Internet Marketing People Buy From People They Trust And Like

You have seen the latest movie trailer of the Green Hornet on TV but you have mixed feelings about whether you would go to watch the movie in the cinema.

You find the acting too cheesy and the special effects too far-fetched. Are you going to spend your hard-earned twenty bucks to watch a movie that you might not like?

Probably not, but what if your brothers or sisters or you office colleague said that they have a wonderful time watching the attics of these actors and you would probably have changed your mind and go to queue for the tickets.

Lessons learnt here: it is not that you do not have the trust of these movie studios’ promotional ads in to getting you to see the movie, but you would rather hear it from your trusted friends’ review about the movie. The word of your friends does help to change your mind and made a decision. You have trusted him and everything he said holds weights. In other words you have related to him and you like him.

So, you see that when you write your sales copy, you do not have to use those powerful words or those sneaky words or have to use all the tricks by embedding those commands and phrases.

You do not need to be a snake-oil salesman to do magic for you. All you need to do is to get people to relate to you. You have to make friends with people, and make them feel like they trust you and like you.

So you have to start identifying what your market you want to be in. Get to know who will be your customer, get a visual image of what is it that they want and that would save you all the heart-ache later on whether you are selling the right product to the right people after all.

Definitely you will not get wrong if you know what your customers is taking about and what they want.

The common mistakes make by copy writers is that they are fast in putting on their sales man cap as soon as people are placed in front of them.

You know, people do not like to relate or feel comfortable to sales people. So do not put up a barrier so early in your relationship with your prospects.

If you would talk to your prospects like you are talking to your friends, they would disarm any barrier and eventually they will buy from you.

It is a matter of how you would talk to a friend, like how you would communicate when you are with them talking in a restaurant.

Knowing them and talking to them is like you have identified your market correctly. It is important to be friends to them in your copy.

People trust you before they like you, and they must like you before they start to buy from you.

Marketing Strategies The Product Mix

Before we can dig deep into this articles subject which is product marketing lets first define marketing:

-First of all marketing is one of the many branches of management; marketing consists of studying the market :
One has to determine which product, services he can offer to the market by studying the demand the behaviour of people, of society the marketer has to analyse the market very methodically, he has to keep in mind that he has competition, indeed nowadays monopoly is becoming rare on a giver market, I admit that some companies have more power than other on certain markets (For example Microsoft when it comes to Operating Softwares
Microsoft is the leader on the market. Even if It has competitors like Apple.

– The marketer should also enquire about laws; regulation to make sure his product isnt illegal in any way.

-The marketer needs to specifically target a market segment:
For example if a company is selling toys the consumers will be children so the market segment that will be targeted will be children but the actual buyer wont probably be the child himself so the marketer has to keep in mind that he should not make a product that wouldnt be appreciated by parents as well as children.

Now that the notion of marketing is defined (although I gave a very general definition and explained the concept) lets go deeper into the subject of Product marketing.
Product marketing is part of marketing mix which consists of 4 politics also called 4 P rules:
-Product
-Promotion
-Price
-Place

What is a Product?

A product could be anything from a car, a table, a rug
What is common between all these items?
The answer is that they answer a need; every product is made to answer the need of a particular market segment
There are different categories of products:
-Consumer goods
-Capital goods

Product marketing is the activity that
-adapts the product according too the need of the market
-Differentiates the product from the products of their competitors for example when a company decides to launch a new portable video game console they have to make sure that their product is bringing something new compared to the products of their competitors or if their product is very similar to the ones of their competitors they have to offer it at a lesser cost. The targeted market would be young adults.

Product marketing is a direct result of the marketing strategy concerning the offer of a product.

Another aspect of product marketing is distribution:
Now that we know what product we will offer, and to whom we need to find a way to make the product reach the consumers In other words: Distribution
To distribute the product a company has several choices:
-The company can distribute its product itself this distribution mode helps preserving the image of the company, (the product will be available at some places, it will be in a sense rare. (Available at places selected, owned by the company).
-The company can distribute a product threw a retailer, in this distribution mode the product will gain reach (it will be available at many places), the retailer will then sell it to resellers who deal directly with the consumer.

Once the distribution mode is set a price has to be fixed for the product, and the price is once again fixed by the market ,indeed if a company is selling a product at 200 its competitors cant possibly sell a similar product at 500.
The marketer has to study the market price for a given product and adapt it according to the features of his own product.
-And last but not least the promotion for a product how should people get to know that there is a new product or a new range of products on the market. The marketer can use several platforms:
(TV, radio, newspapers) one important aspect I can emphasize is:
For example if a company is making toys and chose to advertise their product on tv they have to make sure that their ad will be seen by kids and place it accordingly (for example between two children entertainment programs).

-The dimensions of the product are also an important matter :
A product has 3 dimensions
– Material: represents the purpose of the product its characteristics, what it can accomplish
-functional: represents the utility of the product from a consumers point of view, the way the consumer will use the product.
-psychological: is in a way how the market perceives the product the image of the product on the market.

