Marketing for Beginners

Implementing word of mouth marketing

noreply@blogger.com (Irwin) — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 03:27:00 +0000

Yesterday, I explained simple case about word of mouth activities, one of fundamental marketing activities. Now, I will carry on the word of mouth further, namely implementing word of mouth marketing.

You must maintain your company's reputation as possible. When you keep sustainable company's good reputation, then you will easily perform word of mouth marketing activities. However, if your company's reputation was already bad, then you must make improvements first. Even with the help of any endorser or adviser, they will not be able to do much if you and your company's image have been damaged in the public eye. After struggling to improve your company's reputation, then you can start word of mouth marketing activities.

How to implement word of mouth marketing?

Based on surveys conducted in several places, the parties who have considerable influence to other parties (influencers) are the key to a valuable asset for a company and its products.

Nearly two-thirds of overall sales that occurred in America is influenced by word of mouth promotion, either directly or indirectly. The survey was conducted by McKinsey based on reports obtained from the companies.

The study that was conducted by Roper ASW shows that about 10 percent of Americans have the power and able to influence the habits from 90 percent of the other parties.

Value of word of mouth promotion has increased and grew by one-half times from average since 1977. As a result, this form of promotion rewarded two times compared to other kinds of promotions. This data is taken from Roper Reports Public Pulse.

It should be noted also, the influencers are not those who only considered the famous people. For example, although a particular newspaper or media that are considered popular then advertise something, not necessarily other people directly concerned and believe in the campaign. It has different case with personal websites teen boys who I had been talking about in previous article. (see word of mouth marketing simple case).

Reputation and fields from a source that was involved also greatly affect word of mouth promotion. For example, people do not necessarily believe in a barber who recommends car shampoo to your car. Although, it is undeniable, there are many psychological factors and believe to certain parties, where that party does have the ability to influence others to make decisions.

Last, It is right time to really consider this word of mouth marketing. Marketers and public relations are well aware of this must have made a strategy to be able to conduct a campaign word of mouth marketing properly and effectively.

Articles that are related for implementing word of mouth marketing:

WoM marketing

Relationship marketing strategy

How to improve customer satisfaction

Word of mouth marketing - simple case

noreply@blogger.com (Irwin) — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 10:28:00 +0000

Before reading further, you should read previous article in order to get comprehensive understanding. I have explained about basic of word of mouth marketing. Now, I will continue on the subject.

Marketing practitioners said that promotion marketing beside WoM (traditional promotion) has several shortcomings. It produces word of mouth marketing becomes very important today. What are the deficiencies of traditional promotion? Approach to marketing and promotion of traditional or ancient is impersonal, one-way, and often ignored by customers. Customers today are becoming increasingly dependent on the resources they already believe or respect to make a purchase decision, and forming an opinion on their minds.

Word of mouth marketing

The market today is very fragmented. This makes the buyers are able to issue options in seeing advertisements or advertising that launched in bulk. They often do not believe anymore in the ads in the mass media. This means that other ways should be pursued in order to get their attention and win their hearts.

As a result, PR (public relation) practitioners must master the art of activities which can influence target audiences. In a world where success is determined not only from the "what" is known by its customers, but also "who" is known by its customers, it would require a strong influence from trusted sources to be able to make a program or a brand success in market.

Depending on the existing organization, the people who have a strong influence, which can affect many people to make a decision (often referred to as "influencers"), can be a media, authors, academics, analysts, certain associations, celebrities, government , experts, and also researchers.

There is one case where a company that produces software games found that there was a young teenage boy, who on his own initiative, promoting the company's games on his personal website. The result, these teens unconsciously been doing promotion word of mouth to all his friends. Incidentally, he is also an individual who is known and experienced in the intense world of gaming. Then all his friends become interested to play the game. Did you know that his friends did not even notice anything about the company that make the game. They only believe in adolescent boys when he is talking about the game. The conclusion is decision to buy had been more influenced by the beliefs of a particular source.

Last, the marketing and PR practitioners who are able to capture the importance of word of mouth promotion can get the most benefit from both companies and their clients, by establishing a good promotion strategy and can handle the crisis. All company and its products need a support so that they can form a positive impression and positive opinion in the public eye.

Articles that are related for word of mouth marketing simple case:

WoM marketing
Relationship marketing strategy

How to improve customer satisfaction
Implementing word of mouth marketing

Word of mouth marketing - 1

noreply@blogger.com (Irwin) — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 08:11:00 +0000

Word of Mouth has always been an interesting phenomenon to be discussed. Some marketers have a skeptical outlook and contempt for this kind of promotion, because often the promotion of this kind require a very small fee, and even no cost at all. See my previous article about this, the title is marketing method to a limited budget. But, this promotion can also be quite a challenge if we compare to other kinds of promotions that require large expenses.

Word of mouth marketing can be divided into two aspects: the volume and content. Between these two aspects, the volume is dominant. In order to investigate the activity of word of mouth, it is advisable to observe the direction, scope, activity level, and tones of the existing volume.The company is considered necessary to understand the importance of word of mouth to the success and development company.

There are many challenges that company must face in marketing competition. So a company has to:

-change the image (we can call it reposition) through Public Relations.

-introducing new product or revision of basic product.

-enhance customer support especially after the sale.

-communicating face to face to the customer about company’s performance superior,

Word of mouth can help or make four action above smoother.

At present, people are attacked by thousands of messages (commercial advertisements). This makes people do not care about advertising, so word of mouth promotion from people who they believe is more important. Word of mouth can be formed, and new trends can also be formed.

Promotion of mouth from other people that are trusted by a customer can be a 'blessing' own for the marketer. Almost every organization know the true value and impact that may result will be the promotion of other parties who have trusted completely by the customer.

Above action supply right information, with the correct format to the right people. It will intensely affect the success or failure of the existing public relations programs.

This is first series of word of mouth marketing, please look forward to another word of mouth marketing.

Articles that are related for word of mouth marketing:

Relationship marketing strategy

How to improve customer satisfaction

CRM process - collecting customer data

noreply@blogger.com (Irwin) — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 02:39:00 +0000

After discussing customer loyalty, I will explain about CRM (Customer Relationship Management). There is a very close relationship between customer loyalty and CRM. Customer loyalty is the goal of CRM. If described more simply, a company implement CRM in order to make the customer repeat his buying and was satisfied with the experience of using a product company.

CRM Process
CRM is an interactive process that converts data customer data into customer loyalty through four activities, include: Collecting customer data, analyze customer data and make the identification of target customers, develop CRM programs, and finally implement CRM programs. It would be easier if the process is illustrated by the diagram shown below:

Collecting customer data
This is the first phase of the CRM process. Customer databases usually contain data that is collected about the customers. This database will be the basis of the next CRM activities.

