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Social media sites like Facebook and Twitter offer a unique opportunity for savvy businesses willing to invest in customer engagement. Social media marketing is still in its infancy but is growing up rather quickly. Companies like Southwest Airlines have departments of over 30 people whose primary responsibility is to actively engage with customers on social media.
Provide customers information through multiple channels like email, physical mail, websites, and print and online advertisements to cross-promote your products and services.
Business-to-business marketing is a marketing practice of individuals or organizations (including commercial businesses, governments, and other institutions). It allows businesses to sell products or services to other companies or organizations that in turn resell the same products or services, use them to augment their own products or services, or use them to support their internal operations. International Business Machines is a well known B2B marketer. IBM’s business has grown because taking a very intelligent approach at marketing their products to other business and governments around the world.
Promotional marketing is a business marketing strategy designed to stimulate a customer to take action towards a buying decision. Promotional marketing is a technique that includes various incentives to buy, such as:
Contests: We all enjoy winning something for free. Contests offer an attractive marketing vehicle for small business to acquire new clients and create awareness.
Coupons: According to CMS, a leading coupon processing agent, marketers issued 302 billion coupons in 2007, a 6% increase over the previous year. Over 76% of the population use coupons, according to the Promotion Marketing Association (PMA) Coupon Council. Coupons still work and provide an affordable marketing strategy for small business.
Sampling: Try before you buy. Giving away product might appear profit-limiting, but consider how giving your customers a small taste can lead to a big purchase. Retail genius Publix supermarkets share samples of their award-winning key lime pie not because people question the goodness of the pie but to get their customers to buy more.
Advertiser use this marketing strategy to associate with specific events and brands without paying sponsorship fees. This allows the business to capitalize on these events or leverage the brand equity of the other business, which has the potential effect of lowering the value of the original event.
The ultimate goal of B2C marketing (business-to-consumer marketing) is to convert shoppers into buyers as aggressively and consistently as possible. B2C marketers employ merchandising activities like coupons, displays, store fronts (both real and online) and special offers to entice the target market to buy. B2C marketing campaigns are focused on a transaction, are shorter in duration, and need to capture the customer’s interest immediately. These campaigns often offer special deals, discounts, or vouchers that can be used both online and in the store.
In this new form of marketing, all marketing resources and assets are brought online so customers (or affiliates) can develop, modify, use, and share them. Consider how Amazon.com gets customers to buy digital books, movies, and televisions shows in a digital library that is accessible in the customer’s online account or on their digital device like their Kindle Fire.
Marketing on or with a mobile device, such as a smartphone. Mobile marketing can provide customers with time and location sensitive, personalized information that promotes goods, services, and ideas. Here is a recent example of mobile marketing in action.
A joint venture is formed between two or more businesses to pool resources in an effort to promote and sell products and services.
In reverse marketing, the idea is to get the customer to seek out the business rather than marketers seeking the customer. Usually, this is done through traditional means of advertising, such as television advertisements, print magazine advertisements, and online media. While traditional marketing mainly deals with the seller finding the right set of customers and targeting them, reverse marketing focuses on the customer approaching potential sellers who may be able to offer the desired product.
In 2004, Dove launched the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty focusing on the natural beauty of women rather than advertising their product. This campaign caused their sales to soar above $1 Billion and caused Dove to re-create their brand around this strategy. Although successful, this campaign caused a lot of controversy and discussion due to what people saw as an advertisement with a contradictory message.
I know what you are thinking, you hate telemarketers. You are not alone in your feelings. However, telemarketing can play an important part of selling your products to consumers and it must not be overlooked as many companies rely on it to connect with customers. Telemarketing (sometimes known as inside sales, or telesales in the UK and Ireland) is a method of direct marketing in which a salesperson solicits prospective customers to buy products or services, either over the phone or through a subsequent face to face or Web conferencing appointment scheduled during the call. Telemarketing can also include recorded sales pitches programmed to be played over the phone via automatic dialing. Telemarketing has come under fire in recent years, being viewed as an annoyance by many.