Product mix is not only applicable on products but also on services for example in the hotel industry all the hotels have the same purpose: lodge their clients , but some are rated as five stars other are rated less , its because of the services they provide to their clients
(Leisure, conciergerie, spa, massage)
Hotels also have to target their market segments; a five star hotel wont of course target the same clients as a 2 star hotel

An article by Mon Hotel

Overcoming Marketing Clutter

What was the last marketing piece that blew your mind?

Why companies need to work on overcoming media clutter . . .

Advertising is no longer the novelty it once was and has become so commonplace today that most of us barely notice it. Indeed, marketing clutter surrounds us in our daily lives through television, radio, newspapers, internet, billboards, and even your coffee cup! With such fragmentation of the media it is but natural that only outstanding advertisements catch the viewer’s attention and live on in human memory.

Likewise, ads too have changed. Gone are the days of mere showcasing of the product. Ads today have taken on an emotional hue and products have developed character to become brands. To stand out ads need to connect with the consumer in more than a sales-pitch manner. Aspirational marketing draws on people’s deep-seated dreams making them desire things that they do not truly need. Some emotional advertising even draws on negative cues such as fear or insecurity (eg insurance products) to earn sales revenue.

Advertising designing too has advanced greatly. Simple black and white images have been replaced by hi-fi graphic designs that jump out at you as you walk past. Images have always been a great way to grab audience attention as they say much more than words in a limited time. Some advertisers get carried away and plaster their ad space with words and images to get the most out of the media space they’ve paid for. Quite often, print ads with a lot of white space actually attract more eyeballs.

But the real problem behind ad clutter lies in the proliferation of brands in a booming economy. When people have a choice between 500 different toothpastes, marketing seems like the only way to be the preferred brand. While every company worth its salt seeks to be on every media platform possible, media space costs spiral and so do the costs of the products themselves, leading to a vicious cycle.

So what is the solution to such an obvious problem? The way to overcome marketing clutter is to constantly innovate. Once there is a breakthrough, chances are the new medium will be exploited untill it becomes monotonous to the audience in a very short span of time. In such a scenario, new innovations in terms of creative ideas, media, and message delivery are constantly required to keep the audience engaged.

Some of the greatest breakthroughs in marketing have been thanks to the internet. Social media marketing, pay per click advertising, search engine optimization, have all revolutionized the way companies spend their marketing budgets and given the smaller business a chance against the heavyweights.

The other surefire way to engage the audience today is through interactive advertising. Anything that gets the viewer to do more than passively look at a picture or watch a TV commercial is more likely to make a mark due to the levels of engagement it demands.

With a daily increase in products and brands, advertising clutter is likely to continue. In this media jungle, only the most creative or those with the deepest pockets will ultimately survive.

The Advantage And Disadvantages Of Brochures In Marketing

Marketing is a way of delivering information and encouraging consumers to try your product. The most popular ways of marketing is through the television, radio, internet and print ads. One form of print ad marketing is through brochures. Brochure marketing is a popular choice among small and medium scaled businesses because they relatively cost lesser than the other options except internet marketing.

There are several advantages and disadvantages of brochure marketing. It is important that you have an idea about what they are to help you discern whether it will work for you or not. Advantages are:

Having a brochure for your business or your institution proves your credibility. If you have the budget to pay for your letterheads and your business cards, a brochure can do you more. Aside from using it to feature your products and services to attract potential customers and investors, you can also use it to show your achievements throughout the years or your objectives in achieving your goals if you are just starting.

It makes your clients realize that you are serious and you mean business. With the growing competition in the business world today, only a few realize the benefit of having a brochure. Doing so will show that you give importance to all your clients because not all of them have the time to watch TV, listen to the radio or surf the internet. Therefore, giving them a brochure allows you to give them the chance to read what you have to share in their most convenient time.

Giving away brochures saves your time from typing separate letters that you need to give away to your clients. By having them printed at the same time, you do not have to go through the hassle of encoding and printing one letter at a time just to give to those who show interest in your products.

They come in handy. If you want to tell your clients more about your business, all you have to do is to give them a brochure that they can read for a better and clearer understanding of your products and services.
Disadvantages

Brochures do not necessarily mean a closed deal. If you are in a real estate business or if you are in car dealership, giving away brochures does not necessarily mean that you already have the deal. However, it is one way to encourage potential clients to read through it but other than that, nothing follows.

Brochures are expensive to make and change. If you do not know how to make your own brochures and if you do not have the right equipments, you will not be able to come up with the quality that you expect. Having them changed because of missed information and corrections is the same as having a new brochure printed.

Sometimes, if you are introducing a new product that are not of interest to your potential client, they simply ask you to just leave the brochure on the table. No matter how informative they are and how good your intentions are, they make the brochures a kind way of asking you to leave them behind.