All posts in Marketing

The digital world is evolving and the trends are changing in real world, making the world faster than ever before and technology more stable. Mobile is all about today’s world which took birth with the invention of first pager in 1956. The world started getting mobile and the launch of first commercial mobile phone by NTT in Japan was the next step to stabilize this mobility.

The innovation in this mobility with SMS happened to be originated in Europe in 1985. SMS was a boom in the later part of 1900s and early 2000s, and still it’s the top cellular activity. Now, there’re above 4 billion mobile phone subscribers, with 74% of them using SMS of which 94% of SMSs are read. Just in UK 1.4 billion text messages now being sent every week.

This is just about mobile phones and SMS, innovations like iPhone, Blackberry, Android and mobile-internet integration are constanly opening the new horizons of excellence for mobile marketing. Web marketing is one of the most cost effective marketing methods with maximum outreach. Since there’re more mobile phone subscribers than that of internet users, so mobile opens broad ways for marketing from small and medium to large businesses.

Mobile-web integrated marketed is still in the process of development, reason being the lack of awareness among most of mobile phone subscribers, i.e. there’re about 10 million users worldwide using GPRS services that makes only about 0.25% of the total subscribers. But, this low percentage doesn’t mean that mobile marketing is not growing. There’re various alternative methods within mobile marketing including SMS Marketing, Ingame Mobile Marketing, Location Based Services etc.

Ingame Mobile Marketing is the fastly growing area and the future of mobile marketing. The reason is that more than 90% of mobile phone subscribers play mobile games. From simple interactive real-time 3D games to massive multi-player and social networking games, mobile gaming is everywhere. This trend is accelerating the growth of mobile 2.0 on one hand and hence the mobile development on other.

Mobile development being the next big thing is now the focus of small, medium and large business, and hence it’s becoming a competitive industry. The cometition is becoming tougher as the industry leaders Nokia and Google have moved to opensource, and this situation is critical for ISVs. ZDNet also reports that, it’ll not be the great UI as only challenge instead, things that matter more are ideas and methodologies. Though ISV’s are more under pressure, but companies will have equal pressure and will have to face almost same challenges. It’ll be the race of collective innovation [what I can term it as] or Product Innovation [combination of innovation in methodologies, design, productivity etc] so, innovation in over all performance will win!

Quality means doing it right when no one is looking. ~Henry Ford

Do you cut corners in your products and services? Or do you make the honest effort to do it right even when no one is looking? You cant expect perfection as that is an impossible goal for the imperfect people we are. The question is simply if you have done your best. Do you do the job right even if your customer or client may never know the difference?

Marketing with Integrity is about loving your customer. Develop a relationship with them. Advise them. Help them. Offer them products and services which will help them. Protect them from those who would take advantage of them. It isnt about being the cheapest in the market, although you could make that your unique selling position.

It is really caring about the results your customers get from your products. If good service and quality require higher prices, then youll have to charge higher prices. Base your business on really helping solve your customers problems.

That shouldnt just be a buzz phrase. Make it the truth to you and your business.

Employ educational selling. Tell your customers the whole story if necessary. Give them reasons why they should buy from you. Promote the benefits of your product or service. Have ads which tell a story of how your product has helped other customers and clients. Just make sure it is a true story!

Being honest doesnt mean being boring.

It also doesnt mean being bland. You can still have exciting benefit rich ad copy and true stories to sell you products. You have to use good salesmanship to bring in buyers. Just dont use salesmanship as an excuse for lying or dishonesty.

If you truly love your customers, you wont deceive them or trick them into buying something they shouldnt. You wont tell them this is the best price when it isnt. You wont make up fake stories to sell more items. You will do everything you can to help them make a right buying decision. You will give them all the information they need to make a wise decision.

You will show them how well your product will help their lives. Do your best to produce or find the absolute best product or service for your customers wants and needs. Tell them how your product will improve their lives. Use examples. Tell true stories.

Paint a picture of the results they can achieve through the product. Once someone buys, nurture and continue to care about them. Support and reinforce their buying decision by how you contact them. Then offer them other products and services which will benefit their lives. Dont use integrity as an excuse to keep your products hidden and not show the full benefits of them to your customers.

Youre hurting your customers if you keep good quality products hidden from them!

An online marketing company that extends the best digital offering / software for your business should be chosen by you. However in order to decide and conclude which company provides you the best services you should look into certain aspects such as:

Email campaigns

The kind of emails you need to send to your target audience plays an important role in the kind of software that should be used by you. You may have made use of outlook in the past but there are an abundant number of cloud based computing systems that can be utilized by you. Email campaigns created by an online marketing company that are innovative and prescribe to permission based marketing (subscribers that are interested in receiving your mails and have the option for unsubscribing, this practice of marketing is known as permission based email marketing).

Outsource

When you take the help of outsourcing your campaigns to an online marketing company can channelize your communication to the right target audience. Instead of building your own email system you can procure the help of an online marketing company they would serve the purpose of providing you with cloud based mails.

SMS campaigns

A company that can create innovative and catchy SMS campaigns should be appointed by you as they can target customers who are active recipients. Prospective customers may not pay attention to their mails but they are likely to open their messages. The company should also provide the option for enhanced data security that is they can manage the permissions of their accounts by themselves and thereby secure themselves from any breach.

