Tag: marketing

B2B Marketing

The selling of products or services to other businesses and organizations is known as business-to-business marketing. It differs from B2C marketing, which is focused on customers, in various ways.

In general, B2B marketing content is more informative and simpler than B2C marketing content. This is because, in contrast to consumer purchases, company purchases are driven by bottom-line revenue impact. Return on investment (ROI) is rarely a financial factor for the average person, but it is a top priority for corporate decision makers.

Who is B2B Marketing for?

Any business that sells to other businesses. B2B can take various forms, including subscriptions to software-as-a-service (SaaS), security solutions, tools, accessories, and office supplies, to mention a few. Many businesses come under both the B2B and B2C categories.

Any individual(s) who has power or influence over purchase decisions is the target of B2B marketing initiatives. From entry-level end-users to the C-suite, this can contain a wide range of titles and functions.

Creating a B2B Marketing Strategy

There is a lot of competition for clients and their attention. Building a successful B2B strategy needs careful planning, implementation, and administration. Here’s a high-level look at how B2B organisations differentiate themselves in a crowded market:

Step 1: Create a Big Picture Vision
If you don’t plan, you’re planning to fail. This axiom holds true indefinitely. Select defined and measurable business objectives before you start cranking out adverts and content. Then you’ll want to create or adopt a framework for achieving them through your B2B marketing strategy.

Step 2: Establish your target market and buyer personas
This is especially important for B2B companies. B2B items and services are typically marketed to a specific set of consumers with specific difficulties and demands, whereas B2C goods are often promoted to a larger and more general audience. The more precisely you can define this audience, the better you’ll be able to communicate with them directly. It’s a good idea to make a dossier for your target buyer persona. To qualify leads, conduct demographic research, interview industry experts, and study your best customers to develop a list of criteria that you can compare against prospects.

Step 3: Determine B2B Marketing Channels and Tactics

After you’ve gathered good information about your target audience, you’ll need to figure out how and where you’ll reach them. This one should be guided by the knowledge you gained in the previous stage. You’ll want to ask yourself questions about your ideal consumers and prospects, such as these:

  • What do they do with their time on the internet?
  • What are the questions they’re posing to search engines?
  • What social media platforms do they favour?
  • What can you do to close the gaps that your competitors are leaving?
  • What industry events do they attend?

Step 4: Develop Assets and Launch Campaigns
Now that you have a strategy in place, it’s time to put it into action. Make sure you’re following best practices for each channel you’re using in your approach. A unique strategy, relevant information, sophisticated targeting, and powerful calls to action are all essential parts in successful campaigns.

5th Step: Evaluate and Improve
This is a continuous procedure that keeps you on the right track. Simply put, you want to figure out why your high-performing content succeeds and your low-performing content fails. If you understand this, you’ll be able to spend your time and money more wisely. The more diligent you are about consulting analytics and applying what you’ve learned, the more likely you’ll be to keep improving and exceeding your objectives. Even with a solid research basis, creating content and campaigns entails a lot of guesswork until you have solid engagement and conversion statistics to work with.

B2B Marketing Tactics and Content Formats

Here are some of the most frequent B2B marketing methods and content formats to think about incorporating into your plan:

Blogs: Blogs are a must-have for practically any content marketing team. Regularly updated blogs increase your site’s organic visibility and boost inbound visitors. Your blog may accommodate a wide range of material types and formats.

Search: SEO recommended practises change as frequently as Google’s algorithm (which is a lot), making this a difficult space to navigate, but any B2B marketing strategy must account for it. In recent months, the emphasis has shifted away from keywords and metadata and toward searcher intent signals.

Social Media: Both organic and sponsored social media should be included in the mix. You can reach out to prospects on social media and engage them where they are. B2B buyers are increasingly turning to these platforms to research potential vendors before making a purchase.

Whitepapers, eBooks, and infographics: Whitepapers, eBooks, and infographics are all good options. These downloaded papers can be gated (meaning a user must give contact information or perform another action to get access) or ungated (meaning a user must supply contact information or perform another action to gain access). Frequently used to generate B2B leads.

Email: Email will not go away anytime soon, even though its usefulness is fading in the age of spam filters and inbox shock.

Video: This content type can be used in several of the preceding categories (blogs, social media, and emails), but it’s worth mentioning because it’s at the heart of many effective B2B initiatives.

Livestream events and Webinars: LinkedIn Live videos receive 7x more reactions and 24x more comments on average than native video generated by the same presenters during livestream events and seminars. LinkedIn Live is useful for more than just promoting an event. Use this feature to demonstrate expertise, showcase innovation, or provide a behind-the-scenes look into your company’s culture to LinkedIn members.

Case studies and customer testimonials: Case studies and customer testimonials are essential for B2B marketing strategists to establish credibility. Customer testimonials and case studies aren’t the most imaginative endeavours, but they’re essential nonetheless.

Podcasts: Podcasting is expected to grow in popularity even more than it currently has. Do you have a podcast aimed towards professionals? Are you considering starting one? Increase your podcast’s listenership by promoting it on LinkedIn.

