie Geiser is a registered dietitian, certified personal trainer and life coach. Marjorie has been the owner of a successful small business, MEG Fitness, since 1996, and now helps other health professionals start up their own private practice. To learn more about the services Margie offers, go to her website at http://www.marjoriegeiser.com or email her at margie@megfit.com.

Online Video Marketing Campaign for Used Cell Phones : Video …

This online video marketing campaign is the effort of a company named Pace Butler near where I live in Oklahoma City. Their business is used cell phones. They make money if they convince you to send them your unwanted cell phones for …

Weblog Advertising That Gets Outcomes

The keys to achieving this are persistence and determination. Something that you must have to do most anything.

Advertise Apartments For Rent For Free With Craigslist …

Advertising rental units for rent can be a nightmare and expensive. Craigslist is free and recommended the number 1 classifieds in the world. They are bigger than any magazine, newspaper, publication, and on the Web site that houses and …

Summer.wmv

How to Write a Guerrilla Marketing Plan

Behind every successful product or service is a well-researched marketing plan. A marketing plan guides a company how to market a product or service to a specific target market and helps a company remain focused on its marketing objectives.

Developed by Jay Conrad Levinson, the father of Guerrilla Marketing, a Guerrilla Marketing Plan is a condensed version of a corporate marketing plan. It focuses primarily on the most powerful income producing strategies needed to generate sales. While a Corporate Marketing Plan may be 20+ pages long and full of detailed market research and competitive analysis, a Guerrilla Marketing Plan is short (3-5 pages) and focuses on the marketing strategies you will use to produce sales immediately.

A Guerrilla Marketing Plan should include the following strategic marketing information:

1. Define your product or service.

2. What major problem does your product or service solve?

3. Determine who most needs the product/service being sold. Who is your target market?

4. Describe the #1 most important benefit a customer will receive from your product/service.

5. Why should a customer buy from your company instead of from a competitor? What benefit will a customer receive from doing business with your company?

6. Determine your company’s position in the marketplace. Are you the company that focuses on extreme quality, low price, the largest inventory, the safest product, the best guarantee, etc.? What powerful slogan will you use in all of your marketing materials to convey your position?

7. What is your guarantee to your customers?

8. Determine a measurable sales goal for the next 12-months (i.e., $250k in sales).

9. Determine a marketing budget to achieve your 12-month goal. Your budget should be a minimum of 10% of your projected 12-month sales goal.

10. Determine the most powerful and cost effective marketing and PR strategies for marketing your product or service to your target market and achieving your 12-month sales goal.

For more information, you can download a free ebook on how to write a marketing plan and 100+ strategies for marketing your business at http://www.marketing-consulting-company.com

Peter Geisheker is the CEO of The Geisheker Group Marketing Company. Peter specializes in developing and implementing strategic marketing programs for small businesses. For more information please visit http://www.marketing-consulting-company.com.

Small Business Internet Marketing and Search Engines | The World …

When engaging in small business Internet marketing, one of the most important factors to keep in mind is how search engines will find your website and how they will rank it. Search engines rank websites according to several factors, …

Twitter Tweets about Internet marketing as of March 5, 2010 …

topmrkting: 5 Days To Freedom – Internet Marketing System.: Internet Marketing System For People Starting Out Online In The IM…

UAE Property Guide: Al Reyami Signs & Advertising LLC

Summer.wmv

Business Marketing Strategy

The term business marketing strategy might sound like it is esoteric or stratospheric, so let’s take the mystery out of it so you can devise and implement your own business marketing strategy that fits in to your small business plan.

Strategy comes from a Greek word “stratagein” meaning “to be a general”. Think of a strategy as an overall plan of action needed to win a war. The smaller, detailed actions are called tactics. You can have tactical plans which help you achieve your strategic marketing plan or overall business marketing strategy. That’s simple enough, isn’t it?

A business marketing strategy or strategic marketing plan is an overall plan of marketing actions you intend to take in order to accomplish a specific goal for your company.

Start with a goal: $2 million in sales this year; expand into new premises by a certain date; double the size of the company in 2 years… whatever the goal may be. Something realistic but challenging. That’s the “war” you want to win. Guess who the general is.

Then work out a simple, overall plan of the major marketing steps needed to accomplish that (for example):

1. Publish a newsletter for all existing customers and mail out quarterly.

2. Work out 4 special offers in the year and promote them to all our customers.

3. Set up on-line shopping and expand the web site.

4. Direct mail campaign promoting the web site to all customers.

5. Get mailing lists of (target markets) and do a series of 3 mailings of postcards to them and follow up on and close all leads.

6. Etc.

You get the idea. Don’t rush this. Do your homework. What worked in the past? Read up on successful marketing campaigns.
Your business marketing strategy needs to be laid out in the right sequence and you should have some idea of budget when you write it. “Run a series of 30 second TV ads during the Superbowl” might sound like a good thing to do but can you afford it? On the other hand, when you build your business marketing strategy you mustn’t try and cut corners. If you don’t promote heavily, it doesn’t matter how good your product or service is, no one will know about it and you will go broke.
What really works when it comes to marketing?

Many business owners don’t have a good enough answer to this important question. I learned by a combination of study and trial and error.

From my own hard won experienceI have discovered that a real marketing campaign will take into consideration at least the seven points which are outlined below:

1. Target Your Market

Your marketing will produce the best results for the lowest cost when you target prospects with the greatest need for what you offer.

Identify the best people to send your postcards to. Design your postcards to appeal to their greatest need.

If you are able to break down your target market into sub markets you can then write postcards that specifically speak to the needs of those people (an example is breaking down your own customer list into customers who buy most often, customers who spend the most money with you, customers who have been your customers the longest and then making them special offers based on the category they fit into).

2. Create A USP For Your Business

USP stands for “Unique Selling Proposition”.

It is a statement of what is different about your company and its products. Your USP gives the reason people should do business with you. It amplifies the benefit of doing business with you and your company. My USP is POSTCARD MARKETING EXPERTS.

Create your own USP and put it on all your promotional materials, invoices, shipping labels etc.

Use your USP to communicate the benefit of doing business with you and why you are better than any of your competitors.

