Selling to a Woman Vs Selling to a Man
Different approaches should be taken when selling products
or services to a man when compared to a woman. As they say
that men are from mars and women from Venus both of them think
very differently and hence, their thinking should be influenced
by different methods. For example, when a man decides to buy
a car he looks out for the latest model, speed, mileage, etc.
But when a woman goes out to buy a car she will choose a car
depending on the color. She would like it match it either
with her work dress or accessories like watch and will be
concerned whether there is enough space to store her necessities.
Because their psychologies differ so much, they should be
convinced to buy a product using different methods. Presentation
is also very important. The salesperson talking to a male
client doesn’t have to concentrate much on looks and cleanliness.
It is okay if he doesn’t have the required documents on hand
and his sleeves are folded up. But when the same salesperson
is referring to a female client, he should be spotless from
head to toe. He should comb his hair properly, have manicured
nails and even his shoes should be well-polished. The salesperson
should be prepared with all the necessary documents before
hand and shouldn’t go rushing in front of the customer. Women
seek perfectionism. Words should be spoken with extra care
in front of a woman customer. Women are better listeners and
they will analyze each spoken word. A lot of emotion should
be involved in the talking because women are drawn to emotions
immediately. Like when selling clothes to a lady, tell her
how you will feel bad for her if she has to sweat badly in
the summer due to her nature of job. Pick a nice cotton dress
for her and ask her to try it. The customer will be highly
touched and will take less time to buy the product. Seventy
five percent of the job is done if she is won emotionally.
Next important point is to never stop talking in front of
the female customer. The moment the salesperson stops talking,
she will start thinking deeply about the product and will
start examining every detail of the product and will give
a second thought to the product. Women have the capability
of multi-tasking. They will be able to listen as well as read
the manual at the same time. So keep her involved into many
things at a time. A man lacks the talent of multi-tasking.
If a male client gets involved with something else, stop speaking
immediately because he will be unable to concentrate on both
the things and it will lead him into a confusion state. Another
point to be taken care of is, it’s not a good idea to have
a woman salesperson when a male client is to be handled. Women
talk a lot and men are bad listeners. The woman salesperson
will go on and on about the product and the man will just
nod his head without getting any meaning out of it. They will
not able to express properly whether they are getting the
point or not. But on the other hand, a woman client can easily
express how much she has followed. Even if they don’t speak
it out, her facial expressions will tell it all. So when a
salesperson is dealing with a female customer, he or she should
watch out for the client’s expressions. If she shows any state
of confusion or dislike, try taking a different approach.
Men clients can be made to understand about the product by
simply drawing the outlook of the product using a simple pen
and paper. Men have a good capability of visualizing the three
dimensional images of the product which is being referred
to. But women are not so good that. To present a clear picture,
the sample or the actual product should be shown to her. Complimenting
a male customer is a very good idea. He will be over whelmed
and will take it in a good sense. But a woman is a careful
listener, so any compliment should be given with extra care.
Any fake compliment will be immediately detected.
trademark
A trademark is a distinctive signature, sign or saying that
in some way depicts a specific company. It is used to identify
a product, a service, or an event for a specific organization.
It is used to help that organization stand out from others.
In legal terms, a trademark is also a type of industry property
of that organization that can not be used by any other organization
for their needs. Legally, this would be a violation of trademark
law.
Usually, a trademark is a symbol, a logo, or some type of
design that is used in some way by the organization. It can
be an image, a phrase, or just a single word. Sometimes it
is a combination of these things, such as in a company name’s
design.
In some cases a trademark can even be something that is used
to help a person to stand out. You could easily see this in
some celebrities. Who can forget Elvis’s hair? Other
celebrities have used trademarks to help them to stand out
as well.
In short, a trademark is a brand name because it helps to
identify your product with your name. While people don’t
remember names well, most will remember symbols especially
when they are designed in such a way as to create a memorable
image! That’s something you’ll want to insure
your trademark does.
According to the United States Patent Trademark Office, a
service mark is, “A service mark is any work, name,
symbol, device, or any combination, used, or intended to be
used, in commerce, to identify and distinguish the services
of one provider from the services provided by others, and
to indicate the source of the services.” From this,
you can clearly see what a service mark can mean to your business.
This is in comparison to a trademark, which is defined by
the United States Patent Trade Office as, “a trademark
includes any word, name, symbol, or device, or any combination
used, or intended to be used, in commerce to identify and
distinguish the goods of one manufacturer or seller from the
goods manufactured or sold by others, and to indicate the
source of the goods. In short, a trademark is a brand name.”
Why give you these definitions used by the USPTO? It’s
simple. These are the legalities of the process. You need
to understand that a trademark is something that you own,
not something that can be shared with other businesses or
even borrowed because you think it fits your business better
than the owners.
benefits of trademarking
It seems like a lot of work to trademark a business or a
product, doesn’t it? For many people it can be somewhat
of a challenge. For others, especially large companies, the
process is simply handed over to their attorneys to go through.
Even though it may take some time to develop the perfect trademark
and to put it in place, the benefits of having one are quite
amazing. In fact, an effective trademark can actually stand
out as its own advertisement for your business!
