Successful Marketing Jobs

• Product: The product aspects of marketing deal with the specifications of the actual goods or services, and how it relates to the end-user’s needs and wants. The scope of a product generally includes supporting elements such as warranties, guarantees, and support.
• Pricing: This refers to the process of setting a price for a product, including discounts. The price need not be monetary - it can simply be what is exchanged for the product or services, e.g. time, energy, psychology or attention.
• Promotion: This includes advertising, sales promotion, publicity, and personal selling, branding and refers to the various methods of promoting the product, brand, or company.
• Placement (or distribution): refers to how the product gets to the customer; for example, point of sale placement or retailing. This fourth P has also sometimes been called Place, referring to the channel by which a product or services is sold (e.g. online vs. retail), which geographic region or industry, to which segment (young adults, families, business people), etc.

These four elements are often referred to as the marketing mix, which a marketer can use to craft a marketing plan. The four Ps model is most useful when marketing low value consumer products. Industrial products, services, high value consumer products require adjustments to this model. Services marketing must account for the unique nature of services. Industrial or B2B marketing must account for the long term contractual agreements that are typical in supply chain transactions. Relationship marketing attempts to do this by looking at marketing from a long term relationship perspective rather than individual transactions.

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You want to why risk is very important in marketing this article tells us why.

“What is it about entrepreneurs that enables them to live so far on the edge? Do they thrive on the adrenaline of risk-taking?” This made me think of another question that I frequently encounter when people find out that I love ice climbing: “How can you live with the risk? Do you actually enjoy flirting with death?”

I think that these are all the same question, founded on the same implicit but ill-founded assumption: that risk equates to danger. Now, I am not going to try and convince you that there aren’t people who do love the rush of throwing the dice—with their life or their bank account. But just because someone won a multimillion-dollar windfall by buying lottery tickets with their retirement fund, or survived running a treacherous river without any training, the fact is not altered that what they were doing was gambling, not investing. The end result is as unrepeatable as it can be inadvisable.

Calculated Risks

So if it’s not the thrill of gambling, what does distinguish the serial entrepreneur and the ice climber from the population at large? For a start, they understand the very clear distinction between risk and danger. Second, and—perhaps most importantly—they know that there are ways to approach an otherwise dangerous task in such a way that the risk is reduced to an acceptable level.

Why do entrepreneurs and ice climbers repeatedly prompt questions of flirting with death and disaster? My best guess is that a lack of familiarity prevents nonpractitioners from seeing what lies behind the surface: the serious and conscientious preparation that such people bring to their respective activities. To illustrate this, let me tell you a bit about ice climbing.

Essential Requirements

Anyone who has ever walked on a frozen lake, gone ice skating or tried curling knows that ice is slippery and that it takes practice to move with any kind of confidence. Now imagine that the ice sheet is vertical rather than horizontal. This should give you some sense of the challenge of ice-climbing. But then remember there are four things that the prepared ice-climber brings to the base of any climb: training, tools, fitness, and partner(s)

The need for training is pretty obvious. One has to know what one is doing. Just as you have to learn the rules of the road in order to drive on the freeway, the ice climber has to be educated about technique, the appropriate use of tools and procedures, reading the ice, and the evaluation of objective hazards.

Tools have improved significantly over the past decades. Strapped to one’s feet, in a manner not unlike roller-skates (but much more secure) are crampons. These have one or more long, sharp, surrogate toes that you can kick into the ice, thereby giving purchase to your feet. In each hand one has a short, curved, ice axe that is designed to enable one to smoothly drive the pick into the frozen water, thereby giving you something to hold onto. In the event that someone above knocks off some ice, one wears a helmet to protect the head. For protection in the event of a fall, one has a rope firmly tied to a harness around the waist. While ascending, the climber regularly sets a hollow titanium screw into the ice. This forms part of a system of running anchors.

The Element of Trust

This last point relates to the fact that the whole exercise is based on trust; trust in our training, our assessment of the situation, our tools, fitness, and—especially—our partner. You wouldn’t consent to being driven on the freeway by someone you didn’t trust, or who was impaired in one way or another. Nor would any reasonable person put their life in the hands of such a person in the mountains. Your partner is someone you trust with your life. Perhaps because of that, a partner is also the kind of person who makes the experience doubly enjoyable, being shared.