3. Always Make an Offer

Make sure you ask your prospects and customers to do something when they receive your postcard. By offering them something you know they are likely to want and giving them a smooth path to respond on, you are making it easy and desirable for them to respond.

4. Create and Maintain a Database of The Customer Information You Collect From The Responses To Your Mailings

Most people who receive a postcard from you won’t contact you the first time they receive one.

But once they contact you, you must create and maintain a database which allows you to repeatedly contact them with offers to respond to.

Fifty percent or more of many businesses’ sales come as a result of following up with people who were previously contacted, but didn’t buy right away.

No kidding, repeat contact does drive sales. One-time mailings can get response, but are bound to leave sales on the table. Those sales can be picked up with repeated mailings.

5. Take Away the Fear of Loss

People don’t want to be fooled, plain and simple. Unfortunately trust does not run high today between customers and businesses in general. People have been disappointed too many times by being sold one thing and getting another.

A guarantee or warranty is a good way to reduce or eliminate the customers’ risk of getting something other than what they bargained for.

Guarantees and warranties increase response and sales by reducing customer risk.

6. Expand Your Product Line

Getting new customers is more expensive than selling to existing ones. By regularly developing new products and services to sell to your customers and offering these new products and services to them, you can expand your business efficiently and easily.

7. Test Your Postcard Promotions

Track the effectiveness of your postcard mailings. How many people responded to your mailing? What dollar amount of sales resulted from those responses?

Is the money you are spending to attract new business giving you a good return? What can you do to make your marketing more effective? Change your offer, headline, price, the timing of your offer. When you do track the results and improve your response.

These are the points to follow when designing your own marketing strategy. When you are done, you will have laid out the steps needed to accomplish your goal using existing resources to achieve a great marketing ROI (return on investment).

After that, you simply have to get those steps executed and that might require further planning but it is all in the context of your main business marketing strategy.

Joy Gendusa founded PostcardMania in 1998; her only assets a computer and a phone. In 2004 the company did close to $9 million in sales and employs over 60 persons. She attributes her explosive growth to her ability to choose incredible staff and her innate marketing savvy. Now she’s sharing her marketing secrets with others. For more free marketing advice, visit her website at http://www.postcardmania.com

Make Money Via Affiliate Marketing – ArticlesXpert

Today affiliate marketing has made its worth renowned due to its competitive and cost effectiveness throughout the world. That is why thousands of people are nowadays inclining towards it at a very rapid pace.

Proven RECIPE For Successful Advertising Campaigns | CPAPortal.com

We all have full inboxes. Your prospect is no different. So, how do you keep your busy, frustrated prospect from deleting your SPECIAL.

kenneth in the (212): GLAAD Honors Achievements in Advertising

The winners of the inaugural GLAAD Media Awards in Advertising were announced yesterday in New York. Orbitz.com received the prize for Outstanding Television

Summer.wmv

Mobile Marketing made easy by Mobile Riot

Most people are aware of online marketing, but what is affiliate marketing? Essentially, it is an Internet marketing practice where a business rewards an affiliate for sending customers to the company’s website to make a purchase. The affiliate is given a commission for each sale made.

Today, there are more affiliate marketers doing business online then any other type of marketing. This practice takes a load off the businesses when other independent contractors can do the marketing of their products for them. It is a win-win situation for the affiliate and for the business.

Q. What is affiliate marketing, in terms of a program?

A. There are several different affiliate programs that businesses will use, depending on the type of products or services that they might offer the public. Some of the compensation plans that are offered within affiliate programs are straight commission for each sale made. This type of affiliate program is most popularly used. Other affiliate programs will offer commission structures for sales and bonus commissions for customer referrals to the company’s sites. Multi-level businesses will offer compensation plans that are much more detailed in nature. MLM compensation plans should be looked over carefully.

Q. What are the affiliate marketing commission plans for referrals? A. Often times, certain businesses will offer affiliate programs that pay for referring target traffic to their websites. They are looking for qualified customers to sell high-end products or services. Some of these companies would be, but are not limited to, Insurance companies, Brokerage companies, the auto industry, the airplane industry, travel resorts, mobile home companies, etc. Affiliate referral programs can be extremely lucrative. As a rule, these types of programs are not available for just anyone to affiliate with. Quite often, these companies want experienced affiliate marketers that have a previous background in their industries.

Q. What is affiliate marketing doing in the multi-level marketing business?

A. There are many MLM companies doing business online that offer affiliate marketing programs that are open for almost anyone to join. Remember, affiliate marketing is to affiliate with a company and sell their products for a commission. This is exactly what many independent distributors do with multi-level businesses. The network marketer usually falls under the term “affiliate marketer”, also.

In many cases, they do not own any of the product lines that they sell to others. The network marketer is an affiliate marketer that makes most of his or her income by recruiting other independent distributors into their downline operations.

Q. In terms of Internet marketing techniques, what is affiliate marketing using to create sales?

A. Sales are the end result where the affiliate makes commissions. Before that goal is realized, affiliates must generate a lot of target traffic to either their own promotional website or to the company’s promotional page. Generating traffic is where Internet marketing methods get a work out.

Many affiliate marketers will use a variety of marketing techniques to generate streams of quality traffic to the promo site. Article marketing, Pay-per-click programs, forum marketing and social site marketing at places like MySpace and Facebook. There is no single method that successful affiliate marketers will use to get traffic.

Q. What are the affiliate marketing budget constraints on a new affiliate who has never marketed before? A. The beautiful thing about affiliate marketing is that you can actually join an affiliate program with a company for free. You can even begin generating traffic to the company’s promo site for free by using article marketing techniques and other “bum” marketing methods.

These free methods of generating traffic are easy enough to learn how to do, but they do require a lot of dedication and work. You are basically learning about affiliate marketing as you go. There are many free resources online about affiliate marketing. Many individuals start marketing part-time until they begin making some hard cash.

Q. What is affiliate marketing url coding all about?

A. As an example, you join a company’s affiliate program to sell their ebook called “How To Date Beautiful Women in 10 Days”. You read this ebook and found that it worked for you. So now you are very motivated to make a lot of sales.

After you have read the company’s training manual “What Is Affiliate Marketing Really All About?”, they give you a unique piece of code that is part of the company’s promo page’s url. Every time that someone clicks on this linking code and arrives at the promo site to buy the ebook, you get a commission from the company. They track your hits with this coded url. The code is specific to you.