Just think of those arches. Think about the Wendy’s
girl. You can even picture your favorite Staples logo, can’t
you? Just seeing those symbols triggers an instant thought
about visiting those locations. You don’t have to be
hungry and you definitely don’t have to need staples
and pens to want to visit those locations. In effect, you
want to create this same type of trademark for your business
so that you can benefit from increased advertisement and name
recognition just through your trademark.
There are additional benefits to registering your trademark
too. Remember this isn’t just about creating a great
logo, but registering it! The benefits of registering your
trademark are many. Here are just a few of the reasons why
you can’t forget this step.
When you register a trademark, you get protections that come
with it. For example, consider these benefits to registering
your trademark for its protection benefits that you’ll
get:
1. You get to protect the company’s name and logo. That’s
your most valuable asset when it comes to your business.
2. You will get the ability to use that trademark around
the country as the owner of it. Nationwide ownership is yours
when you register the trademark.
3. When you register your trademark, you also help to protect
yourself. If someone or another company says that you are
using a trademark in some way that infringes on their trademark,
they are less likely to be successful in suing you for it
if you have it registered federally.
4. In the same boat, if a company comes along with developing
another trademark that is just like yours or is similar to
yours they can not do this, or at least they can not register
it. Once the trademark is registered to you, it is yours.
They also can’t claim that they didn’t know because
it is registered.
5. In addition to this, a foreign registration provides
the same protection. When you register in the United States,
you will have more opportunity and a good basis for registering
the trademark on an international level as well.
When you register a trademark, you are given the future rights
to that mark and also to make the mark “incontestable”
which is evidence that makes the mark valid. It provides you
and only you with the legal and exclusive right to that mark.
As you can see, there are several protections that come from
registering your trademark. The process is not that difficult
and this benefit along is enough to push anyone over the edge
of not doing so.
successful trademark
The key to a successful trademark is making it unique. In
some fashion, you need to have a trademark that will stand
apart from all others. You also need to have a trademark that
will somehow jog the memory of those that see it so that they
can know it.
This is a complex consideration. For some, it means hiring
a professional to design the trademark. Yet, you should also
understand what it takes to make a trademark actually be qualified
to be registered.
As we have discussed, a trademark must be unique. If someone
where to design a trademark like your own, you would want
the United States Patent and Trademark Office to reject it.
The same thing goes for you and your design needs.
You need to develop and design a trademark that is completely
unique and your own. It can’t be too similar to other
people’s already registered trademarks. More so, it
has to be unique enough so that your consumers don’t
confuse it with other products or services on the market.
This would make the trademark worthless.
First things first, you want to insure that your trademark
is unique enough to pass the trademark searches and to be
legally able to be registered.
There are some ground rules that are established by the USPTO
that can help you to understand just how unique the trademark
has to be and what’s required of it to be considered
a unique trademark.
When you apply for a registration for your trademark, the
first thing that will be necessary is for a trademark search
to be completed.
For this to happen, an attorney will be assigned to investigate.
The examining attorney, as they are called, will then search
the United States Patent and Trade Office records to insure
that your trademark is completely unique and not too close
to another’s trademarking symptom or design.
The attorney is looking at your trademark in comparison to
others.
If and when there is a conflict and your trademark is considered
to be too close to that of another’s trademark, the
application for your trademark is denied and refused by the
examining attorney.
If there is another application that is pending acceptance
at the same time that yours is and each of you has a trademark
that is similar, the trademark application that was submitted
first will have the priority. You will be notified that there
is another application pending that has a trademark that is
similar to your own.
In that, should that trademark not go through for some reason,
then your trademark would be eligible to be filed. Should
that trademark actually go through and become registered,
then there is a conflict and your trademark would not be filed
with the federal process. The examining attorney makes the
decision regarding the issuance of how similar to two trademarks
can be.
Should there be enough similarity; the trademark filed second
is not accepted. This can be quite difficult to take on considering
you may have spent dollars and hours working on developing
the right trademark for your specific business or product.
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Relationship Marketing
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Relationship Marketing
Relationship Marketing is targeted at building
stronger and long lasting relationships with
clients and other companies. The business is
done with a strategic orientation, where the
relationship is improved with existing customers
rather than finding new customers. It is meant
to cater to the needs of individual customers.
Its major part involves studying the need of
the customer and how it changes in different
circumstances.
Relationship marketing applies techniques like
marketing, sales, customer care and communication.
The relationship is not only enhanced but its
life period is increased by these strategies.
And as the customer realizes the value of relationship,
they are drawn closer. This marketing not only
focuses on building relationship and attracting
customers to their products and services but
also how to retain them.
A raw form of Marketing came into existence
in the 1960s. But, organizations were still
facing difficulty in selling products, so a
system was developed to sell low cost goods
to larger group of customer. Leonard Berry and
Jag Sheth originated this marketing, in 1982.
It was started in B2B markets and industries,
which involved long term contracts for many
years. Over the period of time, various marketing
strategies were improved and relationship marketing
was one of them.