I will give examples of basic information or customer data examples which are usually collected, you can add or modify in accordance with the needs of your company. The example is as follows:

-Transaction complete history of customer purchases made.
-Customer’s contact.
- Recording of the customer interactions with your company.
-Information about what customers liked or the most widely purchased by the customer.
- Demographic and psychographic data information that describes the customer.

Tips for getting customer data
There are some people who do not want to give information about themselves to others, such as email addresses, telephone numbers, and so on. To gain successful CRM programs, you must obtain a complete customer database. For that, based on my experience in running a business, I will give tips for customers willing to give their contact data. The tips are as follows:

-Offer a shopping card or card member
The program is also intended for a customer loyalty program. By having this card the customer will be given a discount to attract them, giving rewards for a particular point of purchase, special services intended only for people who have a member card, and other exclusive programs.

Customer will provide demographic data and other information when customers will sign up to get a member card.

-Connect your account numbers and credit card (third party)
Some companies can collect enough information about its customers through transactions with personal information derived from transaction data obtained from a credit card or account number.

In this article I discuss only the first point of the CRM process. I'll continue the discussion of the CRM process for point data analysis, developing CRM programs, and implementing CRM programs on the next articles.

Articles related to CRM:
CRM software
Inbound and outbound CRM
Relationship marketing strategy

Things that influence people to buy

noreply@blogger.com (Irwin) — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 04:45:00 +0000

Factors affecting why people go shopping are things you should know in detail. Why? By knowing these factors, then you can put them into your marketing strategy. Your marketing activities will focus on them. As a result, your sales will increase rapidly. Therefore, I will discuss about this.

Shopping decisions are influenced by beliefs, attitudes and values of customers, as well as various factors in the social environment of customers. The decision process to choose a product is influenced by environmental factors and personal factors in a person or it could be called internal factors and external factors.

External Factors
External factors that influence decision of shopping are:

Family
This is a very important factor that must be considered because people spent most of the time with their family. Thus, it is proper that family is a factor greatly affects a person in the buying process. Especially for products consumed by the family.

You have to understand how a family making purchasing decisions and how other family members influence the decision. Sometimes for certain products, the children who have an important role in a decision, at other times the mother was the one who has such an important role.

As a marketer, you should be able to know what kind of product you sell and who within the family have an important role in taking the decision to buy, so you can focus on marketing activities on these things.

Reference group
Reference group is one or more people who used by someone as a basis for comparison for the beliefs, feelings, and behaviors.

These groups influence purchasing decisions by offering information, providing awards for specific purchasing behavior, or addition of customer self-image.

As a marketer, you have to get involved actively in the reference group, providing support to them, so that this group would be willing to provide information about your product to others through WoM.

Culture
Culture means the values shared by most people in a society. Cultures in this regard include things that can be learned from family, neighbors, friends, teachers, and community leaders.

The simplest example is to donate a gift. Gift-giving plays a far more important to Japanese society compared with American society.

As a marketer whose products are already across the region, make sure you know the local culture so that you can pack your product in accordance with the local culture. So your product can be accepted by society and then it produces very good sales.

Internal Factors
Internal factors are sourced from within oneself. Factors that influence to buy are as follows:

Personal aspect
A customer will have differences with other customers because of different personal factors such as age, occupation, financial condition, lifestyle, and others.

Considerations led to the emergence of a personal aspect in the form of consumer choice, such as the option price than quality, comparison between price and convenience, the price comparison to service, and others.

As a marketer, you must have the interpersonal skills in order to make customer intimacy so that you can offer customized solutions to prospective buyers personally.

Psychological Aspects
Psychological factors that influence a person in the act of buying a product based on the motivations, perceptions, beliefs, behaviors, and others.

Here are some factors that predispose a person to buy the product. Your marketing activities should be associated with the above factors. Based on my experience, if your marketing strategy is closely related to the above factors, then your sales will be getting up. Feel free to try.

Customer loyalty programs

noreply@blogger.com (Irwin) — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 01:59:00 +0000

This is the last article of the series of customer loyalty. In this article I explain the strategy of increasing customer loyalty through customer loyalty program.

There are things that you must perform to increase customer loyalty. These are simple action but it is difficult to perform persistently. But believe me, if you persistent to conduct things below, you will achieve good customer loyalty. Why you should believe me? because it is based on my experience running a business. Below are things that must be considered to improve customer loyalty:

Customer bonding

To enhance customer loyalty, marketers can carry out customer bonding. According to Richards Cross, things to do are:

-Adding financial benefits: granting rewards for customers who are frequent and make a lot of buying. You can collect them in an event, give points or prizes.

-Adding social benefits: treating the customer as a partner through personalization, such as membership programs, and others.

-Adding structural ties: add structural ties, activity in this regard include training, gathering, something like that.

Make customers happy

If the customers happy, it indicates they are satisfied. I've explained in previous articles that if customers are satisfied, then you will get better customer loyalty. Activities in this regard include:

-Realizing services and products that have not expected by customers. Customers will be surprised. It can raise the level of their loyalty.

-Trying to strive to achieve zero level of defection (zero error rates). It is intended to allow customers happy and reach their loyalty.

-Get used to always delight the customer, simple examples but very powerful influences: say greeting, say thank you, and do not be stingy to smile at them, immediately apologize if there are errors in speech and your actions to them.

Foster familiarity with customers

This action is related to step number two. If you have close relationship with them, it makes them get intimacy with you and they will happy. The ideal things to do are:

-Develop closeness with customers, build relationships with customers prior to purchase as well as post purchase.

-Trying to adjust the product to the specific needs of each customer by delivering total solutions and provide personal advice.

-Embedding to all employees and top management (not just a marketer team) to have a commitment to developing solutions and helping customers to understand exactly what they need.

-Developing culture to prioritize specific solution and focus on the customer relationships intimacy.

Increase value added for customers

Based on my experiences in running my own business, things that should be implemented are:

-Anticipate customer needs and expectations in the future. To conduct this action, collaboration between the marketing team and the Research & Development team is needed.

-Focus your attention on customer enthusiasm, e.g. quality, uniformity treatment, operational effectiveness to serve customer, service before and after the purchase, reputation, and others.

-Treat customers as a core important people, pay attention to their interests, provide personalized solutions to them.

Organizational commitment

This is an important thing to consider. All of the above will run smoothly if all personnel within the organization commit to execute a strategy to increase customer loyalty.

Activities in this stage are:

-Form steering committee to concern customer loyalty led by one person who responsible for this, for example: a chief customer officer.

-Understand the very actual potential for customer loyalty and retention.

-Formulate a joint mission of customer retention in the steering committee.

-Apply customer defections analysis, start from the anticipation and analysis of every possible customer shortcoming up to persuade them to return to become your customers.

That's an example implementation of the strategy of increasing customer loyalty by performing customer loyalty programs based on my experience running my own business.