This should cover a few important points and help to answer your question: “what is affiliate marketing?”. It can be a very competitive but lucrative business to get into. The successful affiliates are the ones that create a business plan of attack, then stay on course.

About the Author:

Kevin Urban offers affiliate marketing help at Affiliate-Marketing101.com. Visit the site to learn affiliate marketing strategies and techniques from someone who has built a successful niche affiliate marketing business.

Copyright 2008 Affiliate-Marketing101.com

Permission is given to reprint this article in its entirety provided all links are left intact.

High Ticket Marketing

Marketing Under Pressure – A Look at How the Current Economic Climate is Impacting the Way We Market

As recession begins to bite hard, ’spending’ is the watchword of the moment. While the government introduces financial initiatives designed to encourage higher spending, people and businesses are looking for ways to cut their budgets. Despite the recent reduction in VAT and government appeals to banks to increase lending, businesses can’t ignore the lower revenue figures as customers retreat in large numbers.

In times of financial uncertainty, a review of business operations will highlight those functions deemed non-essential or over-resourced. Historically marketing is usually among the first to be culled. It is not a well understood discipline and invariably its implementation is lacking. By and large, it is seen more as a cost centre than a revenue generator, working to bring new sales leads to the business. Properly conceived, planned and implemented marketing strategies can raise an organisation’s profile in the marketplace, in turn strengthening brand awareness and loyalty, all of which eventually leads to more customers and ultimately more revenue.

That said, here are a few words of warning. Cutting your marketing budget without thought to the business impact can be devastating. Experienced marketers know this but are under pressure to reduce spending nevertheless, and never more so than now. Conversely, there are those organisations that hold marketing up as one of the tenets of business success in all weather. These are the companies that believe if you throw enough money at marketing, eventually more customers will come and the coffers will start to fill. But without a plan behind the intent, this approach is simply a waste of money and potentially fatal to the business. There is another way.

It is accepted wisdom that marketing is essential to a prosperous business. But is it possible to maintain marketing effectiveness on an ever-decreasing budget? To answer this question, we first need to understand three things: what exactly is marketing these days, why is it so important anyway and how is it changing?

MARKETING’S EVER INCREASING IMPORTANCE
To the uninitiated, marketing is a synonym for a wide range of disciplines and activities that somehow fall into the same bucket: advertising, public relations, exhibitions, promotions. It’s true that marketing covers all of these and many others, but what actually is it?

Marketing is essentially project management in disguise and has already been functioning well through outsourcing for a significant period of time. The proliferation of marketing activity, widening supplier resources and the increasingly short term view of the role of the marketing director have all combined to create the right environment for outsourcing marketing from the strategic through the bottom line operational level.

As recently as ten years ago, certain businesses did not need to market themselves as we understand it today. Businesses such as estate agents, housing developers and banks simply opened their doors and customers would come to them, ready to buy. These businesses saw marketing as a way to rise above the competition, but there was still essentially plenty of business for all of them. However, as markets have fractured and changed, the competition has become ever more fierce and new business models are continuously being developed. On top of that, in the current economic climate it is these traditional pillars of the economy that are suffering the most.

In light of these circumstances, marketing has taken on a new importance. It has become paramount not just to business success but also to business survival. Brand presence in itself is no longer enough. It is continuous brand strengthening and communication through robust marketing strategies that forms the foundation.

Ultimately though, marketing is about understanding your customers and your market. What have you got to sell, who are you trying to sell it to, and what is the best way reach them? In addressing these issues, the successful marketing programme will cover market research, define the most appropriate channels to market and the most effective media to reach the right audience, and articulate why the market should buy from them. This last point is the cornerstone to success marketing, otherwise known as the ‘Unique Selling Proposition’

Having outlined what marketing is and why it’s so important, surely it would be simple enough to work out a plan and execute it. Unfortunately for marketers everywhere, this is easier said than done. Why? Because marketing is undergoing radical change.

THE CHANGING FACE OF MARKETING
Since the dawn of the Internet age, online marketing has unfolded at an alarming rate. At no time is this more true than today. With the advent of the so-called ‘Web 2.0′ over the last few years, social networking has seen a proliferation of new tools and online media have opened up new and diffuse channels to market. Marketing today is in many ways unrecognisable from the discipline it was, even ten short years ago.

This change has brought increasing complexity to strategic marketing and planning. Internal marketing departments are being spread more thinly, relying increasingly on a growing list of supporting agencies each dedicated to a particular marketing activity. It has also meant that marketing managers and executives have taken on more of project management role as they supervise and coordinate an abundance of outsourced activities. Similarly, the marketing director’s role has become fundamentally project-based. Marketing directors are often tasked with a series of strategic restructures as the business continually morphs to adapt to its market. This has imbued the role with a short-term outlook, such that today it is unusual for a marketing director to stay with an organisation for more than two years before moving on.

In finding a solution to the challenge of achieving effective marketing on a strict budget, it is worth noting that the prevalent marketing agency landscape developed out of necessity, not through careful planning. Outsourcing on a piecemeal basis is not a cost effective formula. It has been technology driven, not marketing driven. And there are a few fundamental issues with this approach. Firstly marketing executives do not ordinarily make good project managers. They lack the advanced skills required to integrate and synchronise a myriad online and offline activities into a single, mutually supportive workflow.

Outsourcing marketing functions is not a new concept. In fact it is a tried and tested way to quickly reduce costs by moving core functions outside of the organisation. It was first widely applied to customer service through call centres. However sales and marketing departments quickly discovered that if you outsource on a purely tactical basis, it can backfire on your business. It is important to build in strategic processes and controls to maintain service quality. The challenge for marketing is how to achieve quality control across such a diverse and disparate range of activities. One answer could be to combine outsource partners with a project management team. Another approach is to integrate these functions and elevate the outsourcing relationship to a more strategic level. To identify the best approach, we need to understand ‘marketing integration’ and how this can create cost efficiencies.

INTEGRATING OFFLINE AND ONLINE MARKETING
While today every business considers having an online presence as a necessity, tomorrow it will be blogs, giveaway content in the form of PDF reports and email newsletters, online communities and social networking that will become essential to every marketing strategy, programme and campaign and not just the domain of the forward-thinkers.

