Viral Marketing - Is it a Cold?

Hi To You All,

What is viral marketing? Viral marketing is an idea that is passed through the community much like a common cold. It encourages individuals to pass on a marketing message to others, essentially it is a fancy term for word of mouth advertising It is any advertising that propagates itself the way viruses do. Word of mouth is still one of the most effective marketing techniques, online or offline. As a result Viral marketing is a phenomenon that occurs when the creative message you're trying to convey resonates deeply with the audience you're speaking to. If you're doing your homework and adequately planning the right messaging, with some incentive that clearly benefits the consumer, then viral marketing occurs. Consequently it is considered as one of the most powerful methods of online marketing and advertising Today.

Viral marketing is dependent on peers passing the information on to multiple others via online social networks. When executed well a viral campaign should spread rapidly and become referenced and talked about across multiple internet channels. It is most powerful when it taps into the breadth of its customers' weak connections to others.Therefore Tapping the customer's entire address book is obviously of more value than just reaching their best friend. Viral marketing is the way that ideas have always spread through communities If something has value then people want to share it.

Viral marketing methods work when the product is something of value so efforts towards design, usability, and solving pain is most of the solution. Enabling viral marketing then becomes two efforts, creating the conventions from Web 1.0 that people expect, share with a friend is an example and the unique Web 2.0 strategies that are more social, using RSS/Blogs, etc. It creates a win/win situation for all parties as the user is provided a service or valuable information for free and in turn provides your site with free advertising. Ultimately it is so successful because it creates the curiosity and desire needed to generate the demand for a product or service. It causes people to seek it out.
Hotmail.com used this form of marketing in a small way that produced big results. At the bottom of each of the emails sent, they included a small line that said something like "Get your free email account with hotmail.com. "Hotmail is now one of the biggest free web-based email providers, and one of the longest running alongside Yahoo! Mail and a few others. Hotmail - Hotmail "piggybacked" on personal emails from one person to another to publicize their free email service. At a time when few people had email, the first and only free email service in the marketplace was appealing and novel - hence their rapid adoption and spread.

Viral marketing existed way before 'viral marketing' if you were a marketer, I'd say it was doing your job. As it takes advantage of the millions of communities that all of us build up naturally, that's you and me and it has been around forever.In essence spreading the word through word-of-mouth was the world's first form of Viral marketing.

It is is most powerful when it taps into the breadth of its customers' weak connections to others. Tapping the customer's entire address book is more valuable than just reaching their best friend. It will yield its best results if a valuable and tangible incentive is offered that will entice individuals to forward an email message to their friends. However, marketers should limit the incentive to a specific quantity to avoid spam-like distribution of the message. Viral marketing relies on other people to get involved,so you can learn the ways to help motivate them and can feed them the information and campaigns that are mostly likely to spark their interest, but ultimately you have no control over what they do with it.

Viral marketing still has the strongest effect if your product can be somehow incorporated into the communication between two people. This includes phone systems (MCI), electronic postcards (Blue Mountain), free e-mail (Hotmail), and the communications tool that someone is inventing in his or her garage as you're reading this chapter. It is always as effective as others say it is if only it would be done properly. It is effective, but it depends on a high pass-along rate from person to person, as if a large percentage of recipients forward something to a large number of friends, the overall growth snowballs very quickly.

It extends this into the digital domain by harnessing the electronic connectivity of individuals to spread your message. As it describes any strategy that encourages individuals to pass on a marketing message to others, creating the potential for exponential growth in the message's exposure and influence. Like viruses, such strategies take advantage of rapid multiplication to explode the message to thousands, to millions. Viral marketing is similar in nature to a contagious disease, in the way it spreads. However, it's always beneficial to the business conducting the campaign.

Ultimately it works best in combination with e-Mail marketing, since e-Mail marketing provides Viral Marketing with a great communication medium. You can use e-mail to spread the message as it is a good bit about winning hearts and minds. Viral marketing is advertising that you voluntarily pass around because it's cool, not necessarily because you want to help build publicity. There is some noticeable overlap where a guerrilla ad that doesn't quite look like an ad is so great that you end up telling other people about it. A notable survey was done recently on such an add and it showed a full 70% of people interviewed remembered seeing the ad so if done right this is incredibly powerful stuff.
Viral marketing is creating an awareness of a product or a service, without really advertising it. For instance, you wear branded jeans with the name tag on the back,this helps to spread the word and can help produce a result.

Viral marketing facilitates and encourages people to pass along a message voluntarily, essentially the word-of-mouth or refer-a-friend tactic done through the Internet. The concept is actually very simple: promote your brand, product or service by creating a message that is intriguing and entertaining enough that people would want to pass it to their friends online. However it is but one of many techniques that together have a cumulative effect in attracting customers and subscribers to your business - in attracting targeted visitors to your website. Momentum is gained by aiming every element of the overall strategy at developing the relationship with your visitors.
Viral marketing has been able to successfully allow marketers to increase the value of free services online, because referrals are the major way that most people market with free services. So, these tools of Internet marketing have been able to allow people to significantly pursue various affiliate programs in order to increase the value of these free services. These campaigns can achieve great success they just have to be planned out like any other marketing campaign. Therefore it is considered as one of the most powerful methods of internet marketing and advertising Today.
Viral marketing has become a popular means of advertising and marketing because they are relatively low cost. To avoid being tagged as spam mail, this form of marketing counts on the eagerness of one person to pass on the product. It is doing it's job on the consumers, it keeps them on-line and now with Domino pizza, consumers are buying products just to get more marketing, a never ending cycle. What ever happened to letting anticipation build just waiting for some movie to come out, that carrot in front of you face has gotten bigger and your wallet is getting smaller.
However Viral marketing if done right can be a cost effective way to get the word out about your business and get customers buying although a lot of people talk about it they don't do it very well. Essentially it describes any strategy that encourages individuals to pass on a marketing message to others, creating the potential for exponential growth in the messages exposure and influence. Like viruses, such strategies take advantage of rapid multiplication to explode the message from one to two to thousands, to millions. It uses the power of one customer's recommendation to another to help spread the word about a product or company as it is a method of encouraging recipients to pass along the marketing message to other potential consumers. The impact of video email and the quality of the information presented can facilitate the proliferation of this form of personalized marketing.
Blogging started really taking off after the dotcom boom and bust. It started taking off after WorldCom and other corporate scandals. Blogs and other social software rely upon the trust of the reader, which is why links, references and disclaimers feature on many (not all) posts. Transparency is key in the modern advertising-savvy marketplace. Blogs and the blogosphere in general have become an important tool in the viral marketing frontier. Many reputable bloggers are approached by companies wanting to advertise their services or products, all with the intuitive of instigating a viral effect.

