The marketing practices are century’s old, but systematic marketing concept as a distinct discipline has been evolved in the beginning of 20th century. “Customer are main decider of business” – this concept is getting ultimate importance from this century. The motive of any business was profit maximization through volume of business according to Selling Concept, but in later years of 20th century, the motive of business has been shifted toward profit maximization through customer satisfaction. In today’s competitive world each and every company has to face cutthroat competition with other competitors for a foothold in ever slippery market. That is why mere customer satisfaction is not assuring loyalty towards any brand. As prospects are having many choices and they are more price sensitive now, companies need to do something additional to make its customers retail. Previously companies used to offer differentiated products and services to retain their customers. But in today’s world imitation of new features and offers are very common and that is why product and service differentiation are tough. So, not only creation of new customers but also retention of old customers is very vital step for profit maximization.

The emphasis on relationship is now a key to successful business and the traditional concept of making sales is being replaced by making long time win – win relationship with customers. It is emerging as the core marketing activity for business operating in fiercely competitive environments. On average, business spends six times more to acquire customers than they do to keep them (Gruen, 1997). Therefore most of the firms are now paying more attention to their relationships with existing customers to retain them and increase their share of customers’ purchases. 

Relationship marketing can be defined as “process of attracting, maintaining, and in multi service organizations, enhancing customer relationship” – Berry (1983).

The underlying concept is that to keep the loyal customer retained within the company and to honour their long term performance.

Shani and Chalsani (1992) viewed relationship marketing as ‘ an integrated effort to identify, maintain and build up a network with individual customers and to continuously strengthen the network for mutual benefits of both the sides, through interactive, individualized and value added contracts over a long period of time.

Intensifying competition and technological developments made businesses look for ways to reduce cost and improve their effectiveness. The practice of relationship marketing has the potential to improve marketing productivity through marketing efficiencies and effectiveness (Sheth and Parvaliyar, 1995).

The benefits of relationship marketing and CRM come through lower costs of retention and increased profits due to longer defection rates (Reichheld & Sasser, 1990).

The developing economies now calculate on service industries. There is a shift to service economy from industrial economy. In this labour intensive sector relationship plays an important role. The major service organizations like banks, hospitals, hotels, IT and telecoms requires regular interaction of marketers and customers, so that the bond and understanding between both will become strong.

According to market Line Associates, the top 20% of typical bank customers produce as much as 150% of overall profit, while the bottom 20% drain about 50% from bank’s bottom line and the revenues from the rest just meeting their expenses.

Berry (1993) recommended the following five strategies for practicing relationship marketing:-

1. Developing a core service around which to build a customer relationship
2. Customizing relationship to the individual customer
3. Augmenting the core service with extra benefits
4. Pricing service to encourage customer loyalty
5. Marketing to employees so that they will perform well for customers

Development of relationship orientation of marketing in post industrial era is the rebirth of direct marketing between producers and consumers. Several environmental and organizational development factors are responsible for their rebirth. Development in information technology, data warehousing, data mining have made it possible for firms to maintain a one to one relationship with their customers.

Service firms are always been relationship oriented. The nature of service business is relationship based. A service is a process or performance where the customer is involved, sometimes for a long period of time, sometime only for a short time, and sometime on regular basis. There is always a direct contact between a customer and the service firms. This contact makes it possible to create a relationship between service provider and customer. In growing service businesses, the customer was turned from a relationship partner into market share statistics.

There are certain important issues for understanding customers and maintain a long term mutually trusted relationship with them. These issues are as follows –

1. CRM initiatives undertaken by firms
2. Development of those programs
3. Identifying important (key) customers
4. Measurement of effectiveness

CRM initiatives –

IT and Telecom, Banking, Hotel, Hospital sectors are adopting various CRM initiatives. In case of It and telecom the customer care centres are the initial receiver of customer complaints and processed that for the other levels of management for solution. In case of Banking, Hotels and Hospital sectors the feed back opportunity is one of the forms of getting customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction level. In customer centric marketing, marketers assess each customer individually to determine whether to serve that customer directly or indirectly. Also customer centric marketers determine whether to create an offering that customizes the product or service of the marketing mix or standardize the offering.

Process –

Information from customers is collected systematically over a period of time. This can be done through regular surveys and during customer interaction noting down the important points. This information has to be combined with the organizations experiences with customers to build rich customer profiles, buying behaviours, preferences and usage patterns.

Identifying Key Customers –

When it comes to combining customer information with experiences, service firms seem to be economizing. Most of them seem to be doing it for selected customers. Hotels do it for their regular guests specially those who have enrolled for their membership schemes. Financial service providers selectively do it for their high net worth individuals who typically use multiple offerings of the service provider.