These new ways of communicating with the market are moving seemingly further and further away from the real world. Aside from keeping up with developments, marketers are faced with the challenge of integrating online and offline channels so that they support and reinforce, rather than contradict each other.

On top of this, technology has levelled the playing field. Now anyone can try their hand at marketing. Publishing a newspaper or magazine is possible with a software programme and a broadband connection. Achieving professional quality media is now accessible to the man on the street. Similarly online marketing is open to everyone. However, the ability to market does not guarantee marketing success. Despite ease of online communication, the availability of tools for fast analysis of market data and the speed of digital delivery, superior marketing implementation can only be ensured when it is backed by a consistent business strategy and coordinated marketing programme. More importantly, integrating traditional offline marketing with the many disparate forms of tactical online activities in a strategic way will be essential to success.

COST EFFECTIVENESS IS MARKETING GOLD
As marketing agencies continue to proliferate and shift towards more and more specialised niches, it begins to make sense to consolidate the mainstream functions within an integrated framework. Logically, however, this would suggest higher internalised costs. To avoid these costs, without compromising effectiveness, suggests moving the mainstream function outside the organisation.

However, this makes little sense if executed at the tactical level. What is needed is a restructuring of the traditional outsourcing model so that the lines of communication are at board level. Strategic public relations and public affairs consultancies have worked this way for many years. The timing and conditions are now right for marketing to adopt this approach: to move from a tactical project management style to a higher-level strategic partnership with their outsourcers.

Put simply, modern outsourced marketing takes the accepted concept of interim management and retained agencies to a higher level. In an outsourced arrangement, highly skilled marketing consultants and managers liaise with specialist agencies to an agreed strategy and budget, in a well-constructed operating process to deliver on planned objectives and targets. By taking an holistic view from a brand perspective, outsourced marketing has the potential to lift the bar on performance and programme integration in a way that traditional marketing management finds hard to achieve within modern cost structures. Key to achieving this is integration of the internal marketing function at the strategic level of the business.

Outsourcing marketing execution is the traditional view taken by organisations when attempting to strip out costs, but within today’s marketing landscape this can only come at the expense of marketing effectiveness. Modern outsourcing should aim for strategic consistency across internal marketing functions. This has the additional benefit of placing overall responsibility and planning at an organisational level rather than with ultimately one departmental representative, the marketing director.

As a contractual arrangement, strategic outsourcing establishes common operating practices and reportage, which work in accordance with KPI measurements and agreed ROI indices. From a marketing perspective the strategic outsource model has the organisational intelligence necessary to achieve a balance mix of online activity and offline in an integrated manner.

CHOOSING A STRATEGIC OUTSOURCED MARKETING PARTNER
As a means of replacing high cost, high turnover internal function with a strategy partnership that communicates at board level, the outsourced marketing model has much offer. It is equally suited to growing companies that have yet to develop a marketing department as those that are downsizing. For those marketers working under the conditions accompanying a merger or acquisition situation, or companies and brands stripped of resource through administration, outsourced marketing also presents an attractive option.

If you decide that outsourced marketing is for you, you’ll want to ensure that you engage an outsourcer that agrees to a planning process that involves clear ROI and KPI objectives. Ideally this will be presented in the form of a marketing dashboard to allow a continuous evaluation performance on the fly. You should also be careful to select an outsource partner that can offer a complementary mix of senior consultants with skills that span all media and marketing channels. Naturally it is also critical that this experience covers both online and offline environments. Finally, it is important to assess whether your outsourcing partner can offer flexibility in its fee structure. For example, can it package a tailored launch service for an all-on cost but also provide supplementary services on a ‘top-up’ basis as and when required?

Cost savings are readily achievable with a fully outsourced marketing function, provided consultation is observed at board level. Since services are rendered on a ‘time block’ basis, it is easy to adjust the marketing resources ‘tap’ to whatever level suits the budget. Provided the partnership is structured correctly, marketing results should not be adversely affected. In fact, the enhanced planning and creative development process that comes through an outsourced arrangement can lead to improved marketing effectiveness and sales performance that proves to be as valuable as lower marketing costs.

Marketing Outsources is the UK’s first specialist organisation, which offers both in company management with external creative and production services to provide full executive resources and a planned programme of activity. Implemented at a substantially lower cost yet with an improved performance, making the most of technology and better planning and faster working.

With Marketing Outsources you get a topflight director just when you need the strategy and creative direction with board level input to overall company growth, backed with experienced marketing managers.

Marketing Outsources can deliver and implement your marketing strategy through a group of expert and experienced suppliers, embracing the benefits of new technology, whilst balancing online and offline spending to optimum effect.

Tim Arnold is the principal partner of Marketing Outsources, the UK’s first specialist organisation, which offers both in company management with external creative and production services to provide full executive resources and a planned programme of activity, implemented at a substantially lower cost yet with an improved performance, making the most of technology and better planning and faster working.

Tim has over 35 year’s experience in marketing, advertising and sales promotion. He set up Marketing Outsources having worked as a Portfolio Marketing Director for 10 years. In this role he has been Marketing Director for Hagemeyer and Berkeley Homes and head of e-commerce for Farnell.

Previously, he was founder of Tim Arnold & Associates and chairman of the Arnold Worth Group, a leading UK independent marketing services group. Prior to that he was a Director of Wasey Campbell Ewald (Interpublic) and MD of their sales promotion company.

Tim started his career as a Unilever trainee before moving to become Brand Manager for Yardley of London. He is a fellow of the Institute of Sales Promotion and member of the Marketing Society and has recently published “The Marketing Director’s handbook” with Guy Tomlinson.

Advertising agencies urge Justice Department to approve Yahoo …

Ad agencies urge DOJ to okay Yahoo, Micorosft dealWASHINGTON

Pokemon - Episode 8: The Path To The Pokemon League (2/2 ...

Pokemon - Episode 9: The School Of Hard Knocks (2/2)

“Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.”- John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 1917-1963

To succeed in today’s fiercely competitive world of business, classical market seg-mentation characterized by demographic, socioeconomic and geographic criteria won’t cut it any more. A powerful new tool to forge a cutting edge is segmentation based on psychographic criteria, as demonstrated in Germany’s energy market.