Viral marketing is not only putting yourself out there with some free information, but its utilizing the "coolness" factor by getting people to write about you and spread the word. It is beneficial in that it has the potential to reach large audiences very quickly meaning companies will potentially get their message to their target audience and beyond in hours. Also it is a great tactic to earn revenue when promoting a product or service.
Viral marketing is an ethical means of driving more traffic to your website. Most of these techniques are free to implement although as such will require hard work and commitment. However it is a sophisticated strategy that requires considerable thought. In simple terms it is the technical term for what is commonly known as word-of-mouth advertising. Although viral marketing is as old as human civilization itself, the Internet has brought its efficacy and reach to a new level, and the technologies that provide the motive force behind this movement continue to evolve.
Personally, if I'd been busted for being a poser and poorly imitating youth pop culture I would avoid using phrases like - Busted. I think pop culture and viral marketing have a lot in common as they are both engaging, creative, and unfortunately in the most part largely misunderstood. I certainly feel word-of-mouth and viral marketing is one of the best ways to advertise a product to consumers as I feel it's honest and really gives consumers the perspective from an unbiased individual.

Again, I stress that this is a legitimate marketing tactic which can achieve Fantastic results if it is done correctly, and as Internet marketing is extremely competitive you should use all the avenues that are available to you in advertising your web site and products. Experiment with the various ways of viral marketing until you find the ones that work best for you. Internet competition is a ruthless and competitive rivalry that shows no mercy,therefore every means and methods of internet marketing should be used and employed.
To Your Success As Always

Marketing Tip - The Top 6 Biggest Marketing Mistakes

When I started to write this article on the biggest mistake almost every marketer makes I was going to focus on THE BIGGEST single mistake, but there are several. And, an even bigger aha moment is that most companies that "call themselves" professional marketing companies make the mistakes as bad, if not worse, than the non-professionals trying to build their own business.`

Mistake #1

- Assuming that Marketing Results are Vague, Black Magic, and Not Predictable Marketing tip --Marketing done correctly will provide consistent, predictable results
As a guideline, the national average for direct mail marketing is 0.5% to 1.0%, meaning that if you send out 1,000 letters, postcards, flyers, etc. And IF you are even average, then you should have between 5 and 10 people contacting you.
Although that is considered average, doing some simple things can take that number up to 10%-30%, or even higher.

Mistake #2

- Trying Marketing One Time and Giving Up....Because That Didn't Work. Marketing Tip --Marketing Results, or Leads are one of the critical results of a business that are ABSOLUTELY necessary.
In other words you can't survive without delivering the number of leads needed to survive, nor will you ever super succeed without delivering the exact number of leads needed for that level either. Therefore, when someone tells me that they
Tried marketing once
Tried direct mail once
Tried a newspaper ad once
Or any other approach in marketing and walked away because it didn't work (that's their opinion, not a reality) then I'm looking at a company that will fail soon, or at least not far down the road. Some move on to things that cost less in dollars and cents, but cost more in time, and the results delivered is almost nil. Delivering consistent marketing results, and in the right amount is not a choice. Do it or close your doors! Marketing Tip -- Marketing results, or leads, are dependent on two things

How many people see our marketing materials
The percentage of those that see our materials who actually are COMPELLED to give us a call, signup, or touch base with us in some way.It looks like this: If I need 10 people to call me this week, and if I know that for every person who sees my marketing 1% will call me then I only have to touch 1,000 people with my marketing. Now does that sound hard? Of course it isn't...if you are reaching out to over 1,000 people every week. (# exposed to marketing materials) X (response rate) = # leads .

The problem is that in the hundreds of seminars I've done, most people miss that point totally. They report that they sent out 100 letters and only got 1 reply, so, in their opinion, it didn't work because they didn't get the 10 they needed. They missed the whole concept.
Mistake #3

- Not knowing your response rate Marketing Tip - Always know your marketing response rate, or be finding it.
So, when you send out marketing and have no clue of what your response rate is, then how in the world do you know how much to send?
Well, I'd send out enough to hit the 0.5% as a test market, and then measure the actual results coming back to be used in the next mailer.
Mistake #4

- Not knowing when your marketing isn't working?
Mistake #4A

- Not sending out marketing because it is perceived that it "costs too much."
Mistake #4B

- Not knowing what it requires to acquire a customer? These are sort of one in the same mistakes -
Not knowing when your marketing isn't working, and
How to measure when it does work.
And the answer to both is "what does it cost to acquire a client."How would you define "not working?" There is only one time when your marketing could be defined as "not working" and that is when it costs too much to acquire a customer. Notice, I didn't say what marketing cost. I said what it costs to acquire a customer. Most decisions to not send marketing this month are based on "fear of spending money" when the decision should be made on "for every dollar spent on marketing it will generate X times more dollars" and then we MUST know what X is. If X is larger than an acceptable figure we move forward no matter what the cost because it will always generate more money than we put in. Let's look at it this way, if you could generate 15% every year in the stock market would you do it? Of course....most would anyway. I wouldn't because I believe that for every dollar put into my business I see 10-100 times come out and so I'm always looking for where to invest my money for the greatest return. And if you start managing your business that way instead of where to "avoid spending" you'll find the answer and see similar results. So what does it cost you to acquire a client?
That usually is a result of not knowing what it costs to acquire a lead or acquire a customer, or what the response rate is for your marketing.
Let's say that a mailer costs you $0.35 (for a postcard, printed and mailed, using http://www.usps.com/ ). If you send 1,000 pieces, that is $350, and if you get 1%, or 10 calls, that lead cost you only $35.00 each....right? Not bad if you ask me.
Now that is a lead, not a sale. So, let's say that you close 40-50% of your sales, which I also consider a reasonable figure. That means that it costs you $70.00 to acquire a customer. If that is a reasonable figure for you, then your statement of "I can't afford to send marketing this month" is nothing but a ‘business killer." It really should be changed to "how many customers do I want to buy this month" and then adjust the number of letters going out to deliver that result.
If your sale is small enough that $70 will not work, then we've got to work on that we can. The point is you can't afford to not make this work. We just have to find the results that will work for you.
Marketing tip - Have a clear cost to acquire a customer, and knowing what is acceptable.
Mistake #5

- Marketing that talks about you, your product, your features. Most companies look at marketing as a black hole, or black magic that they have no control over. That is only their perception....in which case they've made it reality....at least for them.
You are going to get a golden niblet here. This is a huge mistake that businesses make, and this is the one that relegates them to the "less than nothing" response rates in their marketing. Learn that this isn't about you, it isn't about your product, it isn't about the features of your product, or even what you do....it is only about one thing...."what your prospect wants and needs, or a solution to his greatest problem."
I know....I know...I hear the grumbling now....You say your product does all of that. The customer doesn't know that, so don't open your marketing with anything about you, your product, your features, or what you do. The first thing at the very top of your marketing should
Get Your Prospect's Attention by making a value statement about what kind of results the prospect could get, or will get, or you will guarantee that he will get, or that a previous customer has gotten. Make it in dollars and cents.Your response rate will jump up to over 5% to 10%. If you've been getting 0.5% to 1.0% (the national average) then this is a 10 to 20 times increase in the number of people walking through your door for a relatively simple change. If you've not even been hitting the 0.5% area, then it is how much bigger than where you are now....pretty darned big. I've seen customers increase their business results by over 10 times in a week by getting this right.
Marketing Tip-Marketing is ALWAYS about the customer, his wants and needs, and his pain or solution. Not about you, your product, features, or what you do.