Finally, as an component to enhance your understanding of customer loyalty, you should read the article below:

Customer loyalty research

Build customer loyalty

Definition of customer loyalty

An introduction of customer loyalty

Customer loyalty research

noreply@blogger.com (Irwin) — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 09:29:00 +0000

In the last article, build customer loyalty, I explained about the stages of customer loyalty. From reading that article you are expected to be inspired to perform marketing activities in order to make your customers loyal to your product.

The question is, "how to measure customer loyalty?" Until now there has been no standard by which to measure loyalty. But there are several ways to determine the level of customer loyalty. The ways are as follows:

-Customer loyalty can be known through measures things, such as: defection rate, number and continuity of core customers, Longevity of core customers.

-Loyalty data obtained from customer feedback. Feedback is collected through various ways, such as: customer observation, suggestion boxes, toll-free phone, via the survey visit, email, web site, top management visit, or conduct customer panel.

-Perform a variety of analysis, such as: lost customer analysis, input from front office employee, input from product distributors, and others.

-Perform analysis of customer feedback, former customers, non customers, and competitors. This analysis is conducted to determine the longevity of customer relationships, the cause of the shift of customers to competitors, why non-customers do not use your product, and others.

From the description above, you should conduct internal research to determine the level of your customer loyalty. Through customer loyalty research you know the current status. You must build a special structure within your organization whose job is to do research. There are some functions of this activity, including:

-Determining the gap between companies and business partners.

-Determining the measurement and assessment of management, human resources, organization, systems, marketing tools, suppliers, marketing, and corporate supporters.

-Knowing the achievement of the above, such as: customer loyalty, percentage of customers permanence, the cost to be incurred due to poor product quality, and others.

In addition to the above, there are two important things you should consider in measuring customer loyalty. They are consumer interest in a brand and the vulnerability of consumers to switch brands.

The process of measuring customer loyalty is important, because through this measuring with customer loyalty research, anticipatory and corrective actions can be performed quickly, accurately, and efficiently.

Build customer loyalty

noreply@blogger.com (Irwin) — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 10:54:00 +0000

This article is still dealing with customer loyalty. In order to understand from the beginning about the loyalty of customers, I suggest you to read introduction of customer loyalty and definition of customer loyalty.

You have known from previous articles that customers buy a product, and if they are satisfied, it forms a loyalty. Satisfaction that gave birth to loyalty definitely aimed at a particular object. For example the quality of products, packaging products, or services received by customers on the purchase of a product.

Brand loyalty is a phenomenon that has a correlation with behavior, or an activity of psychological processes. It is divided into two kinds of loyalty, namely:

- True focal brand loyalty
Loyalty to particular brands that interest the customer.

- True multibrand loyalty
Loyalty is not only to a specific brand.

Meanwhile, if viewed from the purchase, divided into two kinds of loyalty, namely:

-Happenstance purchases
Purchase by chance, the purchase of a focal brand which is purchased by a loyal buyer and non-loyal buyers.

-Repeat purchasing
Repeated purchases of the focal brand of loyal buyers.

Happenstance purchasing
The purchase covers accidental sequence repeat purchases related to factors other than psychological, such as: unavailability of the brand you are looking for, purchase your favorite brand representative, or purchases that are constrained by other factors so that buyer purchase for certain products.

Repeat purchasing
There are some testing, whether the customer has a real loyalty or not. There are three structures that must be considered, namely:

-The structure of beliefs
Also called cognitive structure, which contains information about consumer confidence to the focal brand.

-The structure of attitudes
Also called affective structure, which relates to the level of consumer preferences should be higher than rival brands, so there is a clear affective preference on the focal brand.

-The structure of intent
Also called motive, which indicates that the consumer has the intention to buy the focal brand, not the other brands when making purchasing.

Now I will discuss about the stages of a person to be loyal to a brand, there are several stages in progress of a buyer into a loyal customer, namely: cognitive, affective, and motive.

The first stage: cognitive

Consumers who have the loyalty of the first stage uses a base of information that forces point to one brand. Example: a supermarket that always offers cheaper prices than its competitors, it forces the consumer to always shop at the supermarket.

Stage two: affective
There are two stages that influence in this stage, the stage of pre-consumption and post-consumption stage. Consumers typically expect something on the brand which is purchased in pre-consumption stage. Then he compares this in post-consumption stage. If he gets satisfaction, then he will be loyal.

Phase three: motive
At this stage of loyalty is influenced by affective changes in the brand. If customers constantly get satisfaction, he would intend or have a commitment to make repeat purchases of a particular brand or loyal to that brand.

By knowing the stages a buyer becomes a loyal customer, I hope you can implement marketing activities that make your customers loyal to your product. So that you can build customer loyalty.

Customer loyalty - a definition

noreply@blogger.com (Irwin) — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 04:37:00 +0000

Customer loyalty, a preliminary series of articles on customer loyalty have been written in my previous articles. In this article, I will discuss customer loyalty further.

Loyalty is a concept that seemed easy to talk about, but more difficult to implement. Now I will discuss the definition of customer loyalty, according to the literature that I have read, there are several definitions, including:

-In generic, loyalty shows a tendency of consumers to buy a particular brand with a high level consistently.

-In behavior, repeat purchase loyalty is often associated with brand loyalty. Brand loyalty reflects the psychological commitment of a certain brand, whereas repeated purchase behavior with regard to the purchase of the same brand repeatedly.

-Purchase re-domination is the result of successful companies makes their products as the only available alternative and continues to make promotions that lure and entice customers to buy the same brand.

According to Jacoby & Chestnut, very loyal customers will potentially be a word of mouth advertiser. They are loyal to the company's product in a long periods of time.

There are three categories of purchasers for each specific brand and at any given time:

-Non-loyal repeat purchaser
Buyers are actually disloyal, but buying a product with a particular brand because no other alternative products with other brands.

-Loyal repeat purchaser
This is the type of buyer who is wanted by every company to be WOM advertiser.

-Opportunistic purchaser
Buyers who purchase a brand on the basis of situational factors, for example: discount program.

There is another definition of customer loyalty in order for you to get a good understanding of the concept of customer loyalty. According to Mowen, loyalty means consumers have a positive attitude toward a product, have a commitment to the brand, and have a desire to continue their purchases in the future.

In addition to those mentioned above which I have written previously and based on the theory that I get, that brand loyalty comes due to the influence of satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the brand. This attitude is accumulated continuously so that it becomes a habit, so that consumers buying products over and over again without a second thinking.

Finally, from the description above, I conclude that customer loyalty is:
-A measure of the proximity of customers to a brand or product
-Customers have positive feelings toward the brand or product
-Customers willingly inform-brand or product to others.
-Customers using the brand on a regular basis, in other words customers make repeat purchases.

Customer loyalty - an introduction

noreply@blogger.com (Irwin) — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 08:52:00 +0000

Competition in the globalization era increasingly hard. The company that can survive is a company that has the ability to increase customer loyalty. Sustainable customer loyalty is the competitive advantage key for a company.