The German energy sector is characterized by an attempt at liberalization, that after ten years has created a fragmented scene of multiple small companies and four loom-ing giants. In their struggle to distinguish themselves from the competition, some of the companies have adopted innovative customer segmentation techniques – cutting-edge marketing strategies based on defining customer groups by signs and lifestyle types. The following describes a range of psychographical market segmentation tech-niques, followed by their implementation in the energy sector.

Changing business conditions

Social and technological changes have been challenging the way business is done. In the past, the consumer wielded little influence over product characteristics and variety.

This is changing. We are in an era of individual consumer empowerment, which is even influencing product development processes.

Once, cultural values and consumer behavior had been relatively predictable. Recent data imply a strong individualization, and rapid changes in how the consumer acts. Unsaturated markets turned into mature markets with exchangeable products in which added value and target-group aligned campaigns become increasingly important. Companies today acknowl-edge that not every offer will suit every customer, nor will every customer be equally re-sponsive to a given marketing activity.

Not only is the nature of the market changing: by nature businesses, however successful, are also vulnerable to change in the general economic environment, including demographic change, urbanization (where applicable), individualization and fragmented global societies. The way to remain relevant in this rapidly changing world is to track who the customers are, what their needs and values are, and where future potential lies in a world in which indi-viduals have very different requirements. Each individual becomes a segment of its own in a global market.

For example, the so called “hybrid customer” buys basic groceries at a discount outlet, but eats the weekend luxury dinner at a five-star restaurant. It is important to understand that price is not always the key purchase criterion. It is poor understanding of the actual desires of customers that leads suppliers to focus on price competition.

The need for new market segmentation models

The ultimate objective of an efficient segmentation model is to enhance profitability by rec-ognizing that each identified customer group has different needs, priorities and economic levers. Armed with that knowledge, customer service can be adapted and resource alloca-tion can be optimized.
Put otherwise, the ultimate goal of segmentation is the pragmatism of superior deployment: how best to utilize corporate performance capabilities to meet the needs and expectations of the customer population.

The final outcome of segmentation for the customer is superior satisfaction. Companies for their part expect the market segmentation model to deliver clearly defined groups of cus-tomers, unique customer insights, and market insight concerning future opportunities and innovations.

Traditional segment classification focuses on statistical characteristics such as geography (city, region, size of place of residence), demographics (age, gender, nationality, income, family status, size of household), and so forth. This approach is convenient because the data is usually easy to collect, and is clear-cut and objective. But it fails to take into ac-count that customers do not behave consistently within these defined clusters.

Also, because new markets are difficult to locate, it is necessary to actively cultivate the market and explain or model customer behavior.

Traditional sociodemographic criteria are not capable of describing the (potential) customer of today. For instance the same data set of “gender-age-income-habitation” would apply equally to Ozzy Osborne and to Prince Charles.

Examples of innovative segmentation models

To fulfill future segmentation requirements, psychographic and behavior-based models be-come significant. Characteristics such as lifestyle, values, social standing, media usage, buying patterns, brand preference, product usage pattern, and the like can be used to de-scribe customer groups.
One example for a state-of-the-art segmentation model is the Sinus-Milieus® approach, which clusters homogeneous groups by shared aspirations in life, value systems and life-styles. When individuals share similar life contexts, they are likely to be part of the same milieu. The model distinguishes several milieus and builds a quantitative conclusion through a representative sample of the given population.

Another example of an innovative segmentation approach is semiometrie, a quantitative tool to distinguish groups by values and attitudes. This methodology is based on evaluating 210 selected words such as hero, victim, present, and fire on a seven-stage range, from “very agreeable” to “very disagreeable”, to quantify the person’s values.

The four dimensions of the “words/value map” are sociality, vitality, individuality and re-sponsibility. The identified customer cluster is characterized by 14 value fields, such as familial, social, religious, rational or dominant. The data are then statistically evaluated for the specific product, service or brand.

Another psychographic model, developed by the international market research company GfK Group, is called Euro-Socio-Styles. Its Value Map is based on four dimensions: ap-pearance and reality, change and stability. Arranged behind these four dimensions are dif-ferent needs: appearance implies materialism and price orientation, reality stands for qual-ity orientation, change for dynamic, and stability for security. GfK identified eight Euro-Socio-Styles: magic world, secure world, steady world, standing world, authentic world, new world, cosy tech world and crafty world. Each segment is described with typical attributes, attitudes and habits.

Consumer market-based segmentation models can also apply to the broader business mar-ket, using different selected attributes such as value perception, position in the value chain, buying behavior, its own value proposition downstream and so forth.

Building up consumer insight

Developing a trend-setting segmentation model for a specific market generally starts with defining the relevant group of customers (consumer/business), understanding the structure of the entire value chain (also downstream) and identifying value levers and decision mak-ers along this chain.

The second step is to discern the attributes describing the group in terms of buying criteria – identifying the needs behind their purchasing. This can be conducted through market research, expert interviews, customer surveys and multifunctional customer workshops in B2B environments.

The third step is to create different clusters with comparable attributes and buying criteria and qualify them in terms of sufficient size, differentiation between the groups, and feasibil-ity on the part of the business.

Finally, the identified market segments are summarized as profiles and are given a descrip-tive name. The profiles describe the distinctive attributes, main buying criteria, values, so-ciodemographics and other characteristics of each group. For each of the groups which seems attractive, an individual value proposition needs to be developed.

These psychographic segmentation methods give enterprises powerful tools to improve profitability through differentiatiation, positioning and a focused and tailored communication towards the relevant target group. They were applied to great effect in Germany’s energy sector, as it transformed from a blanket monopoly into a liberalized market.

The German energy market before liberalization …

The trend towards freedom of choice for the customer is spreading in both the industrial and private sector. In Western Europe the process of liberalization aimed to set the entire energy market free. The results have been mixed.

The pace at which the different countries within the European Union are liberalizing their energy market differs from one nation to another. Some countries, such as Germany and the United Kingdom, have completely liberalized their energy sphere while others, such as France, are more tentative.