Mistake #6

- Hiring a Professional Marketing Company That Won't or Can't Define Their Measurable Results When you hire anyone for anything, always ask for measurable results as a guideline. If you noticed in mistake #5 above, I suggested that you state your value in dollars and cents to the customer. After all, he will ultimately make a decision on hiring you or someone else based on the value you bring to the table. When you allow the customer to figure out what you are worth it isn't likely to be anything near what you are actually worth. So, why shouldn't you expect your marketing provider to provide you the measurements you need to make your decision?

Also, when a vendor is aware that that is what they are responsible for delivering they will also start managing it for better and better results. It just seems to happen that way.

So, IF you decide to hire out your marketing then ask one key question:
What measurable results do you, as my professional marketing company, typically deliver?

It should be a response rate, in other words a statement like "approximately 1% to 5% of the marketing sent out should call you" or what other action you want. And keep in mind that 1% is considered average and for a really good marketing company it should be a LOT higher.

Now, here comes the surprise, and something that will save you a LOT of money.
If they won't give you a number...and MOST won't.....what do you think that means?

They don't know - which means that that wasn't on their radar screen, that isn't something they are managing, and that WAS the reason you wanted to hire them...right? People manage what is important to them. They are managing their sales numbers, not the results they provide for you....get the idea?

They don't want you to know what their results are -no further comments needed here?Most will sidestep the question by stating things like:
Everyone is different...therefore, I can't answer that.

You are different....so we'll have to find what works for you.

12 Email Marketing Tips For a Small Business

Email marketing is one of the most effective forms of advertising for small businesses. In order to be successful on the internet and maximise the benefits of the internet, a small business needs to implement a result driven marketing strategy on the internet. The real benefits of the internet can be realised only if a business is able to use the internet to market its products and services.

Email marketing is one of the most effective and fastest growing marketing channels. One of the first steps in a successful email marketing campaign is to build an email distribution list of potential customers. A business can build an email list from a variety of sources including its website.

Managing a substantially large email marketing campaign will require a well planned strategy and may involve the services of a professional marketing company. If you do not have a large email list then it can be purchased easily from a direct marketing company that specialises in email list management. A business can also collect email addresses from potential customers via a newsletter registration form on the website.
Following are some 12 email marketing tips for a small business:

1. Start building an email marketing list of customers
If you do not have an email marketing list you can start building one now. Whether you have a small or a large client base, you can start by first including your existing customers on your email marketing list which you can build upon with time. A small business can start an email marketing campaign from a relatively small list which can expand with time. As new enquiries are received, the list can be expanded. It is a common practice to purchase targeted email list from a professional marketing company.

2. Email registration on your website
Offering customer with a way to register via your website is probably one of the easiest ways to build your own email list. A registration form can be added to your website with ease. The placement of the email registration feature on your website is important and has an impact t on conversion rates. It should be placed on a prominent place on the website. If your website uses a content management system then most likely the newsletter registration feature will be built in.

3. Start a Marketing Newsletter
Sending newsletters to your customers is one of the most effective email marketing techniques. You can start a newsletter on a topic related to our industry. The newsletter can be weekly, monthly or even quarterly. A newsletter provides an excellent opportunity to communicate with your customers on regular basis. You can use the newsletter to subsequently market your own products or services.

4. Improve awareness of your email marketing list
You can take some simple steps to increase the popularity of your email marketing newsletters and growing your email list. Creating a quality marketing email or newsletter requires time and effort so it is best sent out to as many people as possible.
Following are some simple methods to improve awareness about your marketing newsletter or email list and encourage people to register:
• Include a link to register for emails in all email correspondence. • Include information about your email newsletter in invoices, purchase orders and other company documents. • Include email registration link in a prominent place on your website and blog. • Let your team know to inform customers about your marketing newsletter at every opportunity they get. • Create an incentive to subscribe to your email or company newsletter e.g. discount coupons or prize draws.

5. Follow data protection act
It is vital that you respect customer's privacy and take all steps necessary to protect customer data collected by your email marketing campaigns. You should not share information without prior consent from the customer. Your email marketing list should be opt in. When customers register their email address they are agreeing to receive marketing emails from you. If you purchase opt-in email marketing lists, you should do so from reliable sources only.

6. Send quality marketing emails
Nothing can be worse fro your branding than sending out a poorly designed marketing email to customers. You should research the content of your marketing email and plan your marketing campaign in advance. The content of the marketing email should be well researched and offer value to customers. It is OK to promote your products and business in your emails but you should try and offer a variety of information. A well balanced email is more likely to succeed than a purely promotional email. If the email you send is full of self promotion and does not offer real value then customers are likely to un-subscribe or opt-out form receiving emails in future. Focus on quality over quantity.

7. Select an appropriate subject for the marketing email
A good subject for the marketing email plays a vital role in deciding how many emails are opened and read by customers. It is important to choose the subject of the email with careful thought and consideration.

8. Design and Layout:
You should plan the structure of the email with care. The layout should be clutter free and easy to read. The design should be clean and minimalist. Use images carefully. Any images used should be optimised for fast loading time. The design should reflect your brand. You should also Include your logo and contact information.

9. Clean-up your email marketing list from time to time:
If you are maintaining your own email list then you should perform basic list maintenance tasks periodically. Any un-subscribed user should be removed from the list immediately. Similarly all old or not working email addresses should be removed. It is better to categorise your list in to different categories so you can pan your emails and send specific information to specific groups. At the same time any new contacts should be added so they are not left out in the next email you send out.

10. Test your marketing campaigns
Whether you send out regular emails or send then less frequently, it is vital that you test your email marketing campaign properly before you send them out. A spell check should be performed. Any links in the email should be checked to see if they are not broken. A good technique is to send a copy to yourself first.

11. Measure the performance of your Email Marketing campaigns
It is important to measure the success or failure of your email marketing campaigns. There are many ways to monitor the performance. The ultimate measure of success is the number of enquiries you receive as a direct result of your marketing emails. Statistics related to your campaign can provide a useful insight. Most email marketing software will allow you to monitor deliver rate, response rate, click rate and so on. You can find out how many emails were delivered, how many were opened and even how many links in the email were clicked. You can use this information to judge the effectiveness of each email that is sent and to plan and improvise on future campaigns.