B2B Marketing Best Practices

How can you set yourself up for success in B2B marketing? Here are a few tried-and-true pillars to help your team stand out and make an impression.

Be Human
Yes, you’re attempting to gain a consumer, but you’re not marketing to a building or an intangible thing. You’re attempting to communicate with genuine employees, who, like any other human being, are motivated by emotional and cognitive factors.

Don’t limit your research to the firms and accounts you’re interested in. Learn about the people who work there, and tailor your marketing to their needs. Although business decisions are more sensible and logical, that doesn’t mean your content and tone should be robotic.

Target with Both Precision and Volume in Mind
Multiple stakeholders affect the majority of B2B purchasing decisions. When it comes to targeting, one of the most typical blunders is attempting to pinpoint the decision maker. However, in almost all cases, that one decision maker does not exist. As a result, it’s critical to target all stakeholders who may have an impact on the purchasing decision.

B2B buying cycles are complicated, and stakeholders’ professions and roles are continuously changing. This is only one of many reasons why brand familiarity is so important. The following tools can assist B2B marketers in reaching out to decision-makers who can both influence and authorise purchases. They let you get as specific as you want, and you can use sophisticated automation to extend your target group as necessary.

Keep Context in Mind
Today, personalization and relevance are required to gain attention. Yes, you want to speak your consumers’ language, but you also want to present content and advertising that are thematically appropriate for where they’re being viewed. Shorter videos with rapid hooks, for example, perform better on social media feeds, whereas a longer style is most likely better suited for YouTube. Catching someone looking through LinkedIn requires a different text angle than catching someone scrolling through other social media platforms. Put yourself in the shoes of the end user. When they’re watching your content, try to comprehend their current position, including their “surroundings,” and fit your message with their attitude.

B2B Marketing Solutions on LinkedIn

LinkedIn is the most-used social media network for B2B marketers, according to the CMI and MarketingProfs report B2B Content Marketing 2021: Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends (at 96 percent ).

LinkedIn was also the leading paid social media site for B2B marketing. The most recent survey did not ask respondents which paid platform had the best results, although respondents in the prior survey said LinkedIn.

At a basic level, we strongly advocate that every B2B company create an optimised LinkedIn Page, which you can do for free on LinkedIn, since this will serve as your brand’s hub on the platform and a popular location for buyer research. Posting updates on a regular basis will keep you top of mind with your target audience and help you gain followers. There are a variety of LinkedIn marketing solutions and services you can use to target and engage the ideal users for maximum business impact and B2B marketing ROI.

Native Ads
Native adverts are referred to as Sponsored Content on LinkedIn. These adverts show alongside the user-generated material that LinkedIn members come to see. For thought leadership, brand recognition, and driving strategic traffic, this is a great tool.

Lead Generation
Many B2B marketers are judged on their lead generation abilities. Because they pre-populate the viewing member’s LinkedIn profile data and don’t require the user to leave the site, Lead Gen Forms are particularly useful for this purpose. It’s a win-win situation for both marketers and members. When it comes to accessing deals and information, members get a consistent experience. Lead data is of excellent quality for B2B marketers.

Retargeting
The LinkedIn Insight Tag allows you to track LinkedIn visitors that come to your website and promote to them while they’re there. These people are more likely to be interested in your business and goods, increasing your conversion chances.

Message Ads
LinkedIn Message Ads are becoming more advantageous as reaching professional inboxes (and sometimes even finding email addresses) becomes increasingly difficult. You can use this feature to send personalised direct messages to LinkedIn members, even if you aren’t linked yet.

Dynamic Ads
These ads are tailored to the individual who is viewing them. To stand out and grab attention, they instantly populate with profile photographs and essential details.

Breaking Down B2B Marketing

Here are some essential factors to bear in mind as we summarise the most important conclusions from our investigation of modern B2B marketing:

  • Even though you’re doing business-to-business marketing, you’re still dealing with people. The most successful B2B marketers combine logic and passion.
  • Developing your goal, defining your audience, identifying techniques and channels, putting content and campaigns in action, and then continuously monitoring for optimization are the core processes in developing a B2B marketing strategy.
  • When targeting, strike a balance between precision and volume to ensure that you reach all of the most critical stakeholders who may have a say in the decision.
  • Truly effective B2B marketing is conversational, targeted, and contextually relevant.
  • Thought leadership content can help you gain a competitive advantage, but if it falls short of expectations, it might backfire.
  • It’s critical to understand the context. Market to your target audience where they are and try to fit your messaging with their attitude.



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Marketing Concepts

Today, there is a plan for everything, but before you can design one, you must first comprehend the fundamentals. For example, understanding marketing ideas is critical if you want to develop a great marketing plan. You can find out the best marketing approach for you by following the five fundamental marketing concepts. Simply put, execution is a critical element in marketing that occurs only after extensive study and strategizing.

What is Marketing?

The art and process of building, implementing, and maintaining an exchange connection is known as marketing. You start by acquiring clients, then create a relationship with them, and then keep it by meeting their demands. Customers or other businesses can be that customer; thus, marketing can be B2B or B2C depending on the situation. The fundamental goal of marketing, however, remains the same: to develop a relationship with clients and meet their needs by meeting their requirements.

