MUSINGS

With the rise in popularity of online marketing, many proven offline methods are simply forgotten when marketing campaigns are planned. Of course, online marketing is hugely important in today’s Internet-connected world, but offline engagement with customers still has unique and distinct value that shouldn’t be forgotten. If you want to give your business a real marketing boost this year, start looking outside the box. Here are five forgotten offline marketing tactics that don’t require a big marketing budget. 1. Engage in offline guerrilla marketing Guerrilla marketing is a generic term for the use of unconventional marketing strategies, and because online marketing channels are so narrowly structured, offline is the best arena to flex your small business’s guerrilla marketing muscle. So, starting now, ignore what you know about marketing channels, and let your inner child out to play. Offline guerrilla marketing ideas: Leave sticky notes in random places (bars, coffee sho...

Why It’s Critical To Connect Your Offline & Online Marketing Andy Lombard  on November 11, 2013 at 9:02 am MORE All of the buzz about digital marketing has left an old, familiar and still viable marketing medium in the dust: offline programs. The marketing divide between online and offline spheres can be so epic, in fact, that it’s not uncommon inside companies to see separate print, Web and social marketing teams using different strategies and launching campaigns that are in no way connected. But those silos only exist inside marketing departments. The customer’s mind perceives one continuous brand. We live in a world where customers casually cross multiple marketing channels throughout the course of an hour and can see a kiosk ad, print promotion and social media campaign within moments of each other. It’s no surprise that consumers tend to be distracted; recent research from  Reponsys  shows that customers tend to spend 30 seconds or less absor...

Let us go through certain tips for marketing new products and services: Know your product well . Unless and until you understand what additional features or benefits your product is offering, you will never be able to promote it effectively. Search on google and make a list of competitors dealing in products or services similar to your organization. For example, if your organization sells mobiles and laptops try to find out companies which are also in the same business. Go through your competitor’s website and understand their offerings and what all new strategies or unique marketing techniques they are undertaking to promote their products or services. Do not blindly copy your competitors but it is always good to keep yourselves abreast with latest updates in your respective industry. You can also go through competitor’s brochures, leaflets to have a clear understanding of their efforts. Visit their office as an end-user and analyze what different things they are doing. Trust me...

It is crucial to understand the complete product life cycle before introducing a new product or service in the market.  One needs to understand that every product goes through certain stages starting from inception to its manufacturing, marketing, branding and finally losing popularity in the market . It is essential for the organizations to manage the product life cycle well as it ensures the product is launched successfully in the market and also gain popularity in no time eventually leading to increased sales and profitability of the organization. Let us understand product life cycle in detail: Product life cycle starts the moment an organization (more specifically product team) thinks of introducing a new product in the market. Getting ideas to design a new product or service marks the beginning of product life cycle.  Understand the expectations of your target audience  and how your product should offer something extra than your competitors. Know what you want...

Often, people get confused with the concepts of  brand management  versus product management. They tend to think that both are the same since they deal with a specific product being marketed and hence managed from incubation to sales. However, there are crucial differences in the way product managers and brand managers operate. For instance, brand management is all about creating a mind space for the product whereas product management is concerned with features and specifications as well. Further, brand management is often done in consumer product companies that have more products and product lines and hence the overall emphasis on the brand image is more. On the other hand, product managers operate in environments where they have to take care of a single product and hence bringing it to the market is their brief and so they tend to concentrate on the big picture. Moreover,  brand management is associated with consumer product companies whereas product management is...

What is Brand Personality ? Brand personality is the way a brand speaks and behaves. It means assigning human personality traits/characteristics to a brand so as to achieve differentiation. These characteristics signify brand behaviour through both individuals representing the brand (i.e. it’s employees) as well as through advertising, packaging, etc. When brand image or brand identity is expressed in terms of human traits, it is called brand personality. For instance -  Allen Solley  brand speaks the personality and makes the individual who wears it stand apart from the crowd.  Infosys  represents uniqueness, value, and intellectualism. Brand personality is nothing but personification of brand. A brand is expressed either as a personality who embodies these personality traits (For instance - Shahrukh Khan and Airtel, John Abraham and Castrol) or distinct personality traits (For instance - Dove  as honest, feminist and optimist;  Hewlett Packard ...

Brand name is one of the brand elements which helps the customers to identify and differentiate one product from another. It should be chosen very carefully as it captures the key theme of a product in an efficient and economical manner. It can easily be noticed and its meaning can be stored and triggered in the memory instantly. Choice of a brand name requires a lot of research. Brand names are not necessarily associated with the product. For instance, brand names can be based on places (Air India, British Airways), animals or birds (Dove soap, Puma), people (Louise Phillips, Allen Solly). In some instances, the company name is used for all products (General Electric, LG). Features of a Good Brand Name A good brand name should have following characteristics: It should be unique / distinctive (for instance- Kodak, Mustang) It should be extendable. It should be easy to pronounce, identified and memorized. (For instance-Tide) It should give an idea about product’s qualities an...

The primary objective of advertising in any society is to influence the independent thinking of the people and change their behaviour. Nevertheless, advertising has also some social responsibilities to inform people of the various choices available and educate them about the superiority of a given product by explaining its characteristics. Thus the consumers can freely decide for themselves as to which product to buy and which product to avoid. There are some areas of concern where advertisers need to be more responsible to community needs. These areas are: Advertising is considered to be an environmental pollutant: Most advertising is opposed by people because it is difficult to absorb. It is too pervasive and too intrusive in peoples’ personal lives. In this context it is considered a pollutant for mental environment. This is specially true about TV advertising. Television advertising is intrusive as the TV medium reaches a heterogeneous audience of all ages, all educational leve...

The problem of selection of the best medium or media for a particular advertiser will vary greatly, depending on the particular situation, circumstances and different other factors in which a person is conducting individual business. Media selection involves a basic understanding of the capabilities and costs of the major media. The problems which the advertising has to face in the selection of media are: Profile of the target market Coverage or exposure Frequency Continuity Impact Copy formulation Media cost and media availability. In addition to these problems there are a number of other major factors which influence the decision of the advertiser and therefore, the same must be considered while selecting the media. The most significant of these factors are: Objectives of the campaign Budget available Research concerning client The product Type of message or selling appeal Relative cost Clutter The potential market Miscellaneous factors. The media select...

Before finalizing the advertising budget of an organization or a company, one has to take a look on the favorable and unfavorable market conditions which will have an impact on the advertising budget. The market conditions to watch out for are as follows: Frequency of the advertisement Competition and Clutter Market Share of the Product Product Life Cycle Stage Frequency of the Advertisement This means the number of times advertise has been shown with the description of the product or service, in the granted time slots. So here, if any company needs more advertising frequency for its product, then the company will have to increase its advertising budget. Competition and Clutter The companies may have many competitors for its product. And also there are plenty of advertisements shown which is called clutter. The company has to then increase their advertising budget. Market Share To get a good market share in comparison to their competitors, the company should have...