The lessons for business are simple: the four considerations employed by the ice climber are exactly the same as those used by the serial entrepreneur or the effective business person. Of course it could be argued that the rich scope of business constitutes a much more amorphous challenge than a frozen waterfall. But that makes it all the more rash to proceed without carefully considering the following:

Training: What, in fact are the skills that would best equip me to engage this problem? Are they evident in my team? If so, how do I hone them? If not, how do I bring them onboard?

Tools: What tools are relevant to the problem? What are the potentially useful processes, technologies or other instruments that might give me purchase and protection throughout the exercise?

Fitness: How does one prepare? How rusty are my skills? What would constitute a warm-up exercise, or a “preliminary heat” that would let me find out if I were ready for the game?

Partners: No matter how good you and your team are, in most significant cases you will need partners. Do you have the right ones? My approach in this is simple: Get the best. If you can’t, you might want to question the wisdom of proceeding. After all, if they aren’t working for you, they may be working for someone on the other side of the table.

Risk is not only not to be avoided, it is to be embraced—for survival.

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Mistake 7: Not spending enough on marketing and promotion

Avoiding: Spend between 3 and 6 percent of your projected turnover when you’re starting out; and 1 to 3 percent of your projected turnover if you’ve been in business for two or more years.

Mistake 8: Marketing only when you have time
Marketing only during the slow times means that you could end up with periods where you have no customers at all.

Mistake 9: Failing to present a professional image
The more professional you look, the more confident your customers will be that you can satisfy their needs or solve their problems.

Avoiding: Make your brochures and stationery look professional

Mistake 10: Underestimating the importance of current customers
Studies have shown it costs five times more to win a new customer than to ‘resell’ to an existing one.

Avoiding: Keep a database of customers and be sure your marketing plan includes tactics aimed at stimulating repeat business from these.

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Mistake 4: Failing to communicate your point of difference

Your ‘point of difference’ is something that makes you different from your competitors.. However it is no good having it if your customers don’t know what it is,

Avoiding: Include it in your marketing.

Mistake 5: Using marketing tactics that are not target-specific

Avoiding: The more directly you can reach your target market, the more cost-effective your marketing will be.

Mistake 6: Trying to say too much

People are subjected to more and more information and have less time to absorb it.

Avoiding: The key is to keep your message simple.

Major Marketing Mistakes (Part 2)

Mistake 4: Failing to communicate your point of difference

Your ‘point of difference’ is something that makes you different from your competitors.. However it is no good having it if your customers don’t know what it is,

Avoiding: Include it in your marketing.

Mistake 5: Using marketing tactics that are not target-specific

Avoiding: The more directly you can reach your target market, the more cost-effective your marketing will be.

Mistake 6: Trying to say too much

People are subjected to more and more information and have less time to absorb it.

Avoiding: The key is to keep your message simple.

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The don’ts of marketing

Mistake 1: Failing to accurately identify your target markets

Many businesses fail because they try to tackle too many types of customer on a limited marketing budget

Avoiding: Identify those customer groups that are most likely to need/want your product.

Mistake 2: Not doing market research

How do you know if people are going to want your product or service?

Avoiding: do some market research before anything else

Mistake 3: Relying on just one or two marketing tactics

Relying on one or two marketing tactics is a major marketing mistake because customers invariably need to be exposed to your message in at least three different ways before they’ll consider buying your product or using your service.

Avoiding: When you’re planning your marketing programme, choose from a variety of tactics.

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Here are some things to consider in order to differentiate yourself from other businesses.

- Lower your prices OR Raise your prices for premium goods & services
- Increase your inventory OR decrease your inventory and only carry specialty items
- Increase your area of expertise if you have a service-based business OR Specialize or narrow your niche
- Offer free shipping on all orders or on orders over a certain amount
- Offer a customer loyalty program
- Apply for a patent
- Achieve ratings, rankings, win awards from well-known associations or organizations

Includes:

1. Advertising and promotions (focused on the product)
2. Sales
3. Public and media relations (focused on the entire organization)
4. Customer service
5. Customer satisfaction

When you jump right into outbound marketing, you push products onto people who really don’t want the products at all. When your inbound marketing is effective, you would have effective outbound marketing and sales.