12. Call to action
An effective marketing email should encourage users to take an action. Including a call to action statement in your marketing emails can improve the chances of conversion. A call to action can be anything from a request for more information to a link to buy a product.
The Internet marketing blog

Marketing in Transition

Introduction
Marketing is the management process that identifies, anticipates and satisfies customer requirements profitably. In pre-modern economies, the predominance of small enterprise and there was monopoly and there was no recognition of marketing as a separate field of expertise. Marketing emerged as a separate technical field only in the late 19th century.

In the present scenario, the changing needs and wants or taste and preferences among the customers leads to paradigm shift in marketing. This is due to changing attitude and behaviour of the customers, globalization, increasing purchasing power and changing life style of the customers.

Causes for Marketing in Transition
• Globalization - Globalization has brought changes in technology, quality, service, work culture and undoubtedly fierce competition. • Emerging Middle-Class Consumers - the increasing Purchasing Power of the Middle-Class consumers creates the MNC's to seek opportunity in the emerging market. • Changing Lifestyle and attitude of Consumers - since there is a change in the customers lifestyle due to western influence the customer's needs and expectations has increased. • Increasing literacy rate • Children influence in buying decision making • Changing perspective of rural marketing in India • Increasing penetration of mass media • Consumer awareness • Information revolution • An Enormous growth in international business

Formation of marketing concepts and practices • 1905 - the University of Pennsylvania offered a course in "The Marketing of Products" • 1908 - Harvard Business School opens • 1940s - electronic computers developed • 1980s - emergence of relationship marketing • 1984 - introduction of guerilla marketing • 1995-2001 - the Dot-com bubble temporarily re-defines the future of marketing • 1996 - identification of viral marketing

Emerging New Marketing Practices
Due to increased competition the companies had necessity to enhance additional features to their products to promote the sale of their products. Many companies followed different marketing practices to attract their customers.

Winning concepts and marketing practices are • Relationship marketing • Co-branding • Viral Marketing • Sachet Marketing • Green marketing • Rural marketing • Destination marketing • Online marketing • Cause related marketing

MARKETING IN TRANSITION
A transition from a product oriented approach to a resource oriented approach
Transaction marketing Relationship marketing Focus on Obtaining new customers Customer retention Orientation to Service features Customer benefits Timescale shorts long Customer service Little emphasis High emphasis Customer commitment Limited High Customer contact Limited High
Quality
Primarily an operations concern
The concern to all
Nowadays many companies are practicing the new marketing concepts and practices. Some of the examples are as follows.
Relationship marketing:

The domain of relationship marketing extends into many areas of marketing and strategic decision making. In the phenomenon of cooperation and collaboration with customers becomes the dominant paradigm of marketing practices. Relationship marketing has the potential to emerge as the predominance perspective in the paradigm of marketing.

In the fierce competitive market customer relationship management is emerging as the core marketing activity in companies. For that to maintain companies practices customer retention strategies and having good relation with the customers.
Example: HSBC bank sent greeting cards to the customers on their birthdays to have good relationship Whirlpool do very good post sale service to the customers.

Sachet Marketing
In India, Unilever successfully markets Sunsil and Lux shampoo sachets sold in units of 2-4 dollar cents; Clinic All Clear anti-dandruff shampoo sachets at 2.5 rupees each; and 16 cent Rexona deodorant sticks.
Idhayam gingili oil available for Rs 4/- package. To capture the BOTTOM OF PYRAMID also

Green Marketing
It refers to the process of selling products and/or services based on their environmental benefits. Such a product or service may be environmentally friendly in itself or produced and/or packaged in an environmentally friendly way.

Green marketing can be a very powerful marketing strategy though when it's done right. Nowadays all companies are trying to produce eco-friendly products. And many companies have got ISO 14001 awards and strive to get. Examples are ITC products, in the note books, it is environment friendly notebook.

Changing Perspective Of Rural Marketing In India
The great Indian rural market is characterized by huge untapped potential and opportunities. It is estimated that almost 70% of Indian consumers live in rural areas, which generate almost half of the national income. The number of middle income households in rural India is growing to above 111 million by 2007. There are almost twice as many lower middle income households in rural areas as in the urban areas.
A large number of corporate are excited about tapping the potential of rural areas. The recent entry of some corporate like Bharti, ITC, DCM shriram consolidated, EID parry and Amul etc. proved their fascination towards this sector. These corporates tried to develop successful model of integrating information-technology in rural transformation in a profitable way.

The tamilnadu based EID parry has developed an agro-portal www.indiaagrline.com to cater the specific needs of the rural farming community. It is an endeavor to catalyze e-commerce in agricultural and non-farms products by offering a network of partnerships. The content is available in local tamil language.

The Anand, Gurajat based Amuls DISK dairy information system KIOSK project is yet another milestone of integrating corporate sector and information technology. These kiosk serve valuable information related to dairying, breeding and rearing cattle .

ITC e-choupal has emerged as one of the most ambitious project integrating information technology and corporate sector for rural transformation. ITC e-choupal network has already covered approximately 3.1 million farmers through 5050 choupal in 29,500 villages. The company has ambitious plan to reach 1,00,000 villages covering 10 million farmers by 2010 with whopping approximately 1,000 crore. It is opening 5-6 e-choupals everyday in six different states of India.

Pepsi rural marketing
Pepsi company India has entered into rural market by having joint programme with the Punjab agriculture university in ludiana and Punjab agro industries corporation in chandigarh. The programme focuses on evolving agricultural practices to help Punjab farmers produce crops that would make Indian products internationally competitive. To cultivate a range of sweet oranges for its Tropicana range.
Apart from that, they have given advertisement to attract the rural people with the celebrity of Amitabh bachchan and star cricketer sachin tendulkar.

Coca-cola rural marketing
With the help of Isha foundation coca-cola released the CD of the coca-cola tamil CSR film "NESA KARANGAL" and also acknowledged and appreciated coca-cola's efforts in promoting social cohesiveness and sportsmanship with an aim to transform rural lives,
Advertisements to attract the rural customers are maasa-actress Rani Mukherji acted in this advertisement and says "masti ka chataka" , Satis shah's maaza ad is also based on village background.
Aamir khan acted in the advertisement which showcases a beautiful village background with the punch line "thanda ka matlab cocacola" and also ad title "soni kudi" targeted the villagers.