Telecommunications, for example, develops a marketing plan that entices and persuades customers to utilize their phone, message, and internet bundles. When users start using, they are encouraged to rate their service by giving it a star rating.

What are the Marketing Concepts?

When a corporation prepares and implements strategies to increase profits by increasing sales, meeting consumer requirements, and outperforming competitors, it is referred to as marketing. The goal is to create a condition that benefits both the customer and the business.

The marketing concept is based on the idea of anticipating and satisfying customer requirements and wants better than competitors. Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith’s work, was the source of the marketing concepts. However, it remained unknown to the rest of the world until the twenty-first century.
To completely comprehend the marketing notion, we must first comprehend needs, desires, and demands.

  • Needs: Needs are unavoidable for life to survive; without them, various negative consequences can arise. Death would be the worst-case scenario. Food, shelter, self-development, security, social belonging, self-esteem, and respect are all examples of needs.
  • Wants – Wants are our desires and wishes in life are shaped by our social environment and culture.
  • Demand: Demands are created when our desires, needs, and wants are backed by our ability to pay.

5 Basic Marketing Concepts

1. The Production Concept
Customers will be more drawn to products that are easily available and can be acquired for cheaper than rival products of the same kind, according to the manufacturing principle. This concept arose from the rise of early capitalism in the 1950s, when businesses were focused on production efficiency to assure maximum profits and scalability.

This mindset can be beneficial when a company markets in a rapidly growing field, but it also comes with a danger. Businesses that are unduly focused on low-cost production might easily lose touch with client wants and, as a result, lose revenue, despite their low-cost and widely accessible goods.

2. The Product Concept
The product concept is the polar opposite of the production concept in that it assumes that customer buying habits are not influenced by availability or price, and that people value quality, innovation, and performance over low cost. As a result, this marketing approach emphasises product improvement and innovation on a regular basis.

Apple Inc. is a great example of how this principle works. Its target demographic anticipates the company’s new releases with bated breath. Many people will not compromise solely to save money, even if there are off-brand products that perform many of the same functions for a lower price. However, if a marketer relies solely on this idea, he or she may miss out on people who are also influenced by availability and pricing.

3. The Selling Concept
Marketing based on the selling concept focuses on getting the customer to the actual transaction without regard for the client’s wants or product quality – a costly technique. This approach generally overlooks customer satisfaction efforts and rarely results in repeat purchases.

Because a product or service isn’t a need, the selling notion is based on the belief that you must persuade a buyer to acquire it by aggressive promotion of its merits. Soda pop is an example. Have you ever wondered why, despite the brand’s popularity, you keep seeing advertisements for Coca-Cola? Everyone understands what Coke has to offer, but it’s also common knowledge that soda is devoid of nutrients and harmful to one’s health. Coca-Cola understands this, which is why they spend such large sums of money to promote their product.

4. The Marketing Concept
The marketing concept is based on a company’s capacity to compete and maximise revenues by promoting the ways in which it provides customers with higher value than its competitors. It all comes down to knowing your target market, sensing its wants, and efficiently providing those demands. This is referred described as the “customer-first strategy” by many.

Glossier is a well-known example of this type of marketing. The brand recognises that many women are dissatisfied with the way cosmetics affects their skin’s health. Women are also tired up with being instructed what makeup items to use, according to the researchers. With this in mind, Glossier launched a line of skincare and beauty products that not only hydrate the skin but also promote individualism and personal expression through the use of makeup.

5. The Societal Concept
The societal marketing concept is a new one that stresses societal well-being. It’s founded on the premise that, regardless of a company’s sales goals, marketers have a moral responsibility to sell ethically to promote what’s good for people over what people may want. Employees of a corporation live in the communities to which they market, and they should advertise in the best interests of their community.

The fast-food sector is an example of the type of problem that the societal notion seeks to solve. Fast food is in high demand in our society, but it is high in fat and sugar and adds to waste. Despite the fact that the industry is catering to modern consumer wishes, it is harming our health and undermining our society’s goal of environmental sustainability.



The 4Ps of Marketing

The four Ps of marketing are the most important aspects of selling a product or service. They are a good or service’s product, pricing, location, and promotion. The four Ps, often known as the marketing mix, are influenced by both internal and external elements in the broader corporate environment, and they interact heavily.

Companies utilise the 4 Ps to figure out what their customers want from them, how their product or service fulfils or fails to satisfy those demands, how their product or service is viewed in the world, how they differentiate themselves from their competitors, and how they engage with their customers.

Understanding 4Ps

In the 1950s, Neil Borden popularized the concept of the marketing mix—and the concepts that would eventually be known as the four Ps. Borden was a Harvard University advertising professor. His article “The Concept of the Marketing Mix,” published in 1964, illustrated how businesses should employ advertising methods to engage their customers. Companies are still advertising their goods and services using the themes that Borden popularized decades later.