Not just efficiency, market share, customer satisfaction, customer retention, zero defection, but also customer loyalty should be a focus of concern of the company. Why? Intense competition affect the company is difficult to increase the number of customers, enter new markets on the other hand also requires considerable cost. A research states that the cost needed to get new customers six times greater than the cost to retain customers. Therefore, company should focus on customer loyalty.

In general, marketer want that customers who are created by him can be sustained forever. This is not an easy task. Marketer need the right strategy and innovation in implementing marketing programs to achieve that.

Customer loyalty will be the key to success, not only in the short term, but the advantage in the long run. Customers are being loyal because satisfied and want to continue purchasing. Customer loyalty is a measure of the proximity of customers to a brand. Brand becomes top of mind; a deep commitment to brand is forcing customers to choose that brand when making a purchase.

According to Andreassen, if the product is not capable of satisfying the customer, the customer will react by way of an exit (stop buying the product) and voice (expressed dissatisfaction directly to the company). The general formula for this: satisfaction is directly proportional to loyalty.

To build customer loyalty, many challenges to face and takes a very long time. But, if you want to be a winner, you must live it consistently. Why? Because many of the benefits will be gained from it. I will explain the benefits below.

Benefits of customer loyalty for the company

-Reduce marketing costs
As I wrote above, to get a new customer costs greater than to retain customer. Those costs include the cost of advertising through various media, other promotions, the cost of education to prospective buyers, and so on. Therefore loyal customers can reduce marketing costs.

-Trade leverage
A product with a popular brand and has a loyal customer will make the distributors and shop owners to give greater space compared to other brands. Even if there are prospective buyers who want to ask about a product, they will be offered that brand. So the brand will be purchased by prospective buyers.

-Word of mouth
Customers who are loyal to certain brands would be willing to tell the good things about the company and its products to others. This is far more persuasive and effective than advertising.

How to improve customer satisfaction -- 2

noreply@blogger.com (Irwin) — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 04:37:00 +0000

You've read the previous article entitled how to improve customer satisfaction first series? Now I am going to continue discussion on the second series. You can read the strategy I've written in increasing customer satisfaction. As for the other strategies are:

Customer retention strategies
The key to the success of this strategy is customer satisfaction. Things to do in this strategy are:
-Conducting consumer research to measure and assess the attitude
-Create a system so that consumers are willing and easy to deliver feedback, hope, and complain.
-Utilizing a database of all information associated with the customer.
-Giving high satisfaction to customers, such as lower prices, superior quality goods, fast delivery, outstanding service when buying and afterward.

Dealing with complaints Strategies
In this strategy, it may take a direct involvement of top management to deal directly with a customer complaint. This should be considered for:
-Ensure that the product quality and function properly.
-Ensure that customers do not experience problems in using the product company.

The positive impact of the direct involvement of top management in handling customer complaints are:
-Customers will feel cared for by the company.
- Typically, customers prefer to deal with people who have power or decision-makers, so that top management can relate intensely with customers.

If this strategy succeeds, then this will turn the customers who do not like and do not settle for being loyal customers and satisfied customers. This strategy is efficient if it can change the negative word of mouth into positive word of mouth.

It should be noted in handling complaints:
- Speed in handling complaints.
Handling complaints quickly will make customers feel cared for and can turn dissatisfied customers into satisfied with your company's products and services. The expected result is a loyal customer and will buy your product again.
-Fairness in solving problems.
You certainly know a win win solution. You must create a conducive atmosphere so that customers and companies alike the same benefit.

Empathy Strategies
This strategy is closely associated with the strategy of dealing with complaints. In dealing with customers who are dissatisfied, disappointed, or even angry, you can do the following:
- showing customers that you feel sorry and regret to the events experienced by customers.
-Take the time to pay attention and listen to customer complaints.
-try to understand the situation of perceived customer
-When the emotions are stable, invite customers to discuss to find the right solution for your customer's problem.

How to improve customer satisfaction -- 1

noreply@blogger.com (Irwin) — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 02:43:00 +0000

How to improve customer satisfaction? This is a follow-up question, after you read the previous article about what is customer satisfaction and customer satisfaction survey. I will elaborate how to Improve customer satisfaction with some strategies you can apply to your company.

To maintain business continuity, you have to try very hard, sometimes issuing high costs to grab customers. Therefore you must have the innovation to be able to achieve customer satisfaction consistently. Customer satisfaction can result customer loyalty, which leads to an increase in sales volume. According Schnaars, customer satisfaction is a very long-term strategy needs commitment, funding and human resources. The formulation of customer satisfaction is like in this picture:

Customer satisfaction formula

This paper is divided into several series, for this article, I will be describing several strategies, including:

Relationship Marketing Strategy
This strategy is a strategic transaction between seller and buyer in a sustainable manner. Things should be built on this strategy are:
-Focusing on customer retention.
-Quality-oriented and product benefits.
-Paying attention to customer service.
-Have a high commitment to customers.
-Always contact the customer.

Stages of this strategy are:
-Identify, maintain, and improve results from best customers through long-term interactive relationships.
-Establish partnerships with customers continuously to encourage customer loyalty.
-Implement the above with respect to customer database that contains: a list of the best customers, purchase history, designing special products tailored to specific customer requirements, satisfy customers in order to place repeat purchases. You can implement this with the help of CRM Software.

Superior product quality strategy
Companies that want to implement a customer satisfaction program must have a very high quality product. Not only that, but also must have a very satisfactory service. Therefore, this strategy is called a superior-quality product.

Superior customer service strategy
This strategy offers a better service than major competitors. Things to watch out in this strategy are:
-Requires large funds, the ability of good human resources, and effort that was really, in order to create superior service.
-Typically, companies will charge higher prices on its products so that customers benefited greatly from them.

Strategy focus on the best customers
This strategy refers to the concept of pareto. Customer-focused company can earn 20% of customers who regularly consume 80% of the product. The definition of best customers are those who enjoy using your product, those who shop with a lot, not price sensitive. For those of you who focus on these customers, you must be willing to remove the bad customer.

Pay for performance strategy
The background of this strategy is: It is necessary support needed of all organizational resources in order to achieve good customer satisfaction. Employee is spearhead to conduct interaction with customers. In order for employees willing to do it well, then the employee should be satisfied his needs in advance. After that, employees are expected to satisfy customers well.

Those are some strategies how to improve customer satisfaction which I describe in this article first, after this I will write some of the other strategies. Look forward to my next article on how to improve customer satisfaction.

Advertising techniques

noreply@blogger.com (Irwin) — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 02:25:00 +0000

Types of advertising campaigns are discussed in this article. You already know about promotional strategies on the last article. One aspect of promotion is advertising. There are several types of advertising techniques are known. According to Michael Ray (1996) there are four types of advertising techniques, they are product advertising, institutional advertising, advertising demand pull, push advertising demand.

Product advertising
This advertising techniques contains a company's product information. This ad is divided into:

- Direct action advertising, i.e. advertising products that are designed in such a way as to encourage an immediate response and the audience.
- Indirect action advertising, i.e. advertising products that are designed to create demand in the long run.