estination marketing:
Destination marketing is all about selling the experience. To sell the experience is far more difficult. In destination marketing media plays a major role . word of mouth plays a vital role in destination marketing . people love to discuss their tour, infact they feel proud in telling their experiences, they bring gifts for their close ones they show their photographs and purchases to their relatives and neighbours
Eg . kerala has implemented the destination marketing very successfully and emerged as the most acclaimed tourist destination of the country in the recent past. Because of this destination marketing kerala has achieved remarkable success in generating revenue and employment in state through tourism. It is estimated nearly $100 million which generate the employment opportunity in kerala.
In the recent past all the successful stories of destination marketing that is Malaysia, Goa, Kerala, Singapore etc.
Emergence of theme parks such as ADHISAYAM, MGM , BLACK THUNDER,- all are examples of destination marketing.
Transition from kirana stores to modern organized retail outlets:
Modern retailing in India is growing rapidly. Although it commands just 3% of the overall retail market share, changing demographics and consumer taste are driving the growth of more than 30% of the modern retail formats. It is expected to grow another 9% in the year of 2010. India is more attractive than ever to global retailers.
Major players in India are:
Pantaloon retail India limited or future group, RPG group, Tata group, k.Raheja corp. group of companies, RRL (Reliance retail limited), A.B.Birla group, Gati, Calvin klein,murjani group, Disney artist stores, Vishal group (vishal megamart) Foreign players in India are Wal-mart stores, Carrefour, Tesco, Rosy blue group, LVMH Group, Metro This transition makes the marketing in transition

Transition in Segmentation: Transition from demographic based segmentation to psychographic based segmentation . since 1950's market segmentation has been referred to as a process of identifying groups of individuals who are similar in attitudes etc. and the segmentation is of demographic segmentation . after 1970s it is psychographic segmentation , know about the customer taste and preferences and collect at the real time point of purchase data. And now it is need based segmentation is using for different marketing functions like advertising and new product development .

Cause related marketing
Cause related marketing is practiced on the rationale that consumers are human beings are kind hearted. The customer pay the amount with some satisfaction that the specific amount is to for relevant social cause.
Example
A sanitary napkin brand "whisper" announced a contribution o Re.1 on every pack of sales for blind relief society. This helps in improving whisper's market share.
HLL announced a contribution of Rs 0.50 on the sale of each of its brand of lifebuoy brand soap to a diarrhea project.
Co-branding
Co-branding is when two companies form an alliance to work together, creating marketing synergy. This co-branding is innovative in the marketing practices.
Examples: • Andhra bank and ICFAI university are using the strategy of co-branding. • Andhra bank and Hindustan petroleum also launched their co-branded card • SBI card and LG electronics India launched the LG-SBI card. This is the country's first co-branded credit card for the consumer appliances industry and can be used at more than 2 lakh outlets in India. • Idea cellular and HDFC Bank launched two co-branded cards providing multiple benefits to customers of both. • Pillsbury Brownies with Nestle Chocolate • Dell Computers with Intel Processors

Online marketing
Internet marketing, also referred to as online marketing, Internet advertising, or eMarketing, is the marketing of products or services over the Internet. Internet marketing also includes management of digital customer data and electronic customer relationship management (E-CRM) systems.

Samsung marketing practices
Viral marketing , interactive marketing
Samsung created its "Fun Club" as a way to engage with Samsung mobile phone owners to help them get the most from their phones. Samsung provides content such as games, ringers, and wallpapers that are designed specifically for Samsung mobile phone models. Hearing about new mobile content is one of the benefits of joining the "Fun Club." Samsung was looking for a new way to use rich multimedia to promote the game, Skipping Stone, to its customers. Samsung engaged Enpocket to create a mobile marketing campaign promoting Skipping Stone using the graphically rich MMS channel.

onclusion
In the present competitive scenario, there should be transition in marketing practices in order to survive in the market. Since "change in the only thing which never change" in the world, companies have to adapt themselves according to the changing environment. The best emerging practices in the corporate world is win-win concept to be the leader in the market.

Top 10 Marketing Concepts For Small Business Marketing

Over the past decade more and more people are getting fired, getting downsized, or getting fed up with their corporate jobs and embark on the journey as a small business owner. Unfortunately, most of the new small business owners fail to consider their marketing plans or strategy. There are many marketing concepts for small business marketing to consider and plan for, but here is our list of Top 10 Marketing Concepts For Small

Business Marketing.

Marketing Concept # 1: Consistency
Consistency is the number one marketing concept for small business marketing only because it is left out of marketing concepts for so many businesses. I have worked with a long list of clients, big and small, that are extremely inconsistent in all areas of their marketing. Consistency helps lower the cost of marketing and increase the effectiveness of

branding.

Marketing Concept # 2: Planning
Once small business owners decide to be consistent with their marketing, planning is the next major concept to engage. Planning is the most vital part of small business marketing or any level of marketing, for that matter, and so many owners, marketing managers, and even CMOs plan poorly. Put the time into planning your marketing strategy, budget, and other concepts presented here to ensure success.

Marketing Concept # 3: Strategy
Strategy immediately follows planning because your strategy is the foundation for the rest of your marketing activities. In the process of planning, you must develop your strategy: who you will target, how you will target them, and how will you keep them as a customer.
Marketing Concept # 4: Target Market
Target market is also another key concept for small business marketing. Defining exactly who you are targeting allows small business owners to focus on specific customers and reduce marketing waste. A well-defined target market will make every other marketing concept so much easier to implement successfully.

Marketing Concept # 5: Budget
Although it is listed at number 5, budgeting is important throughout the entire process. Creating a marketing budget is usually the hardest and most inaccurate part of small business marketing. Most small businesses owners lack a great deal of experience in marketing, so their budgets usually end up skewed. The most important part of this marketing concept is to actually establish a marketing budget. From there, you can worry about how to distribute your available funds.

Marketing Concept # 6: Marketing Mix
The marketing mix is usually defined as product, pricing, place, and promotion. As a small business owner, you must specifically decide on your products (or services), the appropriate pricing, where and how you will distribute your products, and how will you let everyone know about you and your products.

Marketing Concept # 7: Website
In today's market, a business of any size must have a website. I hate when I see businesses that have a one page website with out-dated information. Customers, be it businesses or consumers, will search the web over 60% of the time before making any purchasing decisions. This marketing concept contains a slew of additional components, but you must at least develop a small web presence of some kind and keep it updated.

Marketing Concept # 8: Branding
Many small businesses owners also neglect this concept. Small business marketing must focus on this marketing concept just as much as large corporations do. Branding consists of the pictures, logo, design scheme, layout, make up, and image of your products and even your company. Branding is how your customers perceive (please place a lot of emphasis on that word!) your products and company. Make sure to pay special attention to what kind of brand you are building through each step of your planning and implementation.
Marketing Concept # 9: Promotion and Advertising
Promotion and advertising is a very complex marketing concept, but must be considered for any type of business and its products and services. Once you engage the previous 8 marketing concepts, you must finally let your target market know about you and your products. Proper promotion and advertising will result in effective brand recognition, and, ultimately, increased sales.