Unlike Freebie Marketing, this is not dependent on complementary marketing, but rather consists of giving away a free sample of the product to influence the consumer to make the purchase.
A channel-agnostic form of advertising that allows businesses and nonprofits organizations to communicate directly with the customer, with advertising techniques that can include text messaging, email, interactive consumer websites, online display ads, fliers, catalog distribution, promotional letters, and outdoor advertising. Direct marketing messages emphasize a focus on the customer, data, and accountability. Characteristics that distinguish direct marketing are:
Marketing messages are addressed directly to the customer(s). Direct marketing relies on being able to address the members of a target market. Addressability comes in a variety of forms including email addresses, mobile phone numbers, Web browser cookies, fax numbers, and postal addresses.
Direct marketing seeks to drive a specific “call to action.” For example, an advertisement may ask the prospect to call a free phone number or click on a link to a website.
Direct marketing emphasizes trackable, measurable responses from customers regardless of medium.
Direct marketing is practiced by businesses of all sizes—from the smallest start-up to the leaders in the Fortune 500. A well-executed direct advertising campaign can prove a positive return on investment by showing how many potential customers responded to a clear call-to-action. General advertising eschews calls-for-action in favor of messages that try to build prospects’ emotional awareness or engagement with a brand. Even well-designed general advertisements rarely can prove their impact on the organization’s bottom line.
Database Marketing is a form of direct marketing using databases of customers or potential customers to generate personalized messages in order to promote a product or service for marketing purposes. The method of communication can be any addressable medium, as in direct marketing.The distinction between direct marketing and database marketing stems primarily from the attention paid to the analysis of data. Database marketing emphasizes the use of statistical techniques to develop models of customer behavior, which are then used to select customers for communications. As a consequence, database marketers also tend to be heavy users of data warehouses, because having a greater amount of data about customers increase the likelihood that a more accurate model can be built.
There are two main types of marketing databases: (1) consumer databases and (2) business databases. Consumer databases are primarily geared towards companies that sell to consumers, often abbreviated as [business-to-consumer] (B2C) or BtoC. Business marketing databases are often much more advanced in the information that they can provide. This is mainly because business databases aren’t restricted by the same privacy laws as consumer databases.
Personalized marketing (also called personalization, and sometimes called one-to-one marketing) is an extreme form of product differentiation. Whereas product differentiation tries to differentiate a product from competing ones, personalization tries to make a unique product offering for each customer. Nike ID is a popular brand that has developed a strong business around this personalization marketing concept.
Create strategic partnerships that are mutually beneficial by forming alliances with complementary brands. Also known as partnership marketing, with this strategy, many brands generate sales while others create new customers and builds brand awareness.
The proposition of cult marketing holds reign upon the notion that there is a way to convert and excite. Right? Ok, Converting consumers is done by using timeless human behavioral drives found in religious cults. Heck, fellow acolytes, nothing is more permission buzz and one-to-one-based than “a central ideology with a parallel social universe rich with customs.” Cult marketing is a bright spot in the list of newfangled marketing templates, one that applies timeless social science principles in a powerful way. To the list of newfangled marketing buzzwords, let’s add the term cult.
Human needs are “a state of felt deprivation.” They distinguish between physical needs (food, shelter, safety, clothing), social needs (belonging and affection), and individual needs (knowledge, self-expression). Needs are a relatively narrow set of non-cultural states of felt deprivation.
Grass root, untraditional, and low-budget methods that found involve creativity, big crowds of people, and the element of surprise to market or promote a product, service, brand, event, or new launch.
Brand Lover Marketing is a marketing concept that is intended to replace the idea of traditional brand marketing. Brands are running out of juice and Brand Lovers are what is needed to rescue brands. But what builds loyalty that goes beyond reason? What makes a truly great brand stand out? Brand Lovers bring brands to life. For a brand to elevate itself into the “Cult Brand” category, it has to give customers a feeling of belonging while generating strong feelings of love for its customers. Creating loyalty beyond reason requires emotional connections that generate the highest levels of love and a sense of belonging for your brand.
Chuck Reynolds
Contributor