Before liberalization, a defined supply area was served by a single energy supplier, usually a local utility, resulting in a monopolistic market structure. Ten years ago, “Grid access for everybody” was a vision. Now it’s the reality, if not quite the reality that its engineers envi-oned.

The European Union Directive of December 1998 eliminated guaranteed territorial monopo-lies, resulting in new, oligopolistic energy markets. The EU aimed to minimize political in-tervention and intensify competition into grid access and energy distribution (electricity and gas) by letting in new suppliers, and lowering prices for consumers. In Germany, in addi-tion, energy production, transport and distribution were unbundled, to deliver a transparent as well as efficient and well-priced energy supply.

… and its implications ten years after

It failed. The “steps to boost competition” resulted in anti-competitive concentration. Ten years after the liberalization drive began, the German consumer is paying more than ever before for electricity.
Moreover, ten years after the reform, instead of true liberalization and competition over price, 80% of Germany’s market remains dominated by four big companies: Eon, RWE, EnBW and Vattenfall. About eight hundred public utilities and municipal energy providers, some belonging to the giant four, utilize access to the grids of the big companies to develop and spread their business and products into new regional geographic areas, which had not been possible before liberalization.

Germany’s energy market harbors risks for the energy producers and suppliers such as regulator-induced reduction of energy consumption and other changes, feeble market growth, high prices, and internationalization and consolidation of the market. But it also offers opportunities such as the trend towards online marketing, changes in the energy production technologies (decentralized energy supply, renewable energy), branding, and a rising (though still low) tendency among customers to switch the energy supplier.

The questions for the new energy suppliers are how to win consumers and lock in long-term success. The answer many found lay in psychographic models to identify differentiation opportunities, at long last addressing the customer.

When the era of liberalization began, its architects assumed that customers would switch in droves as competition arose. They did not: or at least industrial clients do, but not house-holds. Only 7% of these have changed provider. Private-sectors tend to stay with their ven-dors mainly because of sheer passivity, assumed high switching costs, and various barriers including ignorance of alternatives. Within the industrial segment, 37% did demand changes to their contract with their supplier. Price remained the most important criterion for change. However, this switching rate is lower than what surveys show to be the switching intention of such customers.

Challenging market conditions

In the years to come, switching is likely to increase as competition intensifies, in part due to persistent political efforts and changing consumer patterns in energy use. Consumer sensi-tivity to price is also likely to intensify. Other impetuses to switch may include subjectivities such as perception of bad service or the wish for “ecological” energy. Customers will stay with their current provider when either they are satisfied, don’t know a better alternative or are not even considering change due to lack of interest.

Today’s energy providers in Germany can be allocated to three clusters:

1. Consolidated companies and utilities with an “all-round” mainstream strategy, a mix of representative products across all production sources, targeting for the middle price segment on a regional basis with a low customer attention and low level services.

2. Ecological Specialists that adopted a “green” communication strategy in a high-price segment with high customer satisfaction, advanced services and a nationwide presence.

3. Online providers with a discount and brand strategy, zero or a low share of “green” products, tailored online services to ensure reasonable customer satisfaction in a low price target segment.

All three clusters seem to target distinct market segments and customer groups, but they have learned in the last few years that retaining customers is cheaper than acquiring new ones. Yet many companies tend not to fulfill the potential value of their relationships with their existing customers: they remain focused on winning new customers, spending heavily on marketing while losing sight of the existing base. They neglect to analyze and leverage customer relationships to exploit additional potential and product opportunities.

The “big four” still live off their competitive advantage due to their vertical integration (pro-duction, grid and distribution) and are less vulnerable to market dynamics in the short term. Smaller companies and “newcomers” face higher challenges in getting a reasonable eco-nomic model to work. But they are coming up with answers.

nnovative techniques in Germany’s energy market

Energy experts have found that more than half of Germany’s energy providers have started to invest in innovative marketing and sales campaigns. They are employing advanced mar-keting concepts such as product bundling in cooperation with loan institutes, insurance, and real estate companies based on cutting-edge psychographics and a broader view of cus-tomer needs.

In short, these companies plan to conquer niches using customer-orientated innovations. Objective classical segmentation criteria such as energy consumption, demand set and solvency cannot provide meaningful clusters to evaluate customer needs and to develop the right value proposition and value delivery system for their market strategy.

Energy companies still need to distinguish within their segmentation approach between the two main traditional user groups of industrial customers (B2B) and private customers (B2C). For both such groups the companies have to define the relevant attributes which influence switching behavior.

Within the German market the following seven descriptive characteristics have emerged and have proven to be a valid set of criteria:

o Price sensitivity

o Desired level of services

o Brand consciousness

o Value orientation

o Affinity to innovation

o Willingness to take risks

o Tradition consciousness

Having analyzed the degree of the various attributes for the respective customer groups, eight different customer segments can be derived.

Within the B2C group for example, so-called “Piggybacks” can be identified. They are char-acterized by strong brand consciousness and intense safety needs, whereas so-called “Ra-tionalists” focus on smart shopping and conscious consumption.

“Traditionalists” are reacting against “globalization”: they demand local values and tradi-tions in a globalized world and a high degree of social responsibility. The “Impulse Buyer” is an enthusiastic and interested shopper in contrast to a “Self Actualizer” who is seeking individuality and quality.

Within the B2B group three segments can be distinguished.The so called segment of the “Neglected Buyers”, the “Added-Value Oriented Buyers” and the “Price Buyers”.

The “Neglegted Buyers” seek individuality, risk reduction and comfort, whereas the “Added-Value-Oriented Buyers” focus on smart shopping combined with a high demand for ser-vice.The “Price Buyers” can be compared to the “Rationalists” in the B2C group: these companies are becoming more price conscious as they perceive the development of an increasing price volatility in the market.
As described, each segment is marked by strong characteristics. The more distinctive these unique features are, the more focused market development can be.

Having segmented the market, the energy providers must now prioritize them – choosing the most attractive segments that offer attractive profitability at reasonable market risk , and decide which products and services to offer to each chosen segment at what price level. The companies need to position themselves with a “new”, innovative value proposition and communicate their “unique selling point” (USP) accordingly and sustainably.