Marketing Concept # 10: Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
The concept of customer relationship management has become a huge industry in the marketing world. There are many types of software and services offered to help businesses of any size handle their customer relationship management. Since there is so much available, usually for a large sum of money, small business owners usually look at this concept as something they are not big enough for or have enough money to implement. Don't be fooled by the massive industry that has evolved from this concept. Maintaining proper customer relationship management is essential to creating loyal and consistent customers.
This list of marketing concepts should be examined, researched, planned, and implemented, especially by small businesses, in order to be successful. Also, your marketing doesn't stop here. Each business is unique and will have additional components that must be considered, but this list will jump-start any marketing plan.
Nate Stockard is the owner of Stockard & Associates, Inc, a marketing and design firm in Houston, TX specializing in small business solutions. He is also the author of The Market Seedling, an informative source of information, articles, tips, and advice for small business owners and marketers.

What Is Internet Or Online Marketing And How Can It Help Me?

Internet marketing is the process of growing and promoting an organization using online media as well as the use of the Internet to advertise and sell products and services. By using internet marketing, you are creating your own targeted traffic that becomes leads. Internet marketing is by far the fastest growing advertising method for all companies in this day and age.

Internet marketing, also referred to as online marketing or E-marketing, is defined as the marketing of products or services over the Internet. As of 2007, internet marketing is growing faster than other types of media. This marketing strategy includes all aspects of online advertising products, services, and websites, including market research, email marketing, and direct sales. It does not simply mean 'building a website' or 'promoting a website'. Internet marketing is the process of growing and promoting an organization using online media. At first, internet marketing was special because you needed a specialist to do it. However, in these days you shouldn't need a specialist to do this type of work.

Buts let break down internet marketing into its fundamental pieces. First, is the marketing aspect of internet marketing. Marketing your business on the web has become a complicated process of methods requiring research, analysis, planning strategy and simultaneous execution. It is a complex skill with many different tactics and approaches. Marketing experts are still trying to figure out all of the technical aspects of the internet and it will take a few more years until fixed models are established. In many ways though marketing on the internet is not science; as with all marketing, it's an art. The interactive nature of Internet marketing, both in terms of instant response, and in eliciting a response, are unique qualities of the medium. The Internet as a whole has brought many unique benefits to marketing including low costs in distributing information and media to a global audience.

Although internet marketing is more involved than just having a functioning website, website optimization and website promotion is the premier solution to your internet marketing requirement. Website development, managed website hosting, database and data collection methods, and managing how your information technology interacts with your internet presence or storefront are major components of an integrated marketing strategy. Website design services apply function and style to your internet presence. That presence needs to show that somewhere behind that website is a real organization with real goals. Internet marketing strategies include all aspects of online advertising products, services, and websites, including market research, email marketing, and direct sales.

At one time, Internet marketing consisted mostly of having a website or placing banner ads on other websites. Components of internet marketing (also referred to as online marketing) may include: A website, consisting of text, images and possibly audio and video elements used to convey the company's message, to inform existing and potential customers of the features and benefits of the company's products and/or services.

Without traffic to your website, your business can't make any money. This is known as getting traffic and it is becoming harder and harder to do because the number of competitors you have is growing everyday. Internet marketing is about creating your own targeted traffic that becomes leads. That means you can converse with your users, and select traffic rather than accumulate it. When you use cost per click for your internet marketing you will find that you do at least get quality traffic to your website but the downside is that you will have spent a small fortune getting the traffic. All of these internet marketing considerations should be carefully considered before tactical website design, marketing, or traffic-generation tasks begin: Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Search Engine Marketing (PPC), running an analytics project, interested in e-Mail as an advertising medium, and interested in traffic through branding activities. Branding is basically other activities that do generate traffic, but are also building awareness of your products and services. We know that ALL areas of internet marketing are very challenging and that there will come a time when you need expert services to beat your competition in the traffic wars.

Internet marketing is not a one-shot deal. Although it is easy, it isn't an overnight proposition; it could be weeks, months or years of internet marketing before your Web site becomes viable. Internet marketing is a method that is growing bigger and bigger everyday and is a business imperative because the internet is an irrevocable and unstoppable trend. Internet marketing is a field that is not only about knowledge and experience, but also about imagination. If your small business is using internet marketing, great, don't stop and make sure to periodically review your efforts and modify to get the most amount of traffic as possible. If you are a business owner and not using internet marketing yet, if you want to stay in business, you'd better hop on the internet superhighway and fast before your competition passes you by.

Amanda Birmingham is an independent author and internet marketing consultant. She works with entrepreneurs to improve their internet presence and marketing strategies. For a 10 part course on a particularly effective method of internet marketing go to

Online Affiliate Marketing Earn As You Go

Affiliate Marketing Revolution
Online Affiliate Marketing Earn As You Go. What people fail to realize there are some wonderful things happening in the affiliate marketing industry.
"Earn as you sell marketing" When affiliate programs first entered the market, most people were a little slow to see their potential. While network marketing is enormous and the commission structure seemed so much better, affiliate network marketing seemed like too little commission for the effort.

It most certainly took some time, but soon network marketers started to be informed the strange potential in affiliate marketing and it is now the fastest growing niche in network marketing.

"Earn as you sell marketing" or Affiliate marketing Products were basically an “contracted version of network marketing” with faster results. All forms of network marketing belong to some level of sales and presume introducing people to some sort of goods or service idea. In network marketing it is as much as necessary for the individual to want the product but they have to be so excited about it that they want to get other people interested in it as well.

In retrospect back over my network marketing years I hate to tally up all the money I lost if the goal had been either get people interested in the product or get them interested in the business. Plenty of people loved my products but so few were interested In the business. Maybe part of that was my fault because I am not the best network marketer out there and I'm sure I fell short in my delivery, not enough few times.

Like most people endurably in network marketing. I cast off, for a long time affiliate marketing, it didn't interest me because without evaluating it, it looked just like network marketing. It took me several years to appreciate the difference between the two.

The issue that frustrated me in network marketing was the core difference in affiliate marketing. In affiliate marketing the profit is made whether personality wants to be envisaged in the business or if they just want the product. It's about as simple as finding enough really cool website that you're excitedly and telling your friends how cool it is and so they go and check it out. Of course you'll need more people than most of us have friends in order to make sufficient good profit, but the concept is still the same.

Not enough! “Good Business Is Made Even Better”
Once I began to really consume affiliate marketing and how people were rapidly building fortunes, I was knocked off my socks once again when I discovered how a very specific type of affiliate marketing that was blowing the competition away.
"Affiliate marketing earn per sale" are by far one of the most phenomenal home based businesses on the net to make money. This is the best of all "I failed network marketing because" of the concepts. Most people have heard of affiliate network marketing and for the most part people do conceit what it is and how it works.
If you are an avid fan of different television programs, probably you also have noticed different kinds of products flashed on your television screen in between the program that you are watching. Although it is annoying on your part that there are “unnecessary interruptions” when you are watching your favourite program, you cannot do anything about it. As many will say, it is part of the television network’s programming schedule.