The marketing mix helped corporations account for the physical hurdles that impeded widespread product adoption when it was originally coined. Today, the Internet has aided businesses in achieving a higher level of integration with their customers, as well as overcoming some of these hurdles. People, process, and physical evidence are additions to the classic four Ps that are more relevant to today’s marketing trends.

The 4Ps

1. Product
Any object or service that satisfies a customer’s wants or preferences is referred to as a product. It can also be characterised as a collection of utilities with physical characteristics such as design, volume, and brand name. The perceived value of a product is influenced by its type, which allows businesses to price it profitably. It also has an impact on things like product placement and advertising.

To achieve their goals, businesses might alter packaging, after-sales service, warranties, and pricing ranges, as well as expand into new areas. Marketers must comprehend the product life cycle and devise strategies for each step, including introduction, growth, maturity, and decline.

2. Price
The price of a product has a direct impact on sales volume and, as a result, earnings. Demand, cost, rival price patterns, and government laws are all important considerations in determining pricing. The price of a thing usually reflects its perceived value rather than its actual value. As a result, cost can be raised to promote exclusivity or lowered to promote accessibility.

As a result, pricing entails making judgments on the base price, discounts, price changes, credit terms, freight payments, and so on. It’s also crucial to determine when and if discounting strategies are necessary or appropriate.

3. Promotion
Advertising, salesforce, direct marketing, public relations, advertising budgets, and other considerations are all part of promotion. The fundamental goal of promotion is to raise awareness of a company’s products and services. It aids in influencing customers to choose one product over others available on the market. The following are examples of promotional efforts:

  • Advertising: Advertising is a method of promoting a product, service, or concept by sending out a sponsored, non-personal communication about it.
  • Public Relations: Management and control of the flow and matter of information from one’s organisation to the general public or other institutions is what public relations entails.
  • Marketing Strategy: Marketing strategy is determining the correct target market and employing methods like advertising to enter it. Online variables such as defining the class of Google search operations that may trigger corresponding or targeted adverts for the product, the design and layout of a company’s webpage, or the content shared on social media accounts like Twitter and Instagram are all examples of promotion.

4. Place (or Distribution)
The term “place” refers to the location where things will be made available for purchase. The fundamental goal of trade channel management is to guarantee that the product is available to the customer at the appropriate time and location. It also includes judgments about where wholesale and retail stores should be located and how much they should cost. After a cost-benefit analysis, distribution options such as outsourcing or business transport fleets are chosen. Smaller data, such as department store shelf space devoted to the product, are also mentioned.

Extensions of 4Ps of Marketing

The 4 P’s of Marketing should be expanded to cover services, according to new marketers. They are as follows:

People: Servicing entails direct engagement between service providers and users, increasing the potential for subjectivity. Appearances, communication, discretion, consumer engagement, demeanour, and service attitude are all critical factors.

Physical Evidence: The atmosphere, layout, and style of a workplace can have a significant impact on a product’s brand image.

Process: When it comes to policy, processes, systems, and consumer interaction, standardised procedures are frequently used to ensure consistency in service delivery.

Marketing Basics

Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large. A market is an arrangement between a seller and a buyer in which:

  • The seller agrees to supply the goods or the service.
  • The buyer agrees to pay the price.

Defined this way, the market is not necessarily a geographical location. Products and services are purchased over the phone, through mail and electronic mail, as well as through the online.  For any organisation, marketing makes the economy strong and stable.  The lesser the stress on the marketing function, the weaker will be the economy. Marketing is complex mechanism involving many people in one form or the other. The major marketing functions are buying, selling, financing, transport, warehousing, risk bearing and standardization, etc. In each such function different activities are performed by a large number of individuals and bodies.

Marketing strategy is the comprehensive plan formulated particularly for achieving the marketing objectives of the organization. It provides a blueprint for attaining these marketing objectives. It is the building block of a marketing plan. It is designed after detailed marketing research. A marketing strategy helps an organization to concentrate it scarce resources on the best possible opportunities so as to increase the sales.

Importance of Marketing Strategy

  • Marketing strategy provides an organization an edge over it’s competitors.
  • Strategy helps in developing goods and services with best profit making potential.
  • Marketing strategy helps in discovering the areas affected by organizational growth and thereby helps in creating an organizational plan to cater to the customer needs.
  • It helps in fixing the right price for organization’s goods and services based on information collected by market research.
  • Strategy ensures effective departmental co-ordination.
  • It helps an organization to make optimum utilization of its resources so as to provide a sales message to its target market.
  • A marketing strategy helps to fix the advertising budget in advance, and it also develops a method which determines the scope of the plan, i.e., it determines the revenue generated by the advertising plan.

Marketing is not just one single strategy, but rather a combination of many different techniques and tactics. Below listed  are  some essential marketing strategies that are popular

Marketing Plan: Discover what a marketing plan is, why you need to design one, and the keys to creating a strong plan. Without a marketing plan, a company or brand can’t reach its goals.

Digital Marketing: Digital marketing is the discipline of marketing which focuses on developing a strategy solely within the digital environment.

Direct Marketing: Direct marketing is a type of campaign based on direct, two-way communication that seeks to trigger a result from a specific audience.