Relationship marketing is applicable where
the customers have many options in the market
for the same product or service and the customer
is entitled to make a selection decision. In
such a kind of market, businesses try to maintain
their clients by providing comparatively better
products and good service and hence, achieving
customer loyalty. And once it is achieved it
becomes difficult for competitors to do well
in the market. The customer turnover wasn’t
paid attention on as the main attention was
on customer satisfaction. This kind of marketing
was initially named as defensive marketing.
Offensive marketing is the marketing strategy
where not only new customers are attracted,
but also the sales are stepped up by increasing
the purchase frequency. This kind of marketing
concentrates on freeing dissatisfied customers
and acquiring new customers.
According to a research, the cost of retaining
an old customer is only ten percent of the cost
of getting a new customer, which makes sense
to not to run around to get new customers in
relationship marketing. And according to another
research done by cross-sectional analysis, says
that, a five percent improvement in customer
retention is responsible for twenty-five to
eighty-five percent of the profit. Usually high
cost is incurred when getting new customers,
so if sufficient number of existing customers
is retained, there will be no need of acquiring
new customers.
Once the customer trust is gained his chances
of switching to other company becomes relatively
less, he buys goods in bulk, he buys other supplementary
goods and he starts neglecting average price
variation. This maintains the unit sales volume
and there is an increase in dollar-sales volume.
The existing customers will be like a living
advertisement. If he is satisfied with the company
he will recommend it to his friends and acquaintances.
Since the existing customers are familiar with
the process, it will take less time and money
to educate them about the procedures putting
fewer burdens on employees also and making them
feel more satisfied with their jobs. The customers
are divided into groups based on their loyalty.
This procedure is known as relationship ladder
of customer loyalty. The groups in ascending
order are prospects, customer, client, supporter,
advocate and partner.
Due to the advancement in computers and Internet,
software has been developed to facilitate customer
relationship management. With the help of this
software the tastes, activities, preferences,
and complaints of customers are tracked. Almost
all the companies have this software in their
marketing strategy, which benefits the customer
as well as the company.
Thus the main aim of relationship marketing
is to construct and maintain relationship with
committed clients who are meant to bring profit
to the company. The other benefits achieved
are confidence building and social benefits.
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Tricks to sell your product
The whole idea of the marketing and sales is
to play with the psychology of the consumers.
In any campaign, efforts should be made it make
it so influential that the decision making of
the customer is totally in the favor of the
company.
There are some tricks to manipulate the mind
of the consumers, which can be utilized by not
only ordinary sales person, but can be used
by larger firms. Although they are used unknowingly,
there is no set list.
Mutual exchanging is the first and powerful
trick. The company can start with giving something
for free to the customer. He will take it for
the first time, but from next time he will feel
obliged and will try to return the favor. Offering
the product for free initially can do this.
And if the customer is satisfied with the product,
he will buy it for himself from next time. Some
salespersons get confused with this principle.
For example, it is ineffective and wrong according
to this principle, to quote ‘Spend over
$25 and get a free t-shirt’. The offer
is not free; the customer has to spend something
to get the free product. The product being given
should be totally free without any condition
to be fulfilled. For example, the line ‘Get
the latest lipstick shade absolutely free’
will do the trick. If the shade is really good,
they will buy it the next time and might even
think of buying other shades of lipstick.
The next trick is to present something as of
high value, but the company should incur only
small or no amount in producing it, like information.
It can tempt the customer by saying that the
information provided to them is a big time secret
and is not known to anyone at all. But some
mess it up, by saying that they are providing
very valuable information, but it turns out
to be another advertisement.
Another example is giving out free sample to
the targeted customers. Again the mistake made
here is that companies distribute samples of
poor quality or rejected products. This certainly
lowers the customers liking towards the product
and he will assume that’s the way the
product is actually and won’t go ahead
to buy it.
Use words, which initiate immediate action,
like ‘Limited time offer’, ‘Offer
ending soon’, and ‘Offer till stocks
lasts’ are really motivating. The customer
gets the impression that the offer will end
really soon as the products are limited edition
and he should go out and buy it at the very
first chance. This works well specially with
customers who have an interest in collecting
antiques, collectibles and anything which are
not easily available.
Tricking the customer in making a commitment
is another next good method to increase sales.
The trick is to make the customer to take small
steps toward the goal, without realizing about
it. Like when the customer requests for some
information, provide them with the relevant
information for free and make them fill a form
and take contact information from them. This
is like committing to get offers and information
about products in future. Do not advertise in
this step. In the next step advertisements about
products and services can be sent to the customer
to the address provided by them. Conducting
surveys is another example.
Lottery is another good method. When a person
buys a lottery ticket, he fills his address
on the ticket. This information can be used
to contact the customer in future. In the above
practices it’s very vital to not to advertise
in the first step. Only after getting the customer
contact information, should promotional mails
be mailed to him. Long advertisements that are
featured in the newspaper are a small twist
to this trick. If the customer invests time
to read the whole advertisement, he has committed
and will surely respond to the ad.
Marketing Strategies
Marketing strategy helps organizations to focus
their attention to complete resource utilization
to increase sales and win over their competitors.