On the other hand, if you are a newspaper fanatic whether of a local newspaper or The New York Times, you cannot get rid of several product and service endorsements placed on different parts of the newspaper. Although classified ads is the designated part for such endorsements, you will still find several product and service endorsements on the front page, sports page, and even on the comics section of the newspaper. Just like the television, many will say that is part of the newspaper’s “income-generating activities”.

Online Affiliate Marketing Earn As You Go Marketing

Among different advertising mediums, the opportunity on the Internet bears the most opportunities, especially if you will advertise Internet marketing businesses. This is one of the more profitable endeavours that you can take in the field of online-based advertising. And if you have the necessary advertising skills and expertise as well as the basics of Internet marketing, you have the potential to start with your own Affiliate program for Internet marketing businesses.
If you decide to start with your own affiliate marketing on the Internet, you should learn the various aspects of Internet marketing so that you will be able to come up with an effective advertising method for your Internet-based clients.
This is popular in terms of product sales, helping an Internet marketing business amass wealth through commission payments on multiple levels. Some examples of online-based companies that make use of MLM are the cosmetic and home decoration product lines. Books sellers like Amazon etc. MLM, or multi-level marketing, is one of the effective ways of producing sales and advertising at the same time. It is a unique system that allows you to collect commissions on your own sales as well as individuals you recruited.

Ezines are another advertising method to introduce the products and/or services of an Internet marketing business. Ezines takes the form of electronic magazines that usually tackle a certain area of interest. It works just like a traditional magazine. You just need to write a perfect ezine that will persuade its readers to patronize the products and/or services of your client.
Once you have educated yourself about these advertising concepts, you are ready to learn some complex yet effective advertising schemes and start marketing your online-based affiliate programs to various Internet marketing businesses and individuals. Establishing your Reputation and Presence as an affiliate marketer, on the Internet Marketing Industry is a lot easier then you may think.

Probably you are familiar with the neon signs of different business establishments around your locality’s business district. It works very similarly to that, you need to learn and set up a few basics, like website, affiliate partnerships, and advertising methodology, all this can be done from the comfort of you arm chair by spending some time learning it.

Advertising is the name of the game. And its mission is to get “as many clients as possible”. No holds barred. Just pure business.
Some people find network marketing plans suit them perfectly and they are capable of running sufficient solid business from these plans. Nonetheless the prerogative of new to home business opportunity seekers are finding the for profit affiliate network marketing plan something they feel more confident in finding their success. Confidence is sufficient key factor in success. Belief in the ability to build a reasonable income is half of what it takes to be successful in any web based business.

Failure can be blamed on different reasons every time you put on your thinking cap. But the reality is they have started the business and they will continue it until the end of businesses and other organizations and people need them, which is probably forever. What you have to decide is, do you want to be part of it or not?

Seven Common Marketing Problems Solved by Marketing Operations

Corporate marketing groups - especially bandwidth-challenged small-to-mid-sized departments - can be so focused on tactics and fire fighting that they jeopardize their marketing investment. There is a tendency to overreact to events, to tackle symptoms rather than underlying fundamental problems and to jump at the opportunity to please the boss. Many times, this kind of tactical knee jerking may be fatal.

Without great marketing, companies won't flourish, especially those in highly competitive markets. Yet the chaotic nature of emerging or dynamic growth companies and the tendency to place the marketing burden on too few individuals is a setup for failure. Promising companies may be left in the dust, or at least handicapped at the starting gate.

Marketing Operations is emerging as an important discipline for improving performance and measuring ROI in admired technology companies (like Intel, IBM and Amazon) who have refined and fine-tuned their marketing organization with an operational focus. Given the demands that these organizations face today, an innovative approach is central to solving critical issues like results measurement, bandwidth constraints and creativity limitations, and building value-added outsourced supplier relationships and effectively managing budget. Many of the best practices, efficient processes and systems approach from large company Marketing Operations can and should be applied by emerging companies that are serious about their marketing investment. Here's why:

PROBLEM #1
Ill-defined metrics
Today, more than ever, corporate marketing departments need to justify their existence. The need to measure results is unavoidable. However, the instincts and skills that make an outbound marketing practitioner great-action-orientation, verbal and written acuity, persuasiveness, the ability to build strong relationships- often don't translate into an ability or willingness to scientifically and objectively evaluate success. Add in broken systems and the organization's unwillingness to pay for marketing evaluation, and it's no surprise that many marketing departments are unable to define meaningful success metrics.

SOLUTION
Marketing Operations ensures that the right processes are in place to establish meaningful metrics at the front-end of marketing process, enabling the measurement of success at key intervals, and as each program concludes.

PROBLEM #2
Slammed resources
The prevailing attitude of "doing more with less" can leave key people discouraged, overwhelmed, near burnout, and eventually, circulating their resumes. The consequences for organizations are costly mistakes, high turnover, and collapsed programs when key people leave, and missed opportunities to leverage the "ugly-stepsister-Cinderella-in-waiting" programs that never get off the ground because of a lack of ownership.

SOLUTION
Marketing Operations addresses these resource limitations by ensuring workload is effectively allocated, roles are clearly defined, interdependencies are understood, team members feel satisfied with their jobs and the programs and additional resources, whether through additional headcount or outsourcing, can be successfully justified to executive management.

PROBLEM #3
Sketchy institutional memory
Marketing is dependent on accurate information, a historical view into past successes and failures, and the ability to recognize patterns that link seemingly unrelated data points. Unfortunately, knowledge in many marketing organizations is scattered all over the company. It's in the heads of individual workers, on shelves, on people's hard drives, in long forgotten filing systems. When people leave, a big piece of organizational knowledge goes with them. Information loss is a huge productivity killer for marketing teams. Lost insight that must be regained or reacquired wastes previous marketing investments.

SOLUTION
Marketing Operations facilitates knowledge sharing, an enduring repository of information and greater decision-making based on fact, as opposed to hunch.

PROBLEM #4
Constrained creativity
The best creativity comes from many brains working together in collaboration. A consequence of the age of the "individual contributor" director is constrained creativity. When the entire creative burden falls mostly on one outbound marketing person, the ability to think out of the box can be severely impacted. Creative synergy results from many minds thinking as one.

SOLUTION
Marketing Operations enables the creative process to benefit from the synergy of team.
PROBLEM #5
Failed supplier relationships
Most successful companies can point to strong, long-term marketing supplier relationships as integral to their success. Likewise, a pattern of failed supplier relationships is often an indicator of marketing department failure, rather than poor vendor performance. Unfortunately, companies that have had consistently bad relationships with outsource suppliers often react by seizing control and bringing everything in house. While this strategy may provides the illusion of control, it lets marketing managers deflect blame for failures, rather than teaching them how to manage their outsource suppliers by taking responsibility for the results. In addition, this strategy won't scale with the growth of the organization.

