Category: Small Business Marketing

They say, ‘Necessity is the mother of all inventions’. If we go back in time, we could say that brochures and pamphlets were the then successful marketing strategies. You can recall the colored advertising papers often lying in your balustrade, and you reading about the newly established restaurant, discount coupons, special offers and service offerings. The success and popularity of brochures based advertising was due to the absence of any other prevalent marketing service that delivers fast result. Gradually however, in the wake of other marketing strategies, the pamphlet-based marketing lost its charm. Internet based marketing overtook the very purpose of reaching out to the masses, and flyers were replaced by websites.

Talking about today’s restaurant owners, most of them strive to make a brand image by getting a website of their own. The I-age has shown its impact so much that today people like to use Internet for purchasing products, availing services and even ordering food. So having a website becomes as customary for a restaurant owner, as it is to cook good food and provide warm services.

This brings the question of making and maintaining a website and the cost involved in it. The five main areas that decide the website-making budget are: Domain Name, Hosting, Designing, Developing and Maintenance. The first four areas are a one-time investment, whereas website maintenance is a continuous operation. Apart from that, a separate IT department is needed that takes care of all the technical issues, and a customer support that is available 24*7 to answer the customer’s queries.

An alternative to building and maintaining a restaurant website is the Online Food Ordering Systems. The Online Food Ordering Service providers develop website for the restaurant, and the restaurateur just enjoys the sales! They can upload the menus, check the stock and manage the regular customer database. Besides, they can promote the site just as their own product and let the customers order from their restaurant online. This spares you from the cumbersome activity of answering the phone calls and noting down the error-prone order.

So if you want to omit the stress related to website development and maintenance, and yet get yourself a restaurant website, avail the Online Food Ordering System.

Source by Vibha Babbar

Costco’s Business Model, strategies and core competencies:

Costco is trying to generate huge sales volume and quick inventory turnover by applying a business model that offers limited selections of nationally branded product in a wide range of merchandise categories. Costco apply number of operating excellence or mechanism such as efficient way of managing inventory and Just in time inventory, efficient distribution, minimum merchandise handling, and volume purchasing to reduce the price of its product. One of the major benefits of high sales volume and rapid inventory turnover is that they can sell their inventory and receive cash which can be used to pay its vendors and take the advantage of early-payment discounts. And because Costco is able to sell its product before they have to pay their suppliers or manufacturer for its merchandise, it enables them to finance their inventory from their working capital. Furthermore, among those 4000 merchandise that Costco keeps in its location, it has distinctive segment which they called “treasure-hunt merchandise” where they keep 1000 products which keeps changing quickly. The main idea behind this is that it helps lure customers by offering irresistible deals on those 1000 products which will quickly vanish from the store. Another key strategic competency of Costco is that they do not obtain its luxury offerings from the high end manufacturers rather they look for the opportunities to find such luxury products legally on the gray markets from the retailers who want to get rid of their inventory.

In the core of their strategy, Costco sells limited numbers of products in fewer varieties to keep the cost down and they rely on high volume sales. But unlike their competitors they pay well to their employees. One of the key uniqueness and strength is that they sell membership to their customers that not only generate the fixed revenue every year but also increase the brand loyalty and awareness of the customers towards Costco.  They advertise very less thereby reducing the cost by two percent each year.

One of the crucial factors of Costco is their pricing strategy. They have unique way or mechanism that helps them keep the price lower than that of competitors and they can still afford to pay 48 percent higher salaries to their employees than their major competitors mainly Wal-Mart. Their membership base is growing and they are able to retain their customers. Virtually, they do everything to retain their customers. Most importantly they have very incredible return policies in hand to attract and retain customers. Furthermore, they try to find the best value pack for almost every product they sell in their location (store). For example, they have thousand packet box of Splenda (sugar free sweetener). They generally engage in bigger packages because they believe that bigger package provides better value and cost savings to their customers.

Costco applies several other strategies to achieve corporate wide price leadership strategies. For example, to achieve the price leadership they reduce handling and storage cost,  they maintain in-stock positions without being overstocked and transition seasonal merchandise,  they utilize just-in-time principles when ordering merchandise to minimize the cost of inventory, keep best value pack product to assure low prices through volume buying, expense reduction and low gross margins etc. in addition to this, Costco  doesn’t spent a lot in advertising and use word of mouth advertising for marketing which is not only one of the cheapest way to advertise but it is one of the most effective ways of advertisement.