Every company applies some kind of marketing
strategies to maintain existing customers, attract
potential customers and also to maintain and
enhance their reputation in the market.
When designing a marketing plan, first a marketing
strategy is taken into consideration. The marketing
plan consists of steps to be taken so as to
attain success in the implementation of the
marketing strategy chosen. Big projects involve
selection of different strategies at different
levels. Usually a strategy consists of well-sketched
tactics. They are meant to meet the needs and
finally reach marketing objectives. Each of
the strategies has pre-calculated results because
when a particular strategy is chosen at a particular
level, its outcome becomes the goal of that
particular level. If there is an absence of
a well thought strategy in a marketing plan
means it is supposedly lacking a good foundation.
A reasonable marketing strategy should not only
facilitate marketing goals, but also the action
sequence of a campaign.
At regular time intervals the firm should analyze
the marketing decision. This is done with the
help of strategic models and the 3C’s
model is considered for this purpose. To calculate
the company’s strategic position, Ansoff
matrix is used. The 3C’s model determines
the factors, which leads to the success of a
marketing campaign. There are three key parties
involved in this model the corporation, the
customer and the competitors. The involvement
of all the three key parties leads to positive
results and this involvement is known as the
3C’s or strategic triangle.
The role of the corporation is to increase
the strength of the company in the success critical
areas, when compared to that of the competitor.
The customer and his interest form the basis
of any strategy. The competitor also plays a
vital part. The competitor-based strategies
are based on the functioning of business competitors
like design and engineering, sales and servicing,
and purchasing.
When making a marketing plan depending on some
particular strategies known as mix strategies
are used. 4P’s model is used to calculate
whether the plan is sticking to the strategies
or not. The four Ps stand for product, price,
place and promotion. Products are goods produced
by the company on a huge scale for the purpose
of selling them and earning profit. Price is
the money paid for a product by the customer.
The price is based on many factors like competition,
market share, customer perception and product
identity. Place where the product is sold can
be either physical store or store on the Internet.
It is also known as distribution channel. To
make the customer knowledgeable about a product,
the marketer does promotion. It involves advertising,
public relation and point of sale.
There are different types of marketing strategies
based on some criteria. Challenger, Leader and
Follower are types of market dominance strategies.
Market dominance strategies are used to dominate
the market. Cost leadership, Market segmentation
and Product differentiation are types of porter
generic strategies. Porter generic strategies
are built on strategic strength or competing
abilities and strategic scope or market penetration.
Close followers, late follower and Pioneers
are types of innovation strategies. Innovation
strategies are meant to trigger the rate of
product development and model innovation. It
helps the firm to incorporate latest technologies.
Intensification, Diversification, Vertical integration
and Horizontal integration are types of growth
strategies. Growth strategies facilitate the
growth of the organization. Marketing warfare
strategies are conjunction of marketing strategies
and military strategies.
A marketing strategy or a mix of them is chosen
only after thorough market research. A marketer
should always be ready to face any kind of situations
like if the strategy is changed in the middle,
he should be able to perform another market
research so as to choose the proper strategy,
within a short period of time. This can be done
easily if you have experience.
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Recognizing Target Market
Achieving good sales is the ultimate target
of any firm. Many criteria, such as competitive
pricing, near perfect product, reaching out
to correct audience and motivational advertising,
are responsible for this and should be dealt
with in marketing.
First things first, all the efforts will go
futile if the correct audience is not recognized.
It is the major factor in getting abundant sales,
because the right customers aren’t targeted,
they won’t buy the product. The right
customers are known as targeted customers or
niche market, those who will be happy to buy
products that fulfill their needs and is also
less pricey.
Small businesses shouldn’t fear competition
with large companies as they produce products
considering a bigger spectrum, which sometimes
won’t be customer specific as the products
are more generalized and they don’t much
care about the competition they might get from
others. This gives an opportunity to the smaller
firms to produce products, which can cater to
the need of a section of people whose needs
aren’t met specifically by the large companies.
Although it seems like a silly question, but
firstly, a firm should understand who are the
people they want to target. The success lies
behind understanding this, which requires thorough
research and analysis. Various factors must
be considered. The age group is the first factor,
whether the product will be useful to babies
or children or teenagers or youngsters or middle
aged or old. Sometimes there is a possibility
that the product will cater to the needs of
all age groups. Next thing to consider is gender.
Marital status, occupation, ethnic background,
health status, income status, education, hobbies,
etc., are some of the factors that should also
be pondered upon.
After decided upon the customer group to be
targeted, the benefits that can be provided
by the product to this group should be jotted
down. A thorough examination of the service
or product should be done for this purpose.
If there is sufficient time, a survey can be
conducted on the current customers and pose
them with questions like what they liked in
the products they are using, anything discomfort
they are facing, do they want anything to be
changed to make the product better, etc.
After making a list of all the benefits, thought
should be applied to which of these benefits
will actually help the targeted audience. Make
a short list of the benefits that will be advantageous
and send it to the marketing department. It
can surely help in their marketing plan and
can boost up sales.
Internet has made reaching out to the targeted
customers can be very easy. Search engines can
be utilized to the maximum extent for this purpose.