SOLUTION
Marketing Operations helps set realistic expectations and mutual accountability between suppliers and the organization, increasing the effectiveness of outsource partners by empowering them to act as an extension of the internal team.
PROBLEM #6
Lost discretionary budgets
Use it or lose it. Misuse it and lose it anyway. Many corporate marketing departments are leaving discretionary budget on the table or allocating it to the wrong initiatives. This discretionary marketing budget "Catch 22" occurs because:
• It's very time consuming to manage the budget effectively, especially in companies with broken financial systems
• Each marketing spend-decision creates more work for the one-person or small- team marketing department in terms of project management, measurement, supplier management, etc.
• Doubt persists about the ability to successfully justify the expenditure to management
• Focus is instinctively on high-visibility marketing activities and C-level executive "requests" over fiscal management (marketing people are more inclined toward marketing than finance)

SOLUTION
Marketing Operations facilitates implementing the system support infrastructure and financial management discipline needed to protect precious marketing budgets.
PROBLEM #7
Narrow marketing mix
Many companies align their fate with the success of too few marketing programs. Whether it's lead generation, public relations, trade shows or advertising, the over- reliance on any one particular program can derail a company-especially if a key program unexpectedly loses momentum. In the meantime, programs that could have had strong leverage never get a chance to prove their mettle and are forever relegated to the "B" list.

SOLUTION
Marketing Operations puts the means in place to launch potentially high-value marketing programs that would never otherwise get out of the starting gate.
The Bottom Line
In a nutshell, Marketing Operations is an organization's best bet to:
• Ensure that success can be measured and replicated • Leverage systems and processes to enable consistently excellent performance
• Encourage great marketing departments to stay together
• Allow the marketing organization to flourish, despite the unexpected, but often inevitable, loss of a key employee.
Gary M. Katz, APR, is president and CEO of CommPros Group, a Santa-Clara, Calif.- based firm that provides marketing operations services to help companies leverage their marketing investment, plus a variety of outsourced marketing program management services to support lean marketing departments. Gary is a veteran with more than twenty years of experience in the technology industry where he directed corporate marketing, communications, public relations, lead generation and qualification, investor relations, and employee communications programs. He has served as director of communications for ShoreTel, director of corporate marketing for Aplix Corporation, senior manager of corporate communications for Insignia Solutions, and as a director, account supervisor, or preferred subcontractor for more than a dozen leading public relations and marketing communications agencies. A past president of Silicon Valley PRSA, he holds a master's degree in organization development from the University of San Francisco and a BA degree in public relations from San Jose State University.

"Marketing" -- A Commonly Misunderstood Term

Before you learn more about marketing, you should get a basic impression of what marketing is. See What's "Advertising, Marketing, Promotion, Public Relations and Publicity, and Sales?". Basically, you might look at marketing as the wide range of activities involved in making sure that you're continuing to meet the needs of your customers and are getting appropriate value in return. Think about marketing as "inbound" and "outbound" marketing. (In the following, consider "product" to be either a tangible product or a service -- nonprofits often refer to these as "programs".)

DESIDING HOW TO ENTER THE MARKET

EXPORTING

the simplest way to inter a foriegn market is through exporting.the company may possively export its surpluses from to time,or it may make an active commitment to expand exports to a particular market.in the either case ,the company produces all its goods in its home country.it may or may not modify them for the export market . exporting involves the least change in the company's product lines,organization ,investments ,or mission.

companies typically start with indirect - marketing ,working through independent international marketing intermediaries .indirect exporting involves less investment because the form does not require an overseas sales force or set of contracts.it also involves less risk.international marketing intermedieries -domestic -based export merchants or agents ,cooperative organization ,and export-management companies -bring know -how and services to the relationship ,so the seller normally makes fewer mistakes.

sellers may eventually move into direct -exporting ,whereby they handle their own exports.the investment and risk are somewhat greater in this stategy ,but so is the potential return .

DIRECT-MAIL MARKETING

direct -mail marketing involves sending an offer,announcement ,reminder,or other item to a person at a particular address .using highly selective mailing lists,direct markecters sen out millions of mail piece each year -letters ,ads ,samples ,foldout ,and other "salespeople with wings .'direct mail is well suited to direct,one-to-one communication.it permit to high target- market selectivity ,can be personized, is flxible ,and allows easy measurement of results .

whereas the cost per thousand people reached in highe rthan with mass media such as television or magazines, the people who are reached are much better prospets,from books,magazine sub scriptions,and insurance to gift items ,clothing ,gourmet foods and industriel products.direct mail is also used havily by charities to raise billions of dollers each year.

DIRECT SELLING

door -to- door retailing ,which started centuries ago with roving peddlers ,has grown into a huge industry. the pioneers in door-to-door selling are the fuller brush company ,vacuum cleaner companies such as electrolux ,and bookselling companies such as world book and southwestern .the image of door -to -door selling improved greatly when avon intered the industry with its avon representative the homemakers's friend and beauty consultant .

the advantage of door -to-door selling are consumer convience and personal attention .but the high cost of hiring ,traning ,paying and motivating the sales force result in hgher prices.although door -to-door companies are still thriving ,door -to -door selling has a somewhat uncertain future .the increase in the number of single-person and working-couple households decrease the chances of finding a buyer at home .home party companies are having trouble finding non working women who want to sell products part time.

direct marketing

direct marketing consists of direct communications with carefully targeted individual consumers obtain an immidiate responce .mass marketing and advertising typically reach inan unspecified number of people ,most of whom are not in the market for

about product quality

qualitity is one of the marketer's major positioning tools .product quality has two dimensions-level and consistancy .in developing a product ,the marketer must first choose a quality level that will support the products position in the target market .here,product quality means perfomance quality -tha ability of product to perform it's functions.

marketing planning

marketing planning involves deciding on marketing stragegies that will help the company attain its overall stragegic objectives. a detailed marketing plan is needed for each business ,product or brand .what does marketing plans look like?

the plans begins with an executive summary, which quickly overviews major assesments,goals and recommendations .the main section of the plan presents a detailed analysis of the current marketing situation,as well as potention threat and analysis oppertunitie.

marketing

marketing,more than any other business functions ,deals with costumers .creating custumer value and satisfaction are the heart of modern marketing thinking and practice .marketing is the delivery of the customer satisfation at a profit.

the goal of marketing is to attract new custemers by promising superier value and to keep current custemers by delivering satisfaction. a social and managerial process by which individuals and groups obtain what they need and want through creating and exchanging products and value with other.

the concept of marketers finally brings us full circle to the concept of marketing.b
marketing means managing markets to bring about exchange and relationships for the perpose of creating value and satisfing needs and wants .thus ,we return to our definition of marketing as a process by creating and exchanging products and value with others.

exchange processes involve work.sellers must search for buyers,identify their needs,design good products and services,set price for them ,promote them, and store and deliver them.