Marketing Schools of Thought

Business’s today face major challenges and opportunities in marketing, such as globalization and advances in technology. These both play major parts in the marketing strategy of a business. Marketing is not only a social process of how to get your products and services to the consumer, but it is also the process of planning and executing the concepts, pricing, promotion, and distribution of ideas, goods and services to create exchanges that satisfy individual and organizational goals.

While there are many different schools of thought on marketing from old school such as print ads, direct mailings to old fashion trade shows and the new school of the internet, online selling venues, business websites, even blogging and social networking are now considered to be ‘the place to sell your products’ or at least keep in touch with your customer base. But one thing remains the same within the world of getting your product out there and marketing, the four major pieces of marketing: Product, Price, Place and Promotion and the following questions:

1) How can you spot and chose the right target markets?
2) How can you differentiate your products and services from the competition?
3) How far do you go to customize your products and services for each customer?
4) What are the major ways you can grow your business or company?
5) How can you build stronger brands in order to continue to grow your business or company?
6) How do you keep your customers loyal to you, just beyond the first few purchases?
7) How do you measure the payback from advertising, sales promotions, and public relations?

Just thinking about these questions gets the ball rolling about your businesses marketing strategy. It is one of the main reasons a company will ‘make or brake’ it in their industry. Most businesses, unless they are very large, don’t usually consider marketing. But it is one of the most important ‘hats’ a business person will wear.

Marketing your products or services just right will bring back customers and keep your business in front of the consumer. Keep in mind though; too much exposure could ruin your business or product, so try to keep an even marketing plan.

Learn about your competition, their target markets and pricing strategies and capitalize on feeding what works into your business.

Marketing is a challenging concept in any business…from print ads, to internet, to direct-mailings, internet selling or even social networking; no matter what avenue you chose, just keep in mind the 4 major pieces of marketing: Product, Price, Place, and Promotion.

Women Social Networking

I get a lot of different news articles and found this one very interesting. It discusses some of the social habits of women and how woman are more apt to get their information via blogging rather than more traditional socializing via Facebook or even Twitter.

Reprinted from Webpronews.com

"Women Prefer Blogs/Facebook To Twitter

Losing interest in traditional media?

Women keep their personal lives and business lives very separate when it comes to social media, according to the 2009 Women in Social Media Study by BlogHer, iVillage, and Compass Partners. While women consider blogs great sources of information, especially regarding purchases, the vast majority of women use social networks solely for keeping in touch with family and friends.

Over half (55%) of the women surveyed in said they participate in some kind of blog activity (publishing, posting comments, reading), and 53% use social networks.

But here's the kicker: Women use social networks in the purest sense only; 75% use them to keep in touch with friends and family, and not so much as information sources or for making purchase decisions. That's a major insight considering this is the half of population making 85% of purchase decisions in the US.

In contrast, women rely more on blogs for the business of life, and are twice as likely to use blogs than social networks as an information source (64%), for advice and recommendations (43%), and opinion sharing (55%). Women are 50% more likely to use social networks merely as a means of keeping in touch.

A third of those participating in social networks are loyal to just one and do no other social media activities on a weekly basis. There are likely infinite reasons for that, but it sheds a rather harsh light on why only 20% of women appear to use Twitter.

It could mean that most want all of the networking under one roof for convenience, and only desire one-to-many communication if it involves people they know and trust. It could also mean that Twittering is still considered a medium for celebrities, politicians, and digital hipsters; the survey found that women who themselves blog are significantly more active across all forms of social media.

"Bloggers have a broad reach in the social media population and the survey demonstrates that women who blog are the most actively engaged social media participants -- constantly seeking out new ideas and ways to share their opinions about those ideas," said Susan Wright, president of Compass Partners.

And other women are listening, perhaps more than they are to traditional media. Thirty percent are watching less TV, 31% are listening to less radio, 36% are reading fewer magazines, and 39% are reading the newspaper less.

Numbers like that indicate a huge shift in the media landscape: the sex making the most purchase decisions are rejecting traditional media in favor of online sources. Forty-five percent of women in the survey said they decided to purchase an item after reading about it on a blog; among the women in the more digitally savvy BlogHer network, that number is 85%.

Women bloggers are twice as likely to share a positive purchase experience on blogs and/or message boards and about 40% more likely to share a negative experience. So it's a good idea to be very, very nice to women bloggers, especially since they are likely to carry significant influence with non-blogging women.

"At a time when the economy is top of mind for more than 70 percent of these active social media participants, women who blog are turning to online resources, including blogs, to help them make their day to day purchasing decisions," said BlogHer cofounder Elisa Camahort.

The results of the survey are concluded according the answers of 2,821 women in the general US population, 1,008 women in the BlogHer network, and 788 women in the iVillage network."

Reprinted from Webpronews.com

Interesting survey and how the world is changing from the traditional shopping and socializing; to the high tech world of online shopping, commuincating and socializing.