The thing to be exactly searched can be typed
as a keyword or search phrase in the search
engines and the results brought on the first
three pages will be of great value. But lots
of time and investment is involved in this process,
as different keywords will fetch different search
results. So efforts should be made to finally
get what is desired.
Next best thing is reaching out by newsletters
and ezines. Many ezines are related to marketing,
finance, shopping, Internet, etc. A number of
ezines websites can be found in an ezines directory,
which even contains the contact information,
advertising price, etc. The list of ezines website
sites should be cut down to which are relating
to the target market and ad should be placed
in the ones selected which should include all
the product advantages if the ad allows that
many words.
Recognizing the target market is crucial to
any successful advertising and sales campaign.
Once it is recognized, they can be reached through
different channels like websites, newspapers,
magazines, etc. This makes the customer think
that he is being directly addressed to. And
since the whole approach will interest them,
the amount of traffic received in return will
be simply overwhelming and the whole effort
will be worth it.
Marketing through E-mail and Issues Surrounding
it
Email marketing is one of the forms of direct
marketing, which is done via Internet. Emails
are sent to potential customers to boost the
business, and gain the trust of the customer
by disclosing relevant information and help
them to make good shopping decisions. It also
enhances the relationship with a current customer,
by repeating business with them. In simple words
the procedure of sending emails to customers
is known as email marketing.
The major advantage of email marketing is that
it doesn’t consume a lot of time, is minimal
resource consuming and is also cost-efficient.
Within a short period, a large audience can
be targeted. Features such as Subscriptions,
bounced messages, web bugs, and click through
help enables businesses to track potential customers.
Since the customers can be directly reached,
feedbacks can be collected with ease. In terms
of cost also it is not as expensive as newsletters.
Reports have proven that this is the next best
marketing technique after search marketing.
It is effective in tracking the returns on investments.
Email marketing is a modernized version of
mail marketing. The advantage over direct mail
marketing is that it takes less time to reach
a customer than mailing. Like people check their
mailboxes daily, inbox is also checked by majority
of the Internet users on a daily basis. Over
the period of time, lots of helpful tools and
web services have been developed. List host
is web service that provides lots of options
to the marketers like managing huge emails and
email address database. If the budget is more,
list managers can be hired who can be given
charge of opt-in-email newsletters and managing
databases. Software is also available in the
market that does this job too.
When the customer fills the form for the first
time, there are check boxes to be ticked which
reflects their interests. Depending on these
choices, an advertiser sends information to
them, this is known as opt-in-email advertising,
because the customer has opted to receive emails
and marketing like this isn’t illegal.
The content of the email can be elaborate, but
it shouldn’t be too long as people are
really busy for that. The call to action, also
known as effective words, in the email should
be chosen with care. It’s not necessary
that the content should revolve around only
one item; related product’s information
can also be included. This is known as cross
selling. By using email blasting or sending
an email to multiple customers at a time can
save a lots of time and will also increase the
efficiency.
The dark side of email marketing is spamming
or also known as bulking. Some companies collect
email addresses of people illegally and send
irrelevant mails to them, which can be very
annoying. Some hackers design an email like
an advertisement, but when clicked on downloads
adware and viruses that can destroy a computer,
which makes it even more dangerous. To make
matters worse, the Direct Marketing Association
of America has petitioned to make spamming legal.
Some prohibitions are also placed on providers
who help out business organizations to manage
their email marketing by giving them already
prepared email templates.
Most of the mailing websites have added the
facility of separating spam from genuine email
by creating separate folders for both and this
is known as spam filtering. But in case of large
number of spam mails, a useful mail can go into
that folder and can go unnoticed and gets deleted
with the rest of the spam mails. This kind of
mail is known as false positives. But the chances
of this happening are rare. There are many laws
against spamming like United States’ Can-Spam
act, Europe’s privacy and electronic communications
regulations. According to these laws, the companies
should get their return address authenticated,
false physical addresses should not be included
and a one click unsubscribe link should be place
in the email. The lesser penalty involves companies
sending spam to be blacklisted and on a larger
scale, they can be heavily fined.
Attributes of a Successful Selling Strategy
The first attribute of a successful selling
strategy is a website that provides information
about the products and the service they are
providing. The advantage of that is we can sell
those products and services online. Selling
is a talent to be cultivated. It requires a
lot of understanding to find what the customer
is looking for and then fulfilling his needs.
It is very important to get the complete attention
of reader. The content of the message should
be make reader think. This can be achieved by
using power words, along with color and visuals.
Once the attention is grabbed, it should be
retained till the end of the message. The customer
should be prompted to take some action and their
involvement should be sought. They can be made
to sign up for newsletters or can be made to
take the survey by visiting the company’s
website.
The consumer should be convinced to buy the
product. All the features of the company should
be specified, with the more relevant ones on
the top. They should be explained logically
through these points how the products will fulfill
their needs or solve their problems. It does
only by convincing the customer about this will
motivate them to buy the product. They should
be made to understand what wonders the product
can do to him. Strong emotional words should
be included in the sentence. The customer should
either fear the loss of the product if he doesn’t
buy it in time or he should be given the greed
of the advantages the product can provide. These
reasons will create an emotional impulse and
will make them think that they have no other
option to buy it. They will have a logical reason
to make the purchase. The emotions of the buyer
should be manipulated with words.