Email Marketing: Email Marketing is one of the most profitable and effective techniques in terms of return. Naturally, it consists of sending emails to your audience, but make sure to define your segments well in order to be effective.

Mobile Marketing: Mobile Marketing is a broad concept which brings together all marketing campaigns and actions focused exclusively on mobile platforms and applications (i.e. smartphones and tablets).

Viral Marketing: Having something go viral is every company’s dream. Viral Marketing spreads from one person to the next and is capable of going incredibly far incredibly fast.

Performance Marketing: Performance Marketing is a methodology which applies various marketing methods and techniques and guarantees advertisers that they only have to pay for achieved results.

Inbound Marketing: This methodology focuses on creating valuable content to attract qualified traffic and work towards the final sale.

 

 

Pricing Strategies to meet your Business Goals

Pricing strategies are used to determine the cost of goods and services. The factors that are used to determine the price of a product or a service are demand for the product, cost of goods sold, consumer behavior and market conditions. Business owners can determine the right pricing strategy based on goals of the business, for example whether their goal is to maximize profits, gain market share or reduce the inventory.

Types of Pricing Strategies

  1. Penetration Pricing
    Penetration Pricing is a pricing strategy to gain market share. In this strategy, a business tries to gain market share by entering the market by keeping the prices for their products or services lower than that of competitors. This helps the business to build customer base. In this pricing strategy, a business will incur losses initially but if they are able to build a loyal customer base, they can rise their prices to cover up the costs.
  2. Skimming Pricing
    Skimming Pricing is a pricing strategy in which a business keeps highest price for their products or services and reduces the prices overtime. When the demand for first customers are satisfied and competition enters the market, the business lowers it price to attract new segment of customers. Businesses that sell high-tech or novelty products typically use price skimming.
  3. High-low Pricing
    High-low Pricing is a common retail pricing strategy where a product or sometimes a service is introduced at higher prices in the market when the demand is high and when the product becomes less desirable, it is sold at discount or through clearance sales. Retail businesses that sell seasonal products use a high-low strategy.
  4. Premium Pricing
    Premium Pricing Strategy is used by businesses when prices are set higher than the competitors because of the perceived value, quality or luxury of the product. Usually, premium prices are set by businesses who have a positive brand perception in the market, because of this customers are willing to pay high prices for their product. For example- Rolex watches
  5. Psychological Pricing
    Psychological Pricing is a pricing strategy in which businesses keep prices slightly lower than the whole number. For example, keeping price of a product 499 rupees instead of 500. This pricing is done on the belief that customers don’t round up these prices, so they treat them as lower prices than they really are. Mostly, retail and restaurant businesses employ this method.
  6. Bundle Pricing
    Bundle Pricing is a pricing strategy in which companies package separate products together and offer them at reduced price. Competitive bundling is an excellent way for you to push more product, stand out from the crowd, and connect with your audience in an intriguing way. With the help of Bundle Pricing, customers are able to discover more products which they didn’t plan to initially.
  7. Competitive Pricing
    Competitive Pricing is a pricing strategy in which prices are set based on the market rate. The price for a product or service is determined based on the prevailing prices in the industry which helps the business stay competitive. A business can price the product up or below the market rate as long as it is still in the range of competitors in the industry.
  8. Cost- Plus Pricing
    Cost- Plus Pricing is a pricing strategy in which a business charges a fixed percentage above the cost to determine the final price. A business can decide on the markup percentage by determining how much profit a business wants from each product sold. A pizza shop adds up the cost of its ingredients and labor, then sets the pizza price to receive a 20% profit margin.
  9. Dynamic Pricing
    Dynamic pricing, often known as real-time pricing, is a method of determining a product’s or service’s cost that is highly adaptable. Dynamic pricing enables a corporation selling goods or services via the Internet to alter prices on the fly in response to market needs.

How Spotify analyzed brain activity to improve its ad experience

Neuromarketing, a field that makes use of studies and research into the human mind, thoughts, feelings and experiences to design better products, increase sales as well as enhance the marketability of organizations has been gaining momentum. It involves developing an understanding of consumer needs by applying the techniques of neuroscience. While some techniques such as EEG, fMRI and the like are used to directly measure brain activity corresponding to specific functions, other tools include eye tracking and biometric data measurement.

Neuromarketing requires a good amount of investment. However, it is worth the expense since, in comparison to traditional forms of data collection, such as questionnaires and surveys, it directly collects information from the subconscious, a prime source of human decision-making. Moreover, manipulation of data is less likely using this method and it establishes a far better emotional connection with the audience. PepsiCo, Hyundai, Yahoo and eBay are some of the well-known organizations that have used neuromarketing. Spotify, the leading audio streaming platform has joined the list by recently collaborating with the neuro analytics company Neuro-Insight to conduct a brain wave study.

How was it conducted?

The study was based on the experience of 600 participants who listened to multiple genres of music, ranging from rap, pop, Latin, etc. Audio digital ads were allowed to play in between. Brain activity was measured by researchers using a brain tracking method known as Steady State Topography (SST). According to its developer, Richard Silberstein, founder of Neuro-Insight, It not only measures an individual’s speed of response to stimuli but also helps in understanding psychological processes by analyzing the speed of various brain sensitively.