Companies that adopted a psychographic analytical approach are showing initial success in retention rates and in developing new market shares. This proves that in today’s fast-moving society, innovative and traditional B2B companies in “pure commodity and low in-terest” markets can apply psychographic-driven segmentation to reshape their market posi-tioning and to generate competitive differentiation and advantage.

http://www.tefen.com/Strategy.aspx

http://www.tefen.com/ByIndustriesEnergyAndUtilities.aspx

Online Marketing Secrets Revealed | Learn Internet Marketing …

In conclusion, online marketing

Pokemon - Episode 9: The School Of Hard Knocks (1/2)

Multicultural marketing mirrors the changed face of America and is getting the attention of small-business and other organizations looking for an edge in diverse ethnic markets. “Gone are the days when businesses succeed with a ‘one size fits all’ approach to marketing. It’s a ‘mass market’ no longer,” insists Rhonda Albey, a diversity consultant with Allen Associates in Los Angeles, “The multicultural markets are where the opportunities are, and successful entrepreneurs are quickly learning how to get there.”

According to the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) the predominant ethnic market segments being targeted by multicultural marketers are Hispanic (70%), African-American (59%) and Asian American (27%). In many places, these and other multicultural markets exert such demographic and economic influence that they’re inevitable targets. (source: http://www.Emarketer.com, 11-6-02).

Wherever they are, however, businesses must monitor and adapt to changes in their marketplace. The view out there can change quickly, and it’s a mistake to take any significant market segment in your area for granted. Even with all the right products and services you’ll still need the right message, in the right place, at the right time to reach the ethnic markets you want to be doing business with.

Do-it-yourself online research and homegrown multicultural marketing initiatives can help you identify and develop local ethnic market segments. But for some, outsourcing may be the way to go. For example, Multicultural Marketing Resources, Inc., (www.multiculturalmarketingresources.com), a NYC-based public relations and marketing company, is helping businesses and entrepreneurs reach multicultural markets nationwide.

Population Growth and Economic Clout Tell Powerful Stories

Overall, says Multicultural Marketing Resources’, Lisa Skriloff: “The African-American, Hispanic and Asian populations have a combined buying power of more than a trillion dollars and minority populations are fast becoming the majority population in major markets.” But shifts in thinking toward culturally based marketing–targeting ethnic segments based on their cultural framework–will expand, creating multicultural marketing opportunities in still new ethnic segments in places where they are numerically significant.

California diversity consultant, Rhonda Albey, cautions: “Appreciate the diversity within groups as well as among groups. Terms like ‘Hispanic’ and ‘Asian’ are frequently used without acknowledging the wide-variety of peoples such terms include. ‘Asian’ can refer to any one of hundreds of nationalities, language groups and cultures. Entrepreneurs need to be aware that what appeals to Chinese-Americans in California may have little appeal for Korean-Americans in New York, although they’re all Asian-Americans.”

Culture as much, if not more than age, income, occupation or sex, is the main difference between ethnic markets and the general marketplace. Differing cultural backgrounds may mean consumers will never see or hear marketing messages that are not relevant to their cultural behavior, language or media preferences. And many businesses have yet to realize that Hispanics, Asians and blacks, among other market segments–multicultural or otherwise–have buying preferences that can be a key ingredient in marketing and selling to them.

But what if you haven’t been making the most of multicultural marketing opportunities that could be all around you?

How to Work Multicultural Marketing Into Your Marketing Plans?

Assuming you have a marketing plan, an important first step in multicultural marketing is knowing your audience, followed by improving your existing market penetration (you may want to get busy developing attractive new target markets, but first understand the inherent risks and costs, and explore opportunities to grow from within). If you can’t meet your goals with existing marketing opportunities–or you want to aim even higher–you probably should be developing new market segments. That means checking your sales forecasts and expense budget, and seeking ways to increase the return on your marketing investment.

As does all market planning, multicultural marketing needs to include research to determine who is buying your products and services, and why. Any market segment’s unique make-up defines its needs, suggesting products to sell and methods to use, and if it’s right for you; solid information about the wants, needs and objectives of potential clients is essential in making sound marketing decisions. Surveys of prospects and clients and informal interviews are useful research tools for agents and advisors in areas where one or more ethnic groups predominate.

Multicultural market planning continues with customer profiles–word-pictures of the people you’re looking for summarizing what these groups mean to you, what you do for the group, and why. Example: “The person I do business with is a young black professional or executive who is married, politically conservative, and has the potential of earning $100,000 a year by age 40. This market has grown substantially from when I started in this business 10 years ago, and I’ve been able to develop a steady market presence. As a result, networking opportunities and qualified referrals are easy–but I have to keep my eye on the ball and know my stuff.”

Market positioning then allows you to focus your resources and expertise as they apply to your market segments and think through the messages you wish to communicate to create competitive advantages. Your positioning statement should be well thought out and lend itself to professional identity branding. Your “brand”–reputation, integrity, performance, credentials, distinctive competencies and other key factors–shows in everything you do and differentiates you from your competition. Establish your brand up front: in conversation, in writing and in what you make people think about.

A marketing strategy is your formal plan for entering and systematically developing multicultural market segments and achieving your goals. It coordinates your positioning statement, customer profiles and professional identity brand with tools and techniques for establishing yourself in these market segments while servicing and expanding your existing client base. Once you have a plan, you’ll need to implement, manage and sustain it. It’s also important to remain focussed on your long-term goals. And to stay motivated!

You can adopt these steps to any market segment; what’s most important is thinking strategically about how you will find, get, and keep customers. Because marketing in the U.S. is becoming more like global marketing, market planning must proceed from an understanding of cultural differences the better to evaluate the need for adjustments to strategies and tactics. Commenting on the potential growth of multicultural marketing, Lisa Skriloff predicts: “Businesses that have not invested in multicultural marketing will be forced to reevaluate or be left behind.”

Want More? Send questions and comments to w.willard3@knology.net.

Bill Willard has also been writing high-impact marketing and sales training primarily for the financial services industry for 30 years—but as Will Rogers put it: “Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.” Through interactive, Web-based “Do-While-Learning™” programs, enewsletters and straight-talking articles, Bill helps SBOs and independent professionals get the job done: profitably improving performance, helping grow your business, skipping expensive mistakes, making the journey to small-business success faster, smoother, easier. And fun!