Something like ‘limited edition’
or ‘limited period offer’ will create
a sense of urgency. The customer thinks that
he should get this product somehow. It’s
nice to have sales often, especially to clear
out old inventory in the name of some offer.
The products which have an obvious damage should
be sold out at a special price. But the damage
should be mentioned to the customer. If it’s
not mentioned, the first time the customer will
be tricked into buying something, but he will
loose trust and won’t come back again.
Always hold seasonal sales and offers. Since
all the competitors will be giving out different
offers to attract customers, it’s a good
point to have one, too. But it should be remembered
to not to imitate anyone. Only a unique offer
will make the customers not go to the competitors’.
Once in a while offer free shipping offer also
works. A condition like if a customer spends
particular amount of money, all items will be
shipped for free. This is another attractive
deal which will surely tempt the customer. Thanks
to search engines and online stores anything
can be purchased from the comfort of the home.
Give away free sample to the customers or keep
a pre-sale price for introductory products.
The customers won’t think twice to spend
a little money to try something new.
The ending of the sales message is where most
people mess it up. The whole efforts will be
wasted if the customer gets a second thought.
He should be convinced, by nice words, to buy
the product till the very end. The content should
be arranged with care. The key is to tell the
customer what to do exactly after he finishes
reading the matter, like ‘Grab the golden
opportunity now’ or ‘pick up the
phone and dial the number right now’,
etc. Do not include links or short advertisement
of other products or services. This will shift
the focus of the reader and he might have a
second thought. A list of the existing customers
should be maintained and from time to time special
offers should be mailed to them. So basically
the whole idea is to influence the mind of the
customer until he buys a product.
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Creating a Corporate Image
For any corporation it is very important to create a distinct
image in the market. This is known as Corporate Image which
distinguishes the corporation from its competitors and provides
a picture of it to the general public. It depicts the principles,
beliefs, productivity of the company. This image is responsible
for increasing the sales of the product and to achieve brand
equity. Corporate image creation is a strenuous and time consuming
process and is carried out by experts qualifying in perception
management. Basically, the creation involves marketing experts
who used various kinds of promotion methods and public relations.
Since this image is targeted to attract the customers it should
be highly appealing. Besides the marketing experts critics
play an important role too.
The name of the corporation and its catch line should reflect
its belief like Wal-Mart, which says that it sells for less.
A logo should also be designed accordingly. Like the corporation
FedEx has an arrow incorporated in its logo which depicts
its fast and efficient service. Once the image is created
by the corporation the next step is advertising and product
distribution in the market. Like if the corporation creates
luxury products, they should rope in big names in the advertising
experts and the models to be featured in these ads should
be super stars. Likewise, they should not distribute their
products to every other store; instead they should target
more hi-fi malls. Time to time, advertising and branding budget
should be reviewed to cut down on cost and to be in-sync with
the technology. This also helps in revamping the corporate
image according to the fast changing demands of the consumer.
Testimonies of news papers, magazines, and labor union can
deteriorate a well-created corporate image. Simplest of controversies
can be exaggerated by the media and spoil the name of the
company. Controversies are born by the interference of organizations
related to environment, religion, crime, politics, education
and charity. Government, too, is another powerful and influential
organization by itself.
Once the corporate image is created, it should be retained.
It should not be like here today and gone tomorrow. This image
should be reflected in all the brands and product line of
the corporation. Even if one of the products isn’t up
to the mark, it will lead to confusion among the consumers
and will hit the sales of the company. Like recently there
was controversy about a particular contact lens solution of
a company. It was supposed to be infecting the users with
a rare disease. This not only affected the sales revenue of
that particular product but also made the customers think
and raise question about the authenticity of other products
of that particular company.
Another company’s products had hidden non-vegetarian
ingredient in a vegetarian product. This led to the decrease
of trust among the customers. In such a case the company should
either advertise itself as a company selling non-vegetarian
food or it should invest in promoting the company as vegetarian
by introducing more vegetarian products. So the image of each
individual product of the company makes up for the complete
image of the corporation. And last but not the least, the
image should be very realistic, truly representing its values
and should leave a personal touch with the consumers.
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Marketing and Sales: What is the difference?
Marketing and sales are one of the most important
components of a business’s survival in the market.
While both are dependent on each other many people
confuse marketing with sales and vice-versa which
is a big mistake. Marketing involves designing a product
according to the needs of the market and customers,
promoting the product through advertising etc. and
setting up a competitive price for the product. Marketing
is a platform which drives sales. While on the other
hand the sales process is what you do to successfully
sell a product and fetch a contract. Sales and marketing
together is a part of selling and one cannot do without
the other. They can also be called activities. The
success of a business is critical to the success of
these two important activities.
Marketing is the backbone of a company’s future
and launching pad for the sales. While the marketing
process encompasses the design of the product, advertising
etc. the sales process is the execution of all the
efforts which involves direct interaction with client
either by in-person meeting or cold calls or by networking.