Institutional advertising
Ads that are designed to convey about business information of advertising owner and build goodwill for the company. These advertising techniques consist of:
- Patronage advertising, i.e. advertising which informs business from owners of advertising.
- Public service advertising, advertising that is non commercial and acceptable in all walks of life.

Pull demand advertising
This is an advertisement addressed to the purchaser to increase the demand for the relevant product. Usually manufacturers advise consumers to buy products to sellers nearby.

Push advertising demand
This advertising techniques aimed at dealers. This means that suppliers are willing to increase the demand for products to sell as much concerned to the buyer or retailer. Goods are usually advertised in this type is industrial goods.

That is the discussion of advertising techniques. I hope you can implement appropriate promotional strategies and choosing the right kind of advertising types for your product. Welcome to choose the types of advertising that is suitable for your company.

Customer satisfaction survey

noreply@blogger.com (Irwin) — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 01:53:00 +0000

In the measurement of customer satisfaction, there are three aspects that must be considered: what is measured, methods of measurement, and measurement scale. Measurement of customer satisfaction should be done regularly in order to assess any changes that occur. You can also do benchmarking with performance in the past and the performance of your competitors. Tool that can be used is customer satisfaction survey.

Variables measured
-Customer satisfaction overall
The easiest way and conventional to measure customer satisfaction is directly ask customers how satisfied they are with your product or service.

- The dimensions of customer satisfaction
There are four steps in this process, as follows: First, identify the key dimensions of customer satisfaction. Second, ask the customer to assess products based on specific items. Third, ask the customer to assess competitors' products based on the same item. Fourth, ask the customer to determine the dimensions according to their most important in judging the overall customer satisfaction.

- Confirmation of hope
Satisfaction is not measured directly, but inferred based on the fit between customer expectations and actual performance of your product.

- Interest in the repeat purchase
Customer satisfaction is measured in behavioral by asking whether the customer will shop or use your services again.

- Willingness to recommend
For products that have a high level of competition, the willingness of customers to recommend products to friends or family becomes an important measure to be analyzed and acted upon.

- Customer Dissatisfaction
Aspects analyzed in this case are: customer complaints, product return, and a negative recommendation.

Methods of measurement
There are three methods that can be implemented in measuring customer satisfaction, the methods are:

- Lost customer analysis
You may contact customers who have stopped buying your products. You communicate with him in order to understand why they stop buying or buy a competitor's product. Monitoring of customer loss rate is important, because of the increased rate means there is a failure to satisfy customers. The results of this analysis can be used to take corrective improvement on your company.

- Ghost Shopping
Named ghost because the company manager is available as a disguise and pretend to buy the product at your company. This is to find out firsthand how employees interact, especially in the front office and treat customers. Alternatively, he can pretend to call a customer to put forward a variety of complaints and questions. This method is very effective for the officials at companies that want to directly assess whether employees behave well or not.

- Complaints and suggestions system
Customer oriented company providing the opportunity for customers to submit suggestions directly. This information is necessary to get a new idea or a valuable input for the sake of the progress of your company.

Scale of measurement of customer satisfaction survey

Generally the scale of measurement used in surveying activities especially customer satisfaction survey. Usually a company asked for help research institutions to conduct research for customer satisfaction surveys. Through the survey, your company will get feedback from customers. This is useful for decision makers to improve the system in your company.

Example 3-point scale customer satisfaction survey:
Question: Once you purchase a this product, how satisfied you are using a product?
answers: 1. Very dissatisfied
2. Satisfied
3. Very satisfied

That all are explanation about aspect of measuring customer satisfaction.

What is customer satisfaction ?

noreply@blogger.com (Irwin) — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 09:22:00 +0000

Customer satisfaction is a concept that has long been known in marketing. Map of the competition getting tougher, it takes a special marketing activities in the field of customer satisfaction. To win a very tight competition, the company must put its orientation on customer satisfaction as its primary purpose. The key to success is to win the competition; to win the key is the ability to provide total customer value that can satisfy the customer through the delivery of quality products at competitive prices.

As the foundation and in order to get a broader understanding, I will explain the definition of customer satisfaction according to experts. Here are explanations of customer satisfaction according to the experts:

- Park (1997): customer satisfaction is a feeling in response to consumer product or service that has been consumed.

- Walker (1995): customer satisfaction is the comparison of products perceived as predicted before the product is purchased. If consumers feel more than predicted, consumers will be satisfied. Instead, consumers will be dissatisfied.

Customer satisfaction

- Hunt (1991): customer satisfaction based on five approaches as follows:

1. Normative deficit: Comparison between actual results with the results that are culturally acceptable.

2. Equity: A Comparison of the obtained gains from social exchange when the acquisition is not the same, the aggrieved party will be dissatisfied.

3. Normative standards: A comparison between actual results and standards of customer expectations.

4. Procedural fairness: Satisfaction is a function of the belief or perception of the consumer that he has treated fairly.

5. Attributional: Satisfaction is not only determined by the presence or absence of expectation disconfirmation, but also by source causes disconfirmation.

- Engel (1990): post-sale customer satisfaction is an evaluation of the selected alternative in which at least equal or exceed customer expectations, while dissatisfaction arise if the results did not meet expectations.

- Wilton (1988): satisfaction or dissatisfaction of customers as the customer response to the evaluation of the perceived discrepancy between expectations and actual performance before purchasing a product that is felt after use.

- Oliver (1980): post-sale customer satisfaction as an evaluation in which the perception of the performance of the selected products meet or exceed expectations before purchase. If the perception of the performance can not meet expectations, then dissatisfaction happens.

The conclusion, from the various definitions of the above it is understood that customer satisfaction arising from the existence of an emotional response to the products used, especially when they compare the performance of which he felt compared to his expectations.

What is public relations ?

noreply@blogger.com (Irwin) — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 06:59:00 +0000

What is public relations ? Public relations is an attempt to stimulate demand for a product by means of conveying information that is commercial, designing a wide range of promotions, and activities to create a corporate image are well preserved. From the aspect of business, public relations, we refer to as:

- Public: a group of customers or prospective customers who have an interest and influence the company's ability to achieve its goals.

- Public relations: business management to utilize a variety of planned and sustainable programs that are effectively designed to support, maintain, and promote the corporate image / products.

Public relations program should have appeal in the eyes of consumers and potential consumers. In order to be interesting and good quality, then the public relations activities must meet the following three things:

- High credibility: news and images more informative, authentic and trusted by consumers and potential consumers.

- Ability to catch buyers: a public relations practitioner must be able to reach many prospective buyers who tend to avoid a salesman or advertising. In its activity, he has to deliver the information in the form of communication but still does not forget with the goal that is sales.

- Dramatization: a public relations practitioner must have the ability to dramatize a company. So that the image of the company and its products remain well preserved in the eyes of consumers and potential consumers.