Measurement of Effectiveness –

Most service firms rely on periodic surveys to understand their customers’ expectations and also understand and anticipate the behaviour of customers. Many service firms have indicated that they work with their customers as a team to ensure that their expectations are to exceeded. Research has constantly indicated that one of the major reasons for poor quality service is the gap between perception of managers about the customer expectations and customers’ real or actual expectations (Parasuraman, Zeithaml & Berry, 1985). Roger and Dorf (1999) have recommended a four stage process of Identification, Differentiation, Interaction, and Customization for implementing one to one relationship with customers. After analyzing the information and findings company must go for implementing those key elements and again they need to follow up the result.

References –

1. Gronroos, C.(1995) ‘Relationship marketing: The Strategy Continuum’, Journal of Academy of Management Science, Vol 23, No. 4, pp 252 – 254
2. Parasuraman,A.,Zeithaml,V.A., & Berry, L.(1985), “A Conceptual Model of Service Quality and Its Implications for Future Research”, Journal of marketing, Fall, pp-40 – 50
3. Shainesh, G., Mohan, R., “Status of Customer Relationship in India” – www.decisioncraft.com
4. Kotler,P., Keller, K.L., Koshy, A., Jha, M., ‘Marketing Management – A South Asian Perspective’ – 13th edition pp – 22 -24, Pearson Education Ltd.

Source by Sunetra Paul Maitra

DATABASE MARKETING ITS ADVANTAGES

AND DISADVANTAGES

BY

Miss. P. PIRAKATHEESWARI, Lecturer in Commerce,

Sri Sarada College for Women (Autonomous), Salem – 16.

 “Knowledge is a process of pilling up facts; wisdom lies in their simplification”

–         Alexander Graham Bell

 Introduction

           The database Marketing is the process of building, maintaining and utilizing the databases (on the customer, products, suppliers and resellers) for the purpose of contacting, transacting and building relationships.  The database marketing is an interactive approach to marketing, which uses the individually addressable marketing media and channels such as mail, telephone and the sales force.

 Features

 The salient features of database marketing include:

ü      Extending help to a company to reach its target audience;

ü      Stimulating the customer demand; and

ü      Recording and maintaining an electronic database of the customer, and all commercial contacts, so that the business firm could improve their future contacts and devise a more realistic marketing strategy.

 Characteristics of Database Marketing 

1. Each actual or potential customer is identified as a record on the marketing database.
2. Each customer record contains information (used to identify the likely purchases of particular products and how they should be approached) on:

• Identification and access (eg. Name, address, telephone No)
• Customer needs & characteristics (demographic and psychographic information about customers, the industry type and decision making unit information for the industrial customers)
• Campaign Communications (whether the customer has been exposed to particular marketing communication campaigns)
• Customers past responses to communications done as a part of the campaigns
• Past transactions of customers (with the company and possibly with the competitors).

1. This enables the firm to decide on how to respond to the customer needs.
2. The database is used to record the responses of the customer to the firm’s initiatives. (e.g. marketing communications or sales campaigns).
3. The information is also made available to the company’s marketing policy makers which enables them to decide:

• The target markets or segments appropriate for each product or service.
• The marketing mix (price, marketing communications, distributions channel, etc) appropriate for each product in each target market.

1. This step is vital in relationship marketing.
2. The marketing campaigns are devised in such a manner to provide the most relevant information that the company is seeking.

 The growth of database marketing has been facilitated by:

• The powerful processing capability and the immense storage capacity of state-of-the-art computers; and
• The manner in which the telecommunication technology is harnessed to make the customer and market data available to the wide variety of staff involved in the marketing and sales offices.

 Advantages of Database Marketing

             The one-on-one marketing, which directs the customized offerings to individual customers, has provided an additional thrust to database marketing.  It has employed the database to capture the interactions between a firm and its customers at each point of time and utilizes the data analysis to search for patterns in these interactions.  These patterns provide the most attractive potential customers besides providing clues in customizing the products, pricing and promotions of a product.  When utilized in the proper manner, the database marketing could provide insights into the customer’s buying behavior across the product categories, so that the companies could devise their programmes and plans to the “whole customer”, then the customer seen only through the narrow view of their own products and brands.

 Disadvantages of Database Marketing 

• The cost incurred in setting up the software and hardware requirements has made the database marketing expensive in its establishment.
• The database often demands new skills and organizations from new analytical and decision-making skills in sales and marketing to a revamped information system organization that could support the entirely new class of users.
• The database marketing depends on the data quality.  While the observational data is powerful, the corrupted observational data could be ‘powerful misleading’.  The quality also depends on the quality of analysis and the extent to which the databases are linked.
• Till now, the database marketing has been primarily used as a tactical tool.