What were the results?

  1. Emotional intensity can be increased by using digital audio since it keeps the long-term memory active and engaged in the process of searching for details and memories.
  2. The genre of music determines its impact on the brain. Rap music, which is driven by speech, tends to bring about more engagement. On the other hand, genres such as instrumental and rock produce more emotional attachment.  
  3. About 93 percent of the brain’s capacity to engage with the music or podcast impacts the engagement with ads. This was a particularly noteworthy aspect for Spotify, an ad-driven platform and can serve other similar platforms in the future.

Jon Gibs, who is the principal data scientist and global director at Spotify, reported that this study was conducted to ensure that Spotify serves content that aligns with the interests of the consumer. He believes that through Neuromarketing, brands can get good insights into a consumer’s thought process as they consume multiple types of media. Samrat Saran, who is the head of client solutions at Neuro-Insight, said that this study would enable them to determine Spotify’s efficiency as an ad-driven platform.

This study provided some valuable insights which can be very helpful to plenty of content creating and streaming platforms. Advertisers are always looking for customer-friendly platforms and through such studies, user experience can be optimized in such a way that more investors would be attracted to pitch in, which would, in turn, generate better revenues and services. Even though Neuromarketing is not yet widely used, it has the potential to transform the future of marketing.

What Is Affiliate Marketing ?

Affiliate marketing is an online marketing advertising channel that puts merchants in charge of an online marketing sales force. In simple words, affiliate marketing involves referring a product or service by sharing it on a blog, social media platforms, or website. The affiliate earns a commission each time someone makes a purchase through the unique link associated with their recommendation.

Affiliate Marketing

Roles in Affiliate Marketing

  • Merchants (Advertiser)

If you have a company and website, and you sell a product or service, you are a merchant. The merchants are the companies that sell a product and/or service, and they are the ones that pay affiliates for their marketing campaigns.

  • Affiliates (Publisher)

Affiliates are the website owners who allow a merchant to advertise on their site or blogs, respectively. They are the one who get paid whenever an ad performs, so it is in their best interest to have merchants with which they have an affiliate partnership.

  • The Affiliate Network

An Affiliate Network handles all tracking, reporting and payment to affiliates. It allows affiliates to find merchants which are suitable for their site.

It is a win-win situation for both affiliates and merchants.

Affiliate Marketing Process

Affiliate marketing is a transaction on a commission basis.

  • A website owner (e.g. a blogger) provides advertising space on his website (website owner: PUBLISHER/AFFILIATE).
  • The website owner offers this space to a company (or an organization) who wants to sell products or services (company: MERCHANT/ADVERTISER).
  • By placing the links of the partners on their webpages they pass on the traffic to the advertiser‘s webpage.

Some companies have a huge affiliate network at their disposal which guarantees them a constant flow of traffic.

How Does Affiliate Marketing Works?

  • Find and join an affiliate program
  • Choose which offers to promote
  • Obtain a unique affiliate link for each offer
  • Share those links on your blogs, social media platforms, or website
  • Collect a commission anytime someone uses your links to make a purchase.

Pros of the Affiliate Marketing

  • Zero/Minimal Investment – You can run your business almost with free of cost using different blogging sites. You just need to promote products.
  • Learning through earning – Affiliate marketing also can generate relatively passive income through commission, the ideal money-making scenario. Though initially you’ll have to invest time creating traffic sources, your affiliate links can continue to deliver a steady paycheck.
  • Work From Anywhere – One of the reason why affiliating marketing is booming on the internet is because you can run your business from anywhere in the world. You just need to have a laptop and internet connection to run your business.

Cons of Affiliating Marketing

  • Commission Based Payment – Companies largely paid the cost per click (traffic) on banner advertisements. As technology evolved, the focus turned to commissions on actual sales or qualified leads. Though there are still ads for the visitors to click on, affiliate programs usually only pay when a purchase takes place.
  • The early affiliate marketing programs were vulnerable to fraud because clicks could be generated by software, as could impressions.
  • No Guarantee of Revenue – Pay-per-performance can be a tremendous opportunity as well as a significant risk. No one promises that working as an affiliate marketer will be easy and that you are going to earn the expected revenue right away. It’s a challenge you have to face and put all your efforts into maximizing the opportunity, but all in all, it’s difficult to predict how much money you will make on it in the end.

Designing the Buyer Centric Funnel

In these industrial times, all the companies want to bait their customers, in fact for a much longer time than just one visit or purchase. This leads to continuous, relentless competition in the markets for the purpose of bagging more and more loyal customers. This is where the use of a Sales Funnel enters the talk. But is it possible to keep your customers devoted to your product without a well-designed, blockage-free funnel? The answer is ‘no’.  A sales funnel signifies the path which is taken by a customer from being just an explorer of your product to being a loyal customer for a long time. Through this article, we will go into depths of a customer’s psychology and get some insights on how to design a “buyer centric-funnel”.

Understanding the Funnel

Why is this Funnel a requisite?