But there is always an ongoing rivalry between the
two, one claiming dominancy over other. The marketing
people say they have an upper hand because they think
it is they who designs the products, lays down the
strategy and also develops tools essential for sales.
They say sales are the outcome of marketing and thus
should follow its directions. The sales people might
not agree to this view and may be completely opposite
in their opinion. They think that it is the sales
people who actually sells a product and bring money
to the business.
But many experts believe that marketing should play
a pivotal role among the two. A successful marketing
campaign makes sales easy and makes people believe
that it is actually the sales people who are the dominant
leaders. The most important role of marketing department
is to create opportunities for the sales department.
Marketing drives sales and sales drives companies’
success. Marketing is like a life support for sales,
one who is constantly backing up the sales department
and enabling them to successfully deliver the end
product. There shouldn’t be a race to gain supremacy
over another department but a race to win the market
and customers working together.
Many businesses combine sales and marketing together
but in reality they have different targets. While
the sales department is interested in fulfilling the
requirements of what the customer asked for, the marketing
department is actually busy studying what the market
demands. The goal of the marketing department is to
foresee how the market will shape up in future. They
should envision their product catering to the needs
of the market for next few years and be ready to make
design changes in their product accordingly.
It is very important that a company integrates their
sales and marketing department in a well fashioned
manner. It is the correct integration of these two
important entities that fuels the growth of a company.
The sale people should not be merely treated as the
cash collectors. Each department has its own role
and should go hand in hand in selling the product
of the company and should be the foremost important
criteria.
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Differences between Marketing and Advertising
Marketing and Advertising, although they sound similar but
in reality they are not. Advertising is only a part of the
bigger game called Marketing. Marketing encompasses complete
conceptualization of a brand right from research to designing
to advertising to sale. Advertising, on the other hand is
a component of the marketing process which is nothing but
conveying the message through variety of mediums to promote
the product.
Advertising is one of the most important component of a marketing
strategy and also the most expensive. Advertising constitutes
sending the message across the public about your company,
product or services. It also constitutes behind the scenes
work like the process involving formation of various strategies
and coming up with a right one to target the viewers. The
strategy consists of planning things like placing ads, deciding
what media to use, what time, frequency etc. The advertisements
are generally placed via mediums like television, snail mail,
newspapers, internet, emails, radio, magazines, mobile messaging,
flyers, billboards etc. The most popular one is of course
television although advertising on internet is becoming increasingly
popular too.
Easiest way to differentiate advertising from marketing is
to consider marketing as a cake and if you cut the cake, advertising
as one of the pieces of that cake. The other pieces of cake
are market research of the product, product designing, media
planning, PR, product pricing, customer satisfaction, customer
support, sales and many more. All these components or pieces
of cake should work independently but collectively in achieving
the bigger goal i.e. sell product and build company’s
reputation in the market. Marketing is a marathon process
involving many tasks that involve hours sometimes days of
research. The research part of marketing takes the longest
duration as it involves thoroughly understanding the behavior
of people towards a product. Designing the product and developing
advertising strategy is also a time consuming process. Only
components that take less time are executing advertisements
and sales. Marketing can also be perceived as a medium between
consumers and the company.
But many companies often make mistake of confusing advertising
with marketing. They try to ape big companies like Coke and
Pepsi in advertising but they simply ignore the work that
goes behind that. The classical example of this is, take the
case of logo for instance. Many business owners are so hysterical
about the logo of their company in their advertisements that
they think that it will simply bring in the sales. But what
makes a logo works is none other than the reputation of the
company and the logo must have a feeling to it and should
truly reflect company’s values. One should also remember
that these companies spend fortunes on advertising which a
new start up business can’t. Rather than spending unnecessary
money on branding your product one should invest money and
time in communicating to the consumers that they can address
their expectations. After building reputation and growing
to a big size company one can think of these lavish ideas.
Educating the consumers also helps as it will give them an
understanding that you know what you do and are best at doing
that.
Smart marketers are aggressive in approach rather than passive.
They provoke reader’s minds by prompting them to do
something rather than just making them knowledgeable of the
product. Smart marketers also bring home the names, addresses
and contact numbers of people who are really interested in
hiring your company by employing aggressive marketing. Thus
having a good marketing campaign speaks a lot about the company
and their products and advertising gives that finishing touch
to the hard work done by the marketing people in selling a
product.
Digital Marketing
Utilizing online distributions methods to promote products
is known as digital marketing. This approach is both time
saving and cost effective. Digital marketing is done through
items such as cell phones, SMS, MMS, instant messaging, websites,
emails, banner advertisement and digital billboards.
Digital marketing involves some of the techniques of direct
marketing and Internet marketing. In digital marketing traditional
methods of promotions are executed digitally. It involves
marketing in two forms, pull and push.