 Conclusion        

The application of technologies to great more customer added value and to facilitate the coordinating of networks is of particular importance for a modern organisation and its networks.  A well-integrated application of technology and staff along with experience that could respond to the customer needs, encourage the customers to use a whole range of products/services of firm rather than confine to just a few.

The new technologies have radically altered the ways in which many service organizations deal with their customers.  The most powerful force for change today comes from the integration of computers and telecommunications.  The digitization allows text, graphics, video and audio to be manipulated, stored and transmitted in the digital language of computers.  The faster and more powerful software enables firms to create relational databases that combine the information’s about customers with details of all their transactions.  The firms could utilize these databases for a) insights into new trends, b) new approaches to segmentation and c) new marketing opportunities.  The technological change affects many other types of services too from airfreight to hotels to the retail stores.

Source by P. Pirakatheeswari

Graphic design is not just about style. It’s about finding the best way to communicate your message. Many company’s help you produce materials that speak to your audiences in strong and clear ways: from stationery systems and direct mailers to annual reports and corporate brochures and they develop strategic communications pieces that reflect your brand’s personality.

The graphic design work should be geared to match your existing brand image, or they should help you to define a new look for all your communications with a complete corporate identity.

Graphic Design Capabilities
•    Brochure Design and Catalogs
•    Web Design
•    Print Layout Design
•    Logo Design, Corporate ID
•    Print Ad Design
•    Flyer Design
•    Posters
•    DVD/CD Covers
•    Product Packaging
•    Newsletter Design
•    Powerpoint Presentations
•    Postcard Design
•    Direct Mail
•    Annual Reports
•    Pocket Folders
•    Email Newsletter
•    Printing
•    Trade Show Displays
•    Catalogs
•    Consumer Packaging
•    Copy Writing

marketing materials and graphics:

Brochures

With just a few seconds to seal the deal, you need a design that really calls out to your target market. Do your marketing materials convey the strength and uniqueness of your firm’s abilities?

A brochure is typically created to help brand your company, showing benefits and features of your firm. And if the text is created with a marketing purpose, it should invoke a response from your reader. After the copy is developed, it should make you want to call your firm for more information. A brochure should help you create a warm lead.

Trade Show Displays

Utilizing the space in your trade show booth to its optimal selling power is crucial to getting a passerby to stop and take a look at what you have to offer. Each person spends about 3 seconds to take in what you are promoting. If they don’t get your marketing message in that amount of time, you’ve lost them for good. By putting your company on display in the most professional and attention grabbing manner, your marketing dollars will prove worthwhile. The companies should guide you through the process to determine what size trade show display is most appropriate for your exhibit space and advise you on what marketing message, graphics, and promotional products will be most successful.

Catalogs

Want to liven up the next issue of your catalog? The service providers catalog design services for print and online include project coordination, content development, writing, editing, photography, design, printing, binding and fulfillment. They should even publish your catalog in print, for web, e-book, e-commerce or request for quote.

They should work with you to determine which products are critical to your success, which are new and untested and where and how to position products in the catalog for maximum sales. If you have an existing catalog, they help you with a catalog performance analysis and what they learned should be implement your new catalog.

Consumer Packaging

With the right consumer packaging, your product will grab the attention of shoppers while building your brand’s credibility. Your service provider should create package designs that deliver important product information in an easy to read format. Additionally, their consumer package designs should comply with the important federal packaging laws.

Source by Circle Limit Media

Marketing is a subject that’s very often misunderstood by many of us who are not directly involved in it. There are many misconceptions around what marketing teams do, especially in relation to the art of selling. There are, however, some key things to understand that can help clear up this confusion considerably and will help in your every day understanding of what marketing and marketeers are actually all about and what they’re trying to achieve.

1. Marketing is not sales.

Sales is the specific skill or act of closing a deal or brokering a customer’s commitment to enter into a deal or make a purchase. The skillset for sales people can be considerably different from that of the marketeer, although a good appreciation of each discipline will help both the seller and the marketeer in their respective roles.

2. Marketing is more about branding and profiling.

The marketeer will know how to build a successful brand image and how to raise the profile of a brand within its target market. Brand image is everything in some markets. The marketeer can help create a brand or image that is saleable, allowing a the sales person or team to then trade directly on that image.

3. Marketing is about identifying the requirement.

Marketing provides a company with the data it needs to understand what the marketplace needs and therefore what it needs to supply. It’s all very well having great product ideas but if there is no marketplace ‘pull’ for them, they will not sell.

Service companies need to know what services their customer sector needs; manufacturers need to know what goods or features their consumers want now and in the future. Just look at the Sinclair C5 from the 1980s – it was a great, simple idea but it ultimately had no market and failed.