The requirement of an effective method for better sales of a company’s product cannot be dismissed, keeping in view of the increase in a feud for loyal customers in the market. Also, with the coming up of e-commerce sites, grabbing a customer’s attention will be the predominant field to work upon, for the sellers. 

Breakdown of the steps of a Buyer Centric Funnel
  1. Awareness- This is the key point that should be kept in mind while designing the funnel. Awareness does most of the work when it comes to putting the customer in a phase of scrutiny. To start with, we need to put forward a problem in front of the customer and provide a promising solution for the latter to build up the curiosity. At this stage, we wouldn’t mention our product to the customer.
  2. Consideration- Here, we need our customer to get so intimate with the product that he/she starts knowing about it like the back of his/her hand. We need to give out demos, free trials, triggers and customer stories to the customer to build up their trust in our firm because, to sell to a customer, you have to barge into the thought process of a customer.
  3. Purchase- Now you have to sell the product to your buyer and assure your product stands out from the products of all your competitors.
How to avoid Blockages in the Funnel?
  1. Get into your buyer’s head- That’s where the whole concept of ‘Understanding the buyer’s psychology’ comes in. We need to ask ourselves questions like “What inspires them to buy our product?”, “How can our product be a solution to their problems?”, “How can we redesign our product to fit their needs?” and work on the answers to these questions.
  2. Slogans- Through close study, we come to a conclusion that firms with good slogans are doing better off in the market. The slogans and advertisements of these firms draw customers by getting stuck inside their brains.
  3.  Quality Maintenance- The quality of your product and extended benefits to loyal customers also gives your firm a new standing among the competitors. We also need to carefully appraise the field where our product fails to deliver and redesign it with wit.
What is Flip the Funnel?

Flipping the Sales Funnel refers to the process of retaining the loyal customers of the firm to gain new customers. Some firms in the market tend to forget its old customers in search of a bigger reach and new customers which lead to the degradation of the firm’s reputation in the market.

To gain ground, we need to build new customers on top of the old ones which can be done by referrals of the consumers to one another. Referral and reputation go and hand in hand. In fact, referrals are the leading intermediary stage for building a good reputation for the firm. According to a survey, 92% of people trust referrals from people they know.

We also need to adapt to the new rules of the market and focus more on redesigning products according to the wants of our targets for our technique to be successful. Rewarding the everlasting customers will be a plus point to this.

CONCLUSION

The design of a proper sales funnel is the most crucial part for the firm and should be done with patience and sheer determination through proper study and fact consideration, for the firm to leave its mark in this market race.

“The best sales questions have your expertise wrapped into them.”

-Jill Konrat

Importance of Scrutiny

The word “scrutiny” is derived from the Latin Manus, meaning “to happen”. Therefore, the management refers to the management of a particular business. It refers to the process of determining a specific, clear goals, and achieve them, by making best use of resources.

This will help the Group to achieve its Goals, the framing of factors of production, to collect and organize resources and to promote the effective integration of resources to achieve the goals . It will guide the group’s efforts to achieve pre-determined goals.

1. The Optimal use of resources:
Management to ensure the optimal use of resources, in order to prevent potential losses. This will help you make the best possible use of the resources within the limits set by your organization and its environment.

2. Effectively, leadership skills, and motivation:
In the absence of an institution or a business, the process is going to be random and non-systematic. The employees will feel more comfortable when they can see a group of people who are working day and night for the sake of the further development of the organization. The management of the group’s operations more efficient and effective. This will give the employees the opportunity to work together to achieve their aims in a coordinated manner.

3. Change and Growth are the following:
The activities of the group, is operating in a fast-paced environment with minimal supervision. Factors such as changes in technology, government policies, competition, etc.

4. In order to complete the objectives of:
The Precision of Contacts have hired people from Uttar Pradesh and gave it to them, not only work, but also in the homes, but also in memory, and their children, too. Employees, in turn, was a hard-working, and companies with high retention rates, and flexible labor force and gave them a competitive advantage.

WHAT IS SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING?

 

Social Media Marketing is the use of social media platforms and websites to promote a product or service. Earlier, e-marketing and digital marketing were in vogue . But today, the term Social Media Marketing is gaining recognition. It connects you with your audience and helps in building your brand, increases sales and drives website traffic. It allows brands to establish their social media “tone” and “culture” and manage marketing campaign. 

The major social media platforms used are: Facebook, Twitter, Pintrest, Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube.

Through Social Media Marketing, companies keep in touch with individual followers. This helps instil loyalty into followers and potential customers. The use of new semantic analysis technology helps marketers detect buying signals. This includes content shared by people and questions posted.  

Below is a step by step guide you can use to enhance you social media presence:

  1. SETTING GOALS:

You should know what you want out of social media. Some may use social media for brand awareness whereas some may use it to drive website traffic. You should set realistic social media goals. To begin with, you should set small and achievable goals for yourself. This will scale your social media efforts and will be reasonable and affordable. 

You should pick out the social media platforms where your target audience is more. After creating a good social media presence on some platforms, you can expand it on other platforms as well. 