Points and perks expire. What lasts is the company’s “personality,” as well as a two-way relationship with the customer that reinforces the brand

But how does a company ensure that its loyalty program achieves effective share of heart? Here are five principles to consider:

Roots of Loyalty

The first principal may be counterintuitive to those who work so hard trying to create committed customers: Loyalty is natural. Think about it. Identify with someone or something, then reinforce the credibility of our beliefs and one way we do that is by forming loyalties to them. So we give them repeat business and brag about them to our friends.

Appealing to the Heart

The second principle: behavior often comes from the heart.

We care about performers because we empathize with them. They lay themselves out for us—whether it’s an actor demonstrating raw emotion, a musician performing passionately, or an athlete leaving it all on the field. The common thread is vulnerability, the willingness to expose themselves and take a risk. And that creates a heartfelt response which makes us want to attend the movie, buy the CD, or sit in sub-zero temperatures watching the game (at full price, mind you).

Take Your Time

Love takes time. It’s as true in business as it is in romance.

A Two-Way Street

The fourth principle may be the most significant because of the damage that can be caused by ignoring it. Put simply, relationships are reciprocal.

True relationships develop along the lines of give-and-take. Relationships develop only so far as trust develops. And trust develops only by mutual disclosure and the circumspect protection of valuable information. The more data you collect on your customers, the greater the danger that the give-and-take balance will get out of whack.

It’s More than Numbers

Fifth, just because you can’t precisely measure something (or measure it easily) doesn’t mean it’s not working. We don’t know how poetry moves the heart but our lives would be much less fulfilling without it.

Behavior tends to get measured because it can be measured. But measurement can create its own reality and cause the loyalty marketing focus to become too narrowly defined.

Be polite, be respectful, and be patient with your loyalty marketing efforts and you’ll find that they not only increase short-term transactions but drive long-term affection as well. That affection will pay off for years to come, long after the points and perks expire.

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Macromarketing addresses big/important issues at the nexus of marketing and society. The principal scholarly outlet for macromarketing research is the Journal of Macromarketing. In a more interconnected world of markets, marketers, and their stakeholders, macromarketing is an important mechanism to study both opportunities and shortcomings of marketing, and both its intended positive effects and unintended deleterious effects. Macromarketing therefore includes an optimistic perspective; it seeks functional mechanisms to enhance marketing processes and systems, to the benefit of the largest number of stakeholders, the world over. The following text borrows heavily from Shultz (2007; in press).

Macromarketing today

Today, macromarketing continues to morph, to draw new and diverse followers, and thus it defies neat boundaries, descriptors, and limitations. With its growth and maturation have come new directions in the forms of sub-disciplines, as described by the section editors on the webpage for the Journal of Macromarketing.

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Also

Marketing is the act of communicating with your customers. You have to tell them that your product or service exists, so that they can buy it. You have to present it. Then you have to continue presenting it, continue explaining it and continue selling it. That’s marketing. When you stop marketing, you stop selling. It’s that simple. The more money you can continue to spend on marketing the more successful your business will be.

Macro Marketing is the art of using every possible applicable, appropriate tactic available to simultaneously communicate to the target audience the benefits of buying your product or service.

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If you are like the majority of small business owners your marketing budget is limited. The most effective way to market your company is to create a well rounded program that combines sales activities with your marketing tactics. Your sales activities will not only decrease your out-of-pocket marketing expense but it also adds the value of interacting with your prospective customers and clients. This is priceless.Small businesses typically have a limited marketing budget if any at all. Does that mean you can’t run with the big dogs? Absolutely not. It just means you have to think a little more creatively.  How about launching your marketing campaign by doing one of the following:

• Call your vendors or associates and ask them to participate with you in co-op advertising.
• Take some time to send your existing customers’ referrals and buying incentives.
• Have you thought about introducing yourself to the media? Free publicity has the potential to boost your business. Position yourself as an expert in your field.
• Invite people into your store by piggybacking onto an event. What about a concert coming to town, willing to sell those tickets for them? If not, how about a walkathon that is taking place in your area, why not be public outreach and distribute their material?

When you do spend money on marketing, don’t forget to create a way to track those marketing efforts. You can do this by coding your ads, using multiple toll-free telephone numbers, and asking prospects where they heard about you. This enables you to notice when a marketing tactic stops working. You can then quickly replace it with a better choice or method.

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