Costco’s mission statement is to focus on bringing high quality goods and services to the market at the lowest possible prices every day, but to do it with integrity at every level of the company while valuing the interests of the stakeholders (Annual Report 2006). The mission statement of the Costco is well understood throughout the organization by the management and employees. Costco offers their customers with low prices on selected private and a limited selection of nationally branded products in a wide range of merchandise categories. Businesses and families can rely on Costco to offer high quality goods and services at everyday low prices. Rapid inventory turnover, high sales volume per warehouse, leveraging an efficient operating structure, reduced handling of merchandise, and making themselves the low cost operator in retail are all key elements that make the company so successful (Annual Report 2006)

read the whole paper at following link

http://dineshperspective.blogspot.com/2011/04/costco-case-study-and-strategic.html

Source by Dinesh Siwakoti

There are two aspects of marketing that marketers have to understand and work with. These two factors are the controllable factors which are known as the four Ps of marketing; price, promotion, place, and product, and the uncontrollable factors, social, economic, technological, regulatory, and competition. An organization has complete control of the controllable factors, however, what happens when a firm faces the uncontrollable factors:

The 5 Environmental Forces

1. Social
2 Economic
3. Regulatory
4. Competition
5. Technology

Example of these factors would be; consumers changing their needs and wants (social), a change in technology (technology), government setting new regulations (regulatory), the state of the economy (economic), and a competitor entering the market (competition). The marketing manager has two options, work with or against these factors. A firms success is determined by how efficiently they deal with these factors when they occur.

For example, we know that house phones are becoming extinct because of cell phone (technology) so the companies who offer home service have to make a change or stop selling the service. A change in the marketing mix (four P’s) is generally how most organizations adapt to this new change. Now we can get a house phone for $9.99 per month (price) while most cell phone plans start at around 40 dollars per month. The home service company adjusted to the change in technology (uncontrollable factors) by changing one of the four P’s (controllable factor). They understood that a change in technology is something they have no control over and there wasn’t anything they could do to stop the change from occurring. This is where planning and forecasting are huge in marketing.

Source by Charles Rivers

Not that many companies think up of original ideas for promotional items and the use of a promotional sunscreen is as original as they come. Using sunscreen as a promotional item is ideal for companies that have services that take people outdoors or when they have products that are meant for the outdoors like sports gear and such. You can capitalize on this promotional idea by using these lip protecting products for your own marketing purposes.

Unique Promotional Sunscreen Ideas When you use a promotional sunscreen for your marketing ideas, you can actually use these together with other promotional products that have the same kind of purpose or usage. For example, you can package this with a lip balm, sun visor, and a protective umbrella, all of which are products made for sun protection. Here are a few more ideas you can use with a promotional lip salve:

• You can pair this sunscreen with a pair of inexpensive sunglasses for a double protection package from the sun.
• You can also pair your sunscreen and your lip balm with a beach ball or beach towel for beach purposes.
• A wide brimmed hat can also come with your sunscreen and you can place this in a see-through plastic bag with a pair of rubber flip-flops that have your logo or company name on it.
• Another worthwhile idea that includes a promotional sunscreen is one where you can collect all of the different colors and flavors that your company has to offer. You can avail of one lip salve for a minimum purchase or for a certain product purchase.

Different Kinds of Sunscreen You can use sunscreens in different varieties for this campaign of yours and these varieties come in many different colored tubes that have your company name or logo on them. These can even become collectibles if you print different mascots on each tube or type and you can also have the top made in a novel form.

• Another idea for your Promotional Sunscreen marketing giveaways would be to have these as convenient attachments for key chains or have them made into key chains themselves.
• You can also make these promotional sunscreen into prime items if you use branded balms for your giveaway choices and have these given away for people who accumulate a certain amount of purchases from you or if they buy a particular product from your line.

Source by Douglas Gregory

How many times have we been told in network marketing that it’s a numbers game? Start recruiting with your warm market because it’s not who you know but it’s who they know. But the reality is do you really want to bring in someone who is capable or some guy that is a joke that will never figure it out?

Network marketing is not for everyone, sorry! We need doctors, lawyers, builders and guys that flip burgers too. If you’re not cut out for it fine! I recruit people who like to sell. To have the ultimate success in network marketing you have to prospect up the social economic chain. That is people that have had success in their lives. Recruit professionals!

Certain types of people are more likely to be successful in network marketing because of what they do for a living. Sort and sift through people and develop a target market. I’m going to look to sponsor people that can do.

Who would you rather have as a prospect, a guy who flips burgers for a living or a realtor? The realtor sells for a living. What does the burger flipper do? Also a guy like a realtor is paid on commissions. In network marketing you make money on commissions they same way. A guy that punches a time clock may not “get it”.

What are some of the best occupations to target?

*Real estate agents
*Insurance agents
*Financial planners
*Outside sales people
*Sales managers

When I recruit a realtor I find for sale signs and write down the name and number, call and introduce myself. I’ll tell them I know that you are very active in the real estate community and then I’ll ask the peak interest question. Do you keep all your options open in terms of making any money outside of what your doing in your real estate business? You will get about 50% to say yes to you. What does yes mean? Ya, I’m open to taking a look at your business. You’re looking for an open door and opportunity. Would you rather put in a broke, skeptical complainer into your pipeline or talk to someone who already sells for a living, already prospects, and already makes money on commissions?

If you are not doing this right now and implementing this strategy on pursuing professional people, then you are really missing the boat. It isn’t really scary! “Ask and you shall receive”.

There are many professionals out there who were making good money. As the economy dropped they are praying for the right opportunity. You could very well be their answer. We are pretty recession proof.