Internet Advertising and marketing Fundamentals

Article from Article Redux and entitled Internet Advertising and marketing Fundamentals – By Madziah Danish.

UAE Property Guide: Al Sahar Advertising & Gifts

Pokemon - Episode 10: Bulbasaur And The Hidden Village (2/2)

Is marketing one of the last bastions of unregulated expenditure within a business?

There is growing pressure from the Boardroom and Executive Management Committee’s to bring marketing and communications expenditure to heal. However, this is more fundamental than simply requiring the Marketing Director to take an obedience class. It’s not just about control, but increasingly performance, measurement and extracting a true understanding of the genuine return on investment that marketing and individual marketing campaigns are bringing to the business.

Too long perhaps has the Industry been hiding behind the excuse that marketing is a complex function, with multi-dimensional facets that embrace social, behavioural and emotional attributes whose very subjectivity tends to mean that they can only be assessed by qualitative assessment and not by any more stringent quantitative cost benefit modelling.

There are a plethora of quotes which more often than not are used by senior executives when talking about or even to their Corporate Communications or Marketing Directors… ‘I know half of my marketing expenditure is working. I’m just not sure which half that is…

One conclusion might be that this is just a sort term macro-economic driven response. When times are hard, budget pressures increase and expenditure levels are subject to greater scrutiny. It has always been so…and it will all be forgotten once the good times start to flow again…but will it?

Perhaps not. True CFO’s maybe using the current macro-economic situation as a stalking horse, but this simply reflects their long held belief that marketing needs to be subjected to the same financial rigours as the rest of the business.

So be prepared. Be very prepared.

So is there cause for communications consternation or marketing mayhem… amongst the marketing departments up and down the land?

Not necessarily. Firstly though it’s important to recognise and accept the fact that this
is and will continue to be a reality of business life. Secondly, to plan for it and to pre-emptively prepare for it. This will help to ensure that the initiative still rests within the marketing function and not elsewhere within the organisation.

There are three steps that need to be taken to help move marketing into the realms of business metrics normality:

- Accountability

- Measurability

- Return On Investment.

Individual businesses might well have addressed some of these elements, but very few have done so as a single end to end process.

The first step like many things the hardest. But critically having done it once, it gets easier – because once a base line has been established a reference point exists against which all future analysis can be benchmarked.

In addition it’s worth remembering is that the process is an iterative one and can and should be evolved and developed campaign on campaign, and year on year.

Accountability

This is already well established within most organisations marketing departments, in terms of business & personal objectives, project team management, performance reviews, internal publication of these on the corporate intranet and in the more advanced companies agency & supplier objectives and performance reviews.

What’s important here is not only that the team knows whose doing what and whose responsible for delivering it, but also that the rest of the organisation has the same level of understanding and sense of transparency into the marketing department.

Measurement

This is where for many people it gets a bit harder. But it’s doesn’t have to be. The starting place quite clearly is in the setting of the key objectives for the given campaign or individual activity.

The process of measurement is simply to be able to have in place a structure or format that allows an exercise to be undertaken that can determine whether the agreed objectives have been achieved. This means defining key criteria that can be monitored, can be collated and then assessed against a meaningful target – either a previous year’s benchmark or an industry reference indicator or indeed ‘best effort insights’.

The challenge is identifying the criteria and then being able to find the most appropriate method of credibly and cost effectively monitoring them.

Return on Investment

Typically ROI has been defined as the money the business makes on any given project/activity that is greater than the original investment made or cost incurred. Marketing has always found it hard to be included within any given ROI as anything other than a pure cost. An almost necessary evil, CEO’s may think ‘as everyone else is doing it, it can’t be wrong’ or ‘if I don’t and my competitors do – can I afford not to?’

There is a potential solution though.

Smart:ROI Index though looks not simply at the pure numerical functional analysis of the marketing campaigns but also the wider picture. It is designed to express the benefits and impacts of both the formal quantitative financial analysis and the qualitative market performance assessment. The combination of these two gives a broader and more balanced understanding of how effective marketing investment projects, campaigns and activities have performed.

Smart:ROI Index is determined by calculating the financial cost/benefit ROI %, together with the combined total of 4 qualitative performance indicators or metrics, such as % market share increase/decrease, % brand awareness increase, or media coverage growth.

To work through an example. If a given marketing campaign has costs of £100,000 and produces (directly/indirectly) revenue/benefits of £130,000, the Financial % ROI is £130,000 divided by £100,000 multiplied by 100 – equalling 130%.

On the Performance Metric side there are in this example four metrics, Market Share, Brand Awareness, Advertising Responses and Media Coverage. The percentage increase (or decrease) is calculated for each of these – based on historic data.

So let’s assume that market share has increased by 2%, brand awareness by 3%, advertising responses by 6% and media coverage by 8%. These are then added together to give a total Performance ROI of 19%.

The two totals are then added together to give a Smart:ROI Index of 149%

So what does this actually tell a company? Well it certainly reflects a more balanced and realistic view of the marketing campaign by demonstrating not simply the pure cold financial calculation, but also the other contributory factors that will impact the success of a campaign and the overall business.

The Smart:ROI Index therefore allows Marketing Directors and CFO’s to both have a better understanding of how effectively the marketing budget is being managed.

So there will be no need for the Marketing Director to ‘sit and beg’ in front of the CFO for more budget next year, as the CFO will already pavlovian like believe that he is as happy with the marketing spend as a dog with two tails…

This article was originally printed on the Strategic fusion website, and you can learn more about Smart ROI [http://www.strategic-fusion.com/our_articles/index.php] here.

Stephen Rogers has over twenty years’ experience in strategic marketing and corporate communications gained across the government, business and consumer arenas.

Strategic Fusion

European soft drinks industry sets out digital marketing guidelines

Coca-Cola and PepsiCo have endorsed new European guidelines on digital marketing that explicitly extend to the digital sphere their commitment not to target young children.

Valassis CEO reaps $7.4M Stock Payday, Dwarfing Previous …

Revenues at Valassis (VCI), the supermarket coupon giant, may have tumbled nearly 4 percent in the last quarter, but CEO Al Schultz is cashing in: He.

BAD IDEA magazine | UK Advertising Still Doesn't Understand Online

The UK advertising market is struggling to understand the online market, a series of industry professionals have suggested.