Activities conducted in public relations is as follows:

-Press relations: activities provide information about products, services, or organizations that are viable published in newspapers to attract public attention.

- Product publicity: Specific activities undertaken to publish a particular product.

- Corporate communication: These activities include internal and external communications, as well as promote an understanding of the organization.

- Lobbying: working with the government to obtain important information in relation to policy development of the business world.

- Counseling: giving advice or opinions to the public regarding the management, positioning and corporate image.

Examples of the above public relations activities are below:

- Dissemination of information through the exhibition
- Financing the work of art
- Sponsor a team sport like football, tennis, and others.
- Participation in social activities
- Project of humanitarian aid.

Through the explanation above, now you have known about what is public relations, after informing you public relations activities I hope you also know about public relations job description.

Sales process

noreply@blogger.com (Irwin) — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 03:50:00 +0000

Now I will discuss about the sales process. In the previous article discussed briefly about sales force management. To better manage your sales force in order to produce something better than ever, you need to know about the sales process steps. You have to understand this sales process stages so that you will be able to improve your sales force.

Experts say that sales will be successful if carried out by interaction of humanism. In General, there are eight processes that usually traveled in stages starting from conducting sales prospect to do follow up. In order to make it easier to understand I described the process with the image. Please see the picture of the sales process steps below:

Sales Process stages

According to the picture above, there are eight sales strategy that must be done in order to produce the desired transaction. The strategy was described in order of activity of the sales process. The sequence is:

1. Leads and referrals
The seller should be able to generate new leads and referrals from customers who are happy and satisfied with the product or service.

2. Making telephone appointments
When managed to gain leads and referrals, then immediately call prospects to communicate. In this technological era, the role of telephone can be replaced with the chat via Y!M, Gtalk, Skype, BBM, WhatsApp. It can also communicate via email. Any media communication network, make sure you make an appointment to see you (online or offline) so that you can present your products.

3. Establishing rapport
The seller must able to build intimacy in their interaction. One of the factors of customers buy your product is seller's personal behaviour . The other factors are reputation of the company and the product as a solution to the problem of the customer. So, pay attention to personal behaviour sellers, because it is very important.

4. Presentation
The seller must be able to present your product or service with attention to the target audience is right, the right time, and offer the right solution for the problems of the consumer.

5. Closing
Sellers must be encourage consumers to say "yes, I buy your product."

6. Delivery stage
This stage is important, because consumers will see if the seller promises will be carried out properly or not. If this step is successful, then the customer will say, "you are reliable and would be good long term business partner". See the changes you have to do in this step if you want to run successfully. I explained briefly in the image below.

7. Service stage
The seller must make a good post-sale service. This should be done so that customer relationships last a long time. So the seller must provide the time and energy to serve customers. This stage is an important step to make customers loyal to you.

8. Follow up / cross sell
Sellers should follow up on matters relating to the customer. It is more perfect if the seller can do cross-selling to the transaction can be increased.

That's my description of the eight stages of the sales which I call the sales process steps. Please apply to your company. Enjoy the sales process.

Sales force management

noreply@blogger.com (Irwin) — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 07:52:00 +0000

Sales force management is discussed after I explain personal selling. In this article, I will discuss more about the ins and outs of sales i.e.: criteria for a good seller, the main task of selling, and sales force management.

If you've read my previous article promotion strategy, then the number of sales is one of the KPI (key performance indicator) of promotional activities. That is why these activities should be supported by reliable human resources. The sellers are tough very necessary at this stage.

Who is called a formidable seller? Obviously you consider based on specific criteria in accordance with the policies at your company. However, I will help you to mention the general criteria of good sellers. For more detailed criteria, please make own innovations to apply to your company. Criteria for a good seller are:

- Salesmanship

Seller must have broaden knowledge of products, mastering the art of selling. There are a variety of sales skills to be mastered, they are: how to approach customers, give presentations and demonstrations, overcome customer resistance, and encourage purchases.

- Negotiating

Seller shall have the ability to negotiate with customers or potential customers about matters relating to the sale.

- Relationship marketing

The seller must have knowledge on how to build and maintain profitable relationships with customers.

You should look for and have the seller to the criteria mentioned above. Having got it, you must give the task associated with the sale.

As for the duties of the seller are:

- Deliverer

Sellers deliver products to the buyer either directly delivered to the buyer or deliver the product via courier.

-Order getter

Sellers are looking for a buyer; both new customers or customers who have been buying your product to get a purchase order.

- Educator

Sellers have to educate and to bring up goodwill with prospective customers or subscribers.

- Technician

Seller must have technical knowledge about the product in order to provide satisfactory service to the buyer.

- Demand creator

Seller shall have the creativity in selling the product.

Lastly, I'll give a little description about sales force management. There are four strategies that must be performed, the four are:

1. Determine the activity and its role in the promotion and sale

An example is the account manager, field staff, telemarketing, etc.

2. Designing the organization

Sales organization can be set based on customer, product, or geographic.

3. Manage the sales force

Provide training to increase skills, do reward or punishment, and others.

4. Evaluating sales force

This point is as a complementary point 1 to 3. Evaluation activity is to evaluate whether the activities at the number 1,2, and 3 are effective or need development in order to grow your business become better.

This article is one of the discussion of sales force management. Look forward to my writing more about sales force management.

Personal selling

noreply@blogger.com (Irwin) — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 04:45:00 +0000

Personal selling is one of the promotional activities. The basic thing about the promotion has been discussed in earlier articles. Personal selling is a form of oral presentations to one or more prospective buyers with the goal of making a sale. In this presentation interaction between sellers and buyers is happened. This interaction will take effect immediately, whether the prospective buyer will decide to buy or not buy.

In many ways, personal selling is an effective tool in building confidence in prospective buyers. There are three benefits of personal selling activities, namely:

1.Personal intimacy
Personal observations to mutually adjust between sellers and buyers. Includes dynamic and intimate relationship as well as interactive between seller and buyer.

2. Cultivation
Allows the emergence of various types of relationships to the friendly relations. The thing to remember is that personal selling is very effective if the seller put the interest of customers.

3. Response
Makes prospective buyers feel obligated to listen to the seller talk. And the seller must deliver good response and time in order to relations between the two sides went well.

Personal selling functions:

- Communicating
Provide very detailed information about the products to customers and prospective customers.

- Prospecting
Finding buyers and establishing relationships with prospective buyers in order to generate a transaction.

- Selling
This is the main objective of personal selling activities. The stages is approaching, presenting, demonstrating, overcome objections (if any resistance from potential customers), and sells products to customers.

- Servicing
Provide various services and service to customers.

- Information gathering

In addition to selling, personal selling activity is to conduct research and market intelligence.

Through this article, finally you have known the summary about one of promotional activity namely personal selling.