Pull digital marketing requires the user to pull or extract
the content directly. The customer has to approach the promotional
matter and see the matter by himself. Examples are websites,
forums and web logs. All these require clicking on a URL in
order to view the content. The content that is being displayed
doesn’t have to follow any guidelines. Effort is required
to only display the content on the website or forum and there
is no additional cost of sending the information to the customer,
but the customer has to make the extra effort of reaching
to the content .The customer doesn’t have to opt-in
for such kind of promotion and one message is being viewed
by all and it cannot be personalized. The customers who see
the content cannot be traced, although the click through rate
can be considered which give details about the number of clicks
the message received. This is be done by enabling the click
though tracking during the campaign, which records the information.
Push digital marketing technologies requires the effort of
both the marketer and the customer. The marketer has to push
or send the content to the customer and the customer has to
make the effort of receiving it. This is a very effective
kind of marketing and the investments surely earn a big return
as it creates brand recognition. SMS, MMS, emails, RSS podcasting
are examples of push digital marketing. Since the content
is sent to individuals, it can be personalized according to
the intended recipient. Whether the message has been opened
and viewed by the customer or deleted it can be tracked and
reported. Information related to the customer such as name,
geographical location could be traced. But when sending this
king of message, certain criteria should be met as the SMS
and emails sent are monitored. If the marketer doesn’t
follow the rules and regulations properly, there is a possibility
of messages getting rejected and blocked, before they reach
the targeted audience and the message is considered to be
spam. Bigger consequences involve marketers getting blacklisted
temporarily or even permanently. The number would be blocked
and they won’t be able to send any messages at all.
Messages sent to the RSS feeders require a mechanism with
an application to reach, when sent by an email marketing system.
Both forms of digital marketing should be used in consonance
to achieve positive results. A smart marketer sends out emails
along with SMS and uses multiple channels to market his products.
The type of messages being sent should also be different from
one another. They should not only be text, but animations,
audios and videos. There is a possibility of using pull and
push message technologies in conjunction like the email sent
to a potential customer can have a URL or a banner ad, which
on clicking downloads information. If there is enormous group
of people to be reached via email, Email service providers
can be hired who sends loads of emails to the customers on
behalf of the marketer and they take measures so that the
messages are not considered as spam.
Although much of the marketing is opt-in, federal laws, such
as CAN SPAM Act, have been passed to protect the customers
from unscrupulous marketers who would go to any extent to
promote their products or hackers or spammers who have a bad
intent i.e. like harming the computer or installing adware,
spyware on people’s computers.
How to write a winning sales letter?
Writing a sales letter is tough and writing a winning sales
letter is even tougher. Many sales managers break their heads
thinking why they can’t get it right. Well, to answer
this question they should put them in people’s shoes
and ask what “benefit “would I get by reading
this sales letter? Remember that word “benefit”
which is the crux of this discussion. Many sales people take
bits and pieces of information from here and there and create
mess out of a sales letter. They literally throw everything
on people and then get what they deserve, instant rejection.
One should always remember that a sales letter works only
when you have a product to sell and an offer to make. A sales
letter should not be an introduction of your product or company.
Remember every word is important in the sales letter and do
not waste a single one which would distract your potential
customer’s attention. They are not interested in the
features of you product but an offer or a benefit to them.
Think from the customer’s point of view and ask yourselves
why should I read the letter? Is there any benefit or offer
to me which cannot be refused? Can you convince me that it
is really a good offer?
After keeping in mind these things, sales managers should
apply thought in presenting their letter. The header or the
headline is very crucial to any sales letter. It should target
directly to the customers of your product. One also needs
to be little tactful in use of words. But if you are not good
at the trade do not attempt to do it and rather be simple
in writing it. The headline should not be more a line, so
try to be as specific as possible but with maximum affect.
Nobody has time to read each and every letter in this fast
paced era of instant satisfaction. If you are not able to
convey your message to the audience in stipulated time, then
you have lost those customers. The headline should start with
a benefit being offered to the customer. This ensures that
the customer goes to the body of the letter at least.
Now, having made a good effort with the heading, it’s
the time to work on the body of the letter. How to maintain
the level of enthusiasm that you created in the customer’s
mind with the heading? Once again it is important to remember
to not to focus on features of the product you are trying
to sell but on the benefits and offers you are making to them.
Things like how much money it is going to save them and how
it would affect their lives should be mentioned in the body
of the letter. Make them realize a need for it and compare
it competitor’s product. Remember, a person reading
your sales letter will constantly get questions in mind as
to how this will benefit me, after each and every sentence.
So be ready to clear those doubts and answer the questions.
Being little informal in the approach wouldn’t do a
harm and try to grab the attention by relating things to real
life things. You can add a little bit of humor but unless
you are sure that it won’t be in the bad taste of the
reader. Bring in few previous clients to give testimony of
your products. But keep the testimonials believable and something
that people can relate to.
Once you’ve made clear about the product, do not forget
to prompt your audience to take action. If it is an email,
prompt your reader to click on a link to act now or provide
a contact number if it is a direct mail. Also remind them
again that if you don’t act now you will forfeit the
offer as the offer is for limited time only.
Once you are done with the letter, one of the important parts
of the sales letter is P.S. Many people simply read the beginning
and end of the letter. So, try to convey something that will
prompt them to go back to the letter and read it. It will
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