Archive for Marketing

What’s the difference between marketing and advertising?

In order for a business owner to create a successful business they will need to know how to market and advertise correctly. Of course in order to do that you must know the different between marketing and advertising. Advertising is actually a part of marketing. Marketing is usually done with a well thought out planned marketing strategy. A market strategy is the plan created by the organization to use its resources to their full potential to spread their business out to new customers. A marketing strategy is intended to create an increase in sales and a sustainable competition advantage.

Marketing is the planning and control of business activities hoping to bring buyers and sellers together for the advantage of exchanging products. Advertising is just one way to achieve this. Advertising is often paid business related announcements or one way communication with the purposes of attracting new customers to the businesses’ products or services. There are many different mediums for advertising. Including but not limited to internet banners, internet search engines, television, newspapers, magazines, radio, movies, video games, billboards and even email. Some companies will not actually do their own advertising. Many will instead hire an advertising company to do their advertising for them. New advertising opportunities are becoming available rather quickly. Like with the reason boom of video game advertising many companies will pay game companies to add their logos or symbols into their interactive media video games. This previously wasn’t available.

For a business to be successful the owners or marketing team will have to come up with a well designed plan to attract as many potential customers as possible with the use of their limited resources. Marketing can require a long planning period before actually beginning the advertising process. Everything should be research thoroughly. If you’re going to be marketing an ecommerce only business you will need to take advantage of online advertisements. Banner ads, link ads, search engine optimization and paid advertisements are just one of the many types of internet advertising. It might be a good idea to pay somebody to do it for you unless you have a long time experience with advertising.

Offline advertising can sometimes be a lot more expensive. Depending on your resources you must research the best way to use your limited resource in order to achieve success. Consider what your company offers and what you think customers will look for then post newspaper or billboard ads if your resources allow you to.

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Do Direct Mail Strategies Still Work?

With the constant increase in the internet and new technology advances associated with the internet one who think that online email advertisements are the best way to go. Everybody uses email right? Well yes everyone uses email but nearly everyone is paranoid about online scams and phishing. Many emails sent to a mass target will be direct transferred to the junk folder or spam folder and never even opened. People just don’t trust emailers enough for email advertising to be successful. So what about direct mail strategies? Yeah they often still work. More people are likely open a letter they’ve received through snail mail than email in their junk or spam folder. Of course for direct mail strategies to work they must be well thought out.

Always use postal stamps when sending mail. The brighter the stamp the more appeal which means the recipient will be more willing to open it because it will look almost personal. It will make them feel like it is something they can trust. Be creative when deciding which envelope to use. The bigger, more unique and bright the envelope is that more likely you will get a response. Choose unique colored envelopes as well because somebody will be likely to take notice of a letter in a funky looking envelope just out of curiosity.

It is a well known fact that the first words often read by the recipient is that heading. So it is a very good idea to keep the header larger than the other writing and keep it catchy. Make it something that people will be interested in reading otherwise you’re wasting your time. The next thing the recipient often notices is the P.S. at the bottom. Write a little summary of the entire letter in there so they will have a good idea what they are about to read. Once again keep it as catchy as possible.

Always write from the reader’s perspective. Be sure to describe in get detail how your products will help the read save money, make money or whatever it is that your product aims to do. Being as detailed as possible but quick and to the point is crucial. Lets face it most of us aren’t going to read a 10 page letter well. Many of us wouldn’t even read a 2 page letter so be sure to keep it short and sweet.

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Types of Marketing Strategies

A marketing strategy is a well designed process that an organization follows to use their limited resources more effective for increasing sales and gaining an advantage over competition. A strategy that provides an in depth defining of the organization is usually much more successful when trying to draw in new buyers. A good marketing strategy will help the business bring together buyers and sellers who wish to gain an advantage when exchanging products. There are a number of different marketing strategies. Search engine marketing, direct marketing, viral marketing, guerrilla marketing; brand marketing, public relations, international marketing and nonprofit organization marketing is all marketing types. In order for marketing to be success you must know the difference between the types and which suits your company better.

Search engine marketing is exactly what it sounds like, adding your website to a search engine so others can locate it when searching for specific keywords related to your website. Search engine marketing can be cheap and can be expensive. The key to successful search engine market is getting your website to the top of the page for your specific keywords. This is often done with what is called search engine optimization. If you have the cash you can pay someone to do the job for you or you could buy banner spots on some popular website related to your site in which you consider people would click on the link. Research is very important.

Direct marketing is when you send several pieces of promotional documents to potential customers. Direct markets keep your business in front of your customers just to make sure that they remember you exist. Direct marketing is more of a way to keep your current customers coming back rather than attracting new customers but sometimes it can work both ways. Post cards, newsletters, brochures, and email newsletters are all forms of direct marketing. Email newsletters might be the less effective because sometimes these automatically find a home in the spam or junk folders.

Brand marketing is the process of marketing the name of your brand. This often starts with your employees by making them wear logo labeled clothing during work hours. This is an effective way to keep your brand alive for a long period of time. It is also a good way to get your brand a household commonly known name. Many companies have already establish themselves as a br

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