4. Marketing is about creating the ‘pull’.

Creating the ‘pull’ is about making the market, not the individual customer necessarily, recognise the need for the product or service on offer. Some of the most successful marketeers have been able to create ‘customer pull-through’ resulting in the creation of a market around a specific perceived requirement. Just look at the all the products that you’re told you need to make your life easier. These products were marketed and we, as consumers, recognised a benefit, thus giving the product a market value. Just think: how did you manage without an electric toothbrush!?

5. Marketing is about understanding your target audience.

The market for each product and service is invariably different. The marketeer exists to classify the market by demographic, wealth, requirement and any other factor that may be appropriate. The marketeer will analyse the market and provide profiles of potential customers that will allow a company to design its products or services to have the right level of features, functionality, price or quality for that specific market. In the car world, just think about whether the same people are out there looking at buying Audis as well as Protons: it generally doesn’t happen. They are both built to different specifications, quality levels and ultimately, price. The respective marketeers have analysed the market and determined what their potential customer base will accept and actively look for.

Source by Paul Docherty

Over the past decade more and more people are getting fired, getting downsized, or getting fed up with their corporate jobs and embark on the journey as a small business owner. Unfortunately, most of the new small business owners fail to consider their marketing plans or strategy. There are many marketing concepts for small business marketing to consider and plan for, but here is our list of Top 10 Marketing Concepts For Small Business Marketing.

Marketing Concept # 1: Consistency

Consistency is the number one marketing concept for small business marketing only because it is left out of marketing concepts for so many businesses. I have worked with a long list of clients, big and small, that are extremely inconsistent in all areas of their marketing. Consistency helps lower the cost of marketing and increase the effectiveness of branding.

Marketing Concept # 2: Planning

Once small business owners decide to be consistent with their marketing, planning is the next major concept to engage. Planning is the most vital part of small business marketing or any level of marketing, for that matter, and so many owners, marketing managers, and even CMOs plan poorly. Put the time into planning your marketing strategy, budget, and other concepts presented here to ensure success.

Marketing Concept # 3: Strategy

Strategy immediately follows planning because your strategy is the foundation for the rest of your marketing activities. In the process of planning, you must develop your strategy: who you will target, how you will target them, and how will you keep them as a customer.

Marketing Concept # 4: Target Market

Target market is also another key concept for small business marketing. Defining exactly who you are targeting allows small business owners to focus on specific customers and reduce marketing waste. A well-defined target market will make every other marketing concept so much easier to implement successfully.

Marketing Concept # 5: Budget

Although it is listed at number 5, budgeting is important throughout the entire process. Creating a marketing budget is usually the hardest and most inaccurate part of small business marketing. Most small businesses owners lack a great deal of experience in marketing, so their budgets usually end up skewed. The most important part of this marketing concept is to actually establish a marketing budget. From there, you can worry about how to distribute your available funds.

Marketing Concept # 6: Marketing Mix

The marketing mix is usually defined as product, pricing, place, and promotion. As a small business owner, you must specifically decide on your products (or services), the appropriate pricing, where and how you will distribute your products, and how will you let everyone know about you and your products.

Marketing Concept # 7: Website

In today’s market, a business of any size must have a website. I hate when I see businesses that have a one page website with out-dated information. Customers, be it businesses or consumers, will search the web over 60% of the time before making any purchasing decisions. This marketing concept contains a slew of additional components, but you must at least develop a small web presence of some kind and keep it updated.

Marketing Concept # 8: Branding

Many small businesses owners also neglect this concept. Small business marketing must focus on this marketing concept just as much as large corporations do. Branding consists of the pictures, logo, design scheme, layout, make up, and image of your products and even your company. Branding is how your customers perceive (please place a lot of emphasis on that word!) your products and company. Make sure to pay special attention to what kind of brand you are building through each step of your planning and implementation.

Marketing Concept # 9: Promotion and Advertising

Promotion and advertising is a very complex marketing concept, but must be considered for any type of business and its products and services. Once you engage the previous 8 marketing concepts, you must finally let your target market know about you and your products. Proper promotion and advertising will result in effective brand recognition, and, ultimately, increased sales.

Marketing Concept # 10: Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

The concept of customer relationship management has become a huge industry in the marketing world. There are many types of software and services offered to help businesses of any size handle their customer relationship management. Since there is so much available, usually for a large sum of money, small business owners usually look at this concept as something they are not big enough for or have enough money to implement. Don’t be fooled by the massive industry that has evolved from this concept. Maintaining proper customer relationship management is essential to creating loyal and consistent customers.

This list of marketing concepts should be examined, researched, planned, and implemented, especially by small businesses, in order to be successful. Also, your marketing doesn’t stop here. Each business is unique and will have additional components that must be considered, but this list will jump-start any marketing plan.

Source by Nate Stockard