Promotion strategy

noreply@blogger.com (Irwin) — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 04:45:00 +0000

Promotion strategy is our discussion now. Promotion is the process of communicating the marketing mix variables. Promotion is essential thing which is implemented by companies in marketing their products. Cravens in 1991 defines that the promotion is : "the planning, implementing, and controlling of the communication with its customers and other target audience". Based on this definition, subsequently the marketing activities starting from planning, execution, after which control the communication to reach out to customers or prospective customers.

The substance of the promotional activities is a form of marketing communication activities that seek to disseminate information, influence, and reminding the market, so the market willing to accept, purchase, and loyal to your product.

I have mentioned above that one of the activities of marketing is a promotion. This activity is performed to direct marketing programs to communicate persuasively to customers and prospective customers. This is to encourage the creation of the transaction. The intended transaction is an exchange between the company and the buyer..

Instruments promotion activities according to Cravens are promotion mix which consist of: advertising, personal selling, sales promotion, public relations and direct marketing. All these activities must be carried out with the right promotion strategy in order to achieve satisfactory results.

The purpose of promotional activities above are as follows:

- Creating awareness of the product.

In addition to creating product awareness, promotional activity is conducted to increase responsiveness of the product. The promotion performer should also create and enhance brand awareness.

- Increase brand preference.

In the same products, there are a number of different brands. Promotional activities are conducted in order to customers or prospective customers prefer your brand when they want to buy a product.

- Increase sales and market share.

This is one of the main objectives of promotional activities. You can measure the performance of your promotional activity by looking at sales data and market share.

- Encourage repeat purchase the same products and brands.

A successful brand is if consumers choose to select your brand among the many brands on the same product. This signifies that your brand have embedded in the minds of consumers.

- Introducing new products.

The new launched products are very necessary to be promoted. How will potential customers know your product, if your new product is not endorsed?

- Attract new customers.

One of the KPI (key performance indicator) of promotional activities is how much you attract new customers. You can make improvements promotional strategies when your KPIs do not achieve good results.

All of the above are things that need to be considered in the promotion strategy.

Email marketing tips

noreply@blogger.com (Irwin) — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 02:59:00 +0000

Email marketing tips which is discussed will not be accomplished in one or two posts. Because of its very broad subject and needs to be specified per subject. I have discussed the develop email marketing system , now I will be writing about email marketing tips. I hope that after you develop an email marketing system, you will apply the tips in this article, so you will get a satisfactory result.

First of all, try to imagine your company's web, equate it with the store in the mall, then you will be delighted if your store get a lot of visits. Similarly, the web, with high visit, you will be very happy. Why? Because theoretically, the more visitors, the higher the sales potential.

The problem is not all the people who visit your website will turn into buyers. There are visitors who are just interested to see your products in advance, just check the price, or just looking for information about the products you sell; even it is possible that your competitors pretend as prospective buyers visit to your website to get information about your product.

Now, the question is, is there any guarantee that these visitors (visitors who do not buy your product) will go to your website or your store when they intend to buy? The answer, most likely is not. This is the role of email marketing. It is important to collect email your web visitors and make them visit your website when they intend to buy.

By collecting emails from visitors who are not making a purchase or buy your product, indirectly you have obtained permission to build a direct line of communication with him. This ensures that potential customers still remember with your site. . By sending an email newsletter periodically, Although time has already passed a long time, your web will always be remembered by them. So if they buy, they will come to your website and make purchases.

The second question, how to get your web visitor's email? How do you order a visitor willingly give their email addresses? Let's look at the answer. A person will not want to give their address away unless he gets the rewards. It is a reasonable statement, right? moreover there are many spammers today.

Still do not understand? Well, you have to offer something that has value to them. For example: special offer and a very special (cheap or free product), tips, and others. Tell them that the offers are sent via email. I give the simple example, if you sell computers, give tips about computers or practical knowledge computer via email. Then propose special price promotion for those who sign up via email.

Through this step, I'm sure visitors will be willing to give their email address. The thing to remember in the email marketing tips is that you should be able to deliver added value based on your promise. Remember, do not disappoint your visitors by sending an email that does not match your promise.

Well, this tips is very easy to implement. Have a perform this email marketing tips.

Inbound CRM and Outbound CRM

noreply@blogger.com (Irwin) — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 02:25:00 +0000

Inbound CRM or outbound CRM? Which is most effective in increasing customer loyalty? The question is what makes me write an article about inbound CRM or outbound CRM. I have written about CRM software, now I will discuss about these two CRM.

Question above is very interesting. I think many companies and customer service practitioners interpret that CRM is an active activity, that means the company has the initiative to make contact with customers. If it is true, one CRM parameter is outbound CRM activities. In making contact with these customers, these activities can be divided into customers per period, type of contact, contact method, types of customers (premium or not), and others.

Several times ago, perhaps this way is an effective way. Now, with more and more companies looking to compete in contact with customers, it is becoming a new issue. Customers feel unwilling to be contacted. Companies that released a similar product, is now competing for the customer database.

Having obtained customer data, they battle to establish contact in order to attract customers to buy their product again. Conceivably, if there are hundreds companies and they all contact you to offer the latest products, so it is not strange if now many consumers are reluctant to be contacted by the company. If relying on outbound CRM, I think this CRM activity is inefficient and ineffective.

Conversely, Inbound CRM, we call it the inbound call, usually the customers have a need to contact. Typically, customers who contact the company are looking for more detail information, complaint, answer quizzes, and so on. At this moment, the opportunity to advance relationship will be very large. Better things, you can also do cross selling here.

Therefore inbound CRM activity is very effective if you have many customers who contact your company. The problem is if the customers who contact you are still a little bit? It's time your company's marketing team to think creatively so that they contact you. A simple example is you create a communication channel, any suggestion or request that pass on to your company via this channel, the customers will be able to get the voucher or major prize.

Call centers, as a CRM central activity, as one channel which is used in inbound CRM or outbound CRM activities. It is much needed balance between inbound call and outbound call. Through outbound CRM, companies can increase the accuracy of the customer database and even add to the list of customers. Additional benefit is the relationship can be improved. While the inbound CRM, the company is able to do cross selling more persuasive.

You must determine that balance point. To determine that, it must be adapted to existing conditions and targets to be achieved by your company. Do not forget to do the preparation on CRM infrastructure. Last that I can say is, inbound CRM or when a customer contacted the company that is a concrete CRM. Therefore, you and your marketing team should be more innovate in order to your customers perform inbound CRM.

Guerrilla media

noreply@blogger.com (Irwin) — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 04:03:00 +0000

Two words are often called by the marketers of the world in recent years are guerrilla marketing and guerrilla media. Two things are the most forceful weapon against competitors who are already established in their business and have big capital. Many marketing experts say that. I've written about some guerrilla marketing in the past. In this discussion, I will focus on talking about guerrilla media.