Reliable customer support system

One has to look for a reliable customer support system when they are looking to recruit a company. There are a number of people who will be able to help you in scenarios where any kind of problem arises. A guaranteed response at the time of crisis will instil faith and trust in your services.

CRM integration with mailing lists

You need to assess your mailing lists and the contacts you have enlisted there. Manually doing this can be time consuming and hectic therefore you should integrate your CRM system with your mailing lists. This permits you to conduct targeted emails based on your audiences interests, customer category and the kind of area they live in.

Tracking customer activity

You need the activity of your prospective customer recorded journalistically. If your email campaigns are not being opened or they are being deleted you would want this information for a creating an impactful campaign. You can track this activity easily with an efficient online marketing company and channelize your energy on active participants rather than on ones who are inactive.

An online marketing company that is efficient and enhances the performance of mails in the marketing arena should be chosen by you. There are a number of references that you can get from your friends and professional buddies thus you must ensure that the company you recruit for carrying out such services is able to give you results that meet your expectation based on the above listed aspects.

Social media marketing agencies are playing an extremely important role in promoting businesses by providing access to customers and bringing them closer to their preferred goals. Now, a huge number of websites and business search for helping from these social media agency to develop new techniques and programs that can bring in more fans or visitors that can have a direct contact on development of a business.

Social marketing agencies have recognized themselves as the supreme and most successful means of promotion for other business in form of advertisements, social media services and application developments. But it is also essential to understand that publicizing socially can simply assist if you understand the goal and objective of your business and what efforts you are ready to take in this regard, only then it would profit your business enterprise the best way.

With assist of modern techniques and new concepts, these social media agency try to get real customers for every new business and product with their professional concepts. They present marketing solutions that are particularly created keeping in mind your business requirements and address the targeted market in the most capable manner for direct and positive results.

Therefore, it would not be wrong to say that an advertising agency plays an extremely important role in shaping the future of a developing business. This is why selecting the true agency can really assist in business growth with its logical concepts and applications to stay the visitors coming back for more.

The most important duty of a social media marketing agency is to convey an imprecise stream of appropriate and valuable content that engages the visitors and potential clients and keeps them coming back for more. Herewith, the agency will be helping you into starting new channels and possibility of marketing that will reinforce with passage of time.

An additional significant responsibility of the promotional agency includes representing your developing business in different circles for example the target market and associated industry. This communication will make sure that your business is known and established which finally leads to good profits.

These agencies also identify the significance of Facebook profile as a developing business and pay individual attention to developing different Facebook applications and programs to target the niche market. This will also contain taking care of appropriate content on your profile and fan pages to make sure that the true keywords and applications assist to bring in more visitors. This is one vital task that your social media marketing agency should excel in as lastly it will become the focus of all promotional campaigns.

The importance of having the greatest professionals for business promotional lies in the reality that it will assist in coming up with fresh ideas and campaigns to check the progress and come up with new ways to decide the results of their efforts. This way you will identify if the techniques and applications being used by the social media agency are working successfully and if they should be continued in future.

When you want to use printed materials to promote your business, you need to ensure that you produce high quality materials. Whether it is brochures, postcards, or even business cards, you have to ensure getting high quality output. You would not want your business represented by a sloppy and badly printed material, right? People will look at your business the same way as your materials. If you present a cheap, low quality advertising that lacks attention to detail, people will assume that you will provide similar service. This is why you need to show quality and impressive image starting from your marketing materials. How do you do this?

Choose the best printer and work closely with them.

The first step to achieve good quality postcards or business cards is to communicate with your printer. Talk to them before you finalize your design. The common mistake of people is to wait until final printing to check on the design only to discover that the printer was not able to get the design that you want. This is why it is crucial to work closely with your printer. They will tell you the best paper, font, color, and printing option appropriate to your material. Ensure that the sample prints meet your quality standards, and that the printer will be able to meet your deadline. You would not want to receive your cards on the day of the trade show, only to find out that the quality is not what you expected.

The right paper choice.

There are different options in paper in the market today such as the gloss and matt finish. If you printing brochures, you can go with a gloss finish, but if you will be printing business card, you can go for a matt finish. This is to allow people to write notes on your card.

Paper also comes in different weights. Obviously, thin paper is less costly, but the quality of the print may not be high quality. You do not want people to squint just to read the texts just the writing shows through the opposite page. In this case, you need to use a thicker paper weight as it looks posh and will hold the ink better. Talk to your printer to discuss the different weight options that suit your needs.

There are also different colors of paper. You have the entire color wheel to choose from. There are also different versions of one color. For instance, white can come as bleached white or creamy white. Although the common practice is to print in white paper, you can always consider printing on a colored paper for added impact. Again, talk to your printer to choose the best paper color that will suits your printing need.

The right folding.

Brochures and even business card templates can have folding. If you decide to use folding, you need to decide whether to get a tri-fold or a bi-fold and where to put the fold. Your printer will explain to you the folding options appropriate for your material and how the fold will impact the design. You put additional elements in the fold such as a seal over the fold to make it look like an old fashioned envelope. Work closely with your printer for the folding option before you design your final material.