Before I go into the marketing further, let me explain the concept of guerrilla. Why do I explain this? In order to get the substance of the strategy namely guerrilla marketing. Guerrilla is actually a battle strategy when Vietnam against the Americans. By losing a lot of ammunition, troops slowly infiltrate into enemy territory. Little by little they conquered the area that was controlled until finally entering the largest area and finally beat the enemy. The key to winning this strategy is the understanding of location, powerful strategy, and consistency.

Now I discuss the media of this strategy. Guerrilla media is basically using the same method. If you see your competitors are big companies and they advertise in the famous media TV on prime time, radio, and print ad, then the guerrilla strategy is to use communication channels other than the media have mentioned that costs much cheaper. Guerrilla media forms can be creative installation media, viral, email, messaging via HP, happening art, souvenirs, etc. In essence, attracting attention as high as possible but keep costs as much as possible.

In the medium, Guerrilla media also have the greater opportunity to attract the attention of consumers than traditional media like TV, Print ad and Radio that are having a huge cost. Why? Because consumers are already accustomed to seeing TV commercials when watching TV, see the print ad when reading print media, or hear the radio ads while listening to the radio. Having been accustomed to, communication becomes even less attracted the attention of consumers.

But when looking at guerrilla media advertising messages in the form of a unique and unexpected mediums such as advertisements at pedestal dining table in the restaurant, the door toilets, advertising messages on fruits in the supermarket or creative installations in public places, etc., consumers unknowingly influenced by advertising and do not have the opportunity to reject as was done in the conventional medium.

The question often arises next is how effective this Guerrilla media? The answer, it all depends on strategy, concept and what as much as extraordinary creative ideas and consistency of implementation. Good strategy, creative ideas are not provoked; it will not be talked by consumer. Good strategy, a brilliant creative idea, but implementation is not routine, the results also will not be maximized.

In essence, Guerrilla media requires more effort in terms of thought and struggle, but if done sincerely and consistently, the results can be satisfactory. Now you already know the guerrilla media. Are you ready to implement your marketing activity in one of the guerrilla media ?

Marketing executive - an overview

noreply@blogger.com (Irwin) — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 02:37:00 +0000

At this time, I will elaborate discussion about the world of marketing, especially marketing executives. As a spirit in this blog which wants to be broadcasted is marketing for beginners , then I will discuss the marketing executive fundamentally, about job duties, requirements, and capabilities that must be held to be a marketing executive.

Marketing executive in charge of direct marketing of products or services and therefore a marketing executive must know product line, historical product, potential market, budgets, market response, and the media response. As you know that marketers should be close to a lot of advertising media such as radio, television etc for promotional events. Their most difficult task is deciding the best way with a minimal cost to promote their products. Consequently, they must know when to sell their products, when to increase the production capacity of their products and others. Besides that, as a marketing executive, you would promote your products or services, or raise people's awareness of a message.

The practice of the above activities is the art and science that must be mastered by a marketing executive. For that reason they are people who spend the most time to analyze the demographic, regional sales figures, and competition. In addition, they conducted an analysis of increasing and decreasing sales, as well as respond to the level shift and make decisions from it. So, a marketing executive must be creative, confident, and has to be so quick in taking decisions appropriately. Their skills are required to maintain and increase sales of products or launching new products.

Requirements to become a marketing executive

Regardless of educational background, you can be a marketing executive. But generally you have to have skill or experience in midwife marketing, communications, advertising, business management, psychology.

By having a professional qualification from the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) can make your promotions easier and your chance to be a marketing executive will be more wide open. Below is a CIM qualification is suitable if you do not have a marketing background:

- For an entry-level qualification: Introductory Certificate in Marketing

- For anyone educated to A level standards: Professional Certificate in Marketing.

Course is available full or part-time and distance learning, see the CIM website for more details.

Skills required for marketing executive

- Communication skills both oral and written.

- Creative thinking.

- Ability to plan properly.

- Ability to manage the organization.

- Self motivated.

- Enthusiastic in their work and able to work under pressure.

- Generalist but attention to detail.

- Basic financial skills.

The advantage of being marketing executives are often promoted to the strategic position in the company. Last but not least, this is discussion in this article about the marketing executive.

Integrated Marketing Communication

noreply@blogger.com (Irwin) — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 09:40:00 +0000

Integrated Marketing Communication will be explained in this article. Integrated Marketing Communication is a marketing activity that uses a holistic approach to marketing communications. The aim is that messages are delivered via the media messages remain consistent. Integrated Marketing Communication using online and offline marketing channels. Examples of offline marketing channels are the marketing channels like newspaper, magazine, mail, radio, television, direct public relations, and other traditional marketing channels. While online marketing channel is channel marketing via the internet and associated with it such as email, banners on the web site, pay per click, blogs, SEO friendly content.

From the above description, the Integrated Marketing Communication is the integration of all marketing tools and resources in your companies that aim to your brand embedded in the minds of consumers and in harmony on the principle of economics which is the maximum profit with minimum cost. In 90's, marketing activities are no longer refers to the traditional marketing strategy, but refers to the concept of modern marketing strategy 4P (Product, Price, Place, Promotion). Occurrences 4P strategy is what marks the emergence of integrated marketing communications, i.e. not only using advertising alone but also use the Public Relation. 4P was known to the concept of Marketing Mix. Promotion is one component of the Marketing Mix. Promotional activities including advertising, sales promotion and personal selling activities. Now, promotional activities are not only those, they had grown in scope which includes internet marketing, sponsorship marketing, database marketing and public relations. And the integration of all promotional tools in conjunction with the other elements of the marketing mix is called Integrated Marketing Communication.

Objective of the Integrated Marketing Communication Approach
Integrated Marketing Communication is a simple concept. Although simple, you must ensure that all forms of communication and messages must be connected together. At the most essential Integrated Marketing Communication means put together all the tools of promotion, so they work together harmoniously.

The purpose of the IMC approach is to coordinate the activities of promotion and marketing company to project an image of your brand consistently good and integrated into your market share. Integrated Marketing Communication is a way to see the entire marketing process from market point of view.

Integrated Marketing Communication activities
-Sales Promotion: Can be a sales letter that contains a discount program for loyal customers, and other programs.
-Advertising: Advertising through all channels of marketing both offline and online.
-Personal Selling: Marketing with a personal approach, face to face, can be offline to meet in person or online via chat or email.
-Public Relations: More to the direction of relationship marketing that uses all available media both online and offline.
-Direct Marketing: You can directly contact via e-mail newsletter, delivered a message to member groups.

Things Should Be noted on the integrated marketing communication
-Get top-level management support, the way is to make sure they understand the benefits of Integrated Marketing Communication.
-Perform IMC activities at all levels of management.
-Train all employees so they understand your business culture.
-Ensure that the logo design, branding and marketing activities in the state of standards.
-Focus on marketing communication strategies that have been planned obviously.
-Always thinking on the customer side.
-Develop information system for Integrated Marketing activities to ensuring that marketing person may use the information in the time required.

Hopefully this article useful to you and you can apply the Integrated Marketing Communication in your company.