Your current social media marketing plan doesn’t have to be your plan forever. You can bring changes to it according to how your posts perform.

  1. PLANNING AND PUBLISHING:

Close to three billion people use the internet daily. In the initial stages, your main aim is being consistent on social media. All you’ve got to do is post pictures, videos or a blog post daily. This will bring you brand in the eyes of future customers. You need to plan your content beforehand and publish it at the right time. Also, being aware of your target audience is a must. Also, where does your target audience resides. A variety of social media scheduling tools allow you to publish your content on your preferred time.This saves your time and allows you to reach your audience when they engage with your content.

  1. ENGAGEMENT:

Engagement means that customers and stakeholders are active participants rather than passive. Engagement on social media can be divided into two parts: proactive and reactive conversations. Proactive means regularly posting content like photos and videos. Reactive conversations involve commenting and engaging. People might talk about your brand without your knowledge. So you will want to track conversations about your brand. But it is impossible to check all the notifications. Instead you can use a social media listening and engagement tool. It allows you to see all the mentions and messages throughout different platforms. It also enables you to see the posts that didn’t tag your business’s social media profile.

  1. ANALYTICS:

You will want to know how well your posts are doing in promoting and reaching out to people. You need to analyse the performance of your one post over the other. This will help you to fine tune your content for more engagement. Tracking the metrics of your content in real time will enable you to make small changes. It will save you from sweeping your entire strategy for a new one. You can be reactive in the short term to get the most out of your running campaign. Later,  proactively use these takeaways to inform your next major strategy. 

  1. ADVERTISING:

Promotion through social media ads is one way to promote your brand. It helps you reach greater audiences, even the people who don’t follow you. You can create ads according to your target audience. You can also specify the demographics, interests, etc. Social media advertising tools enable you to make bulk changes, automate processes and optimise ads.

Social media platforms are evolving everyday. You see some update almost everyday on the platforms you use. This means that social media marketing is also evolving everyday. Going with the current trends is one way of improving your content. People like to follow brands which post content with reference to the current trends. Because most of the users of social media consists of GenZs and millennials, it’s best to target them as your audience.

THE NEW AGE OF MARKETING

How User Interviews Will Improve Your Customer Journey—and Your Sales - Salesforce Canada Blog

gone are those days when sellers ruled the market,and decided what a customer should buy . Sellers then focused more on their profit and never bothered about their customer satisfaction. Thankfully those days are gone and the new era of marketing has already started. the new age of marketing is way more advanced and systematic . Now customers decide, what a seller should sell and have equal power to control the market. “There is a famous saying that says” customer is the king , no doubt that in today’s scenario customers are more than king, rather they are now worshiped as God.

21st century is all about customer satisfaction. Now marketing is not just about selling the products but it is about selling the right product, to right person at right price and at right time.Today we have various marketing strategies which helps the companies and entrepreneurs to know their customer first, before developing a product or a service. They focus more on communication and consumer choices and then decide the price and the design of the product. so basically we can say that consumer are the geese who lay golden eggs everyday.

Now a whole lot of system is developed just to track the consumers needs to satisfy them. Isn’t it great that a company spends so much money just to keep their customers happy ? But that doesn’t mean the company is not making profit, well the company which takes care of their customers eventually end up having more profit. if a company has great marketing strategies and have loyal customers then it can easily grow and can also run for long term.

Apart from customer satisfaction today’s marketing is also all about going digital. Yes, so here i would be stating the importance of digital marketing in today’s era . Digital marketing has evolved a lot more in these years, with the help of this skill one can not only track their customer’s needs but, can also make money out of it. digital marketing helps the company to grow their brand and also helps the companies to understand their customers in a more easy way. In order to make a product unique digital marketing plays a crucial role.

Change in marketing concepts shows how far marketing has changed. starting from production concept to marketing concept everything has changed and have changed for good. i don’t know how the future of marketing will be but i am sure it will be more scientific , more valuable and more customer oriented.

Branding – A Powerful Strategy

Branding For Small Businesses Made Simple

shakesphere once said “what’s there in a name” , well this famous saying is not applicable in the case of marketing. In the world of marketing a name which i mean as brand is often used to increase sales , attract and retain customers. So basically in simple words, brand is an identity or a recognition of a product or a service. A brand can be a logo, a picture, or even just a word which distinguishes itself from other competitors. Hence this practice of creating a name or an image for a product or service is known as branding.

Companies and marketers are well aware of the power of branding, which is why they always end up in brand awareness. They know that in order to capture the mind of their target customers all they need to do is just advertise their brands instead of their products. But not every company focuses on their branding awareness some newly developed company can not depend upon their brand name just to increase their sales. But yes such small companies can simultaneously aware about their product and their new brand which can be useful for the companies to slowly improve their brand image.

More or less we somehow know why branding is important, because most of us while buying our daily essentials, we prefer to choose the brand, which we are well aware of . We might not be aware of the ingredients of a particular brand but if we know the brand then we do not think of anything else , and that’s the power of branding. hence, a powerful brand creates trust in the mind of it’s customers and within the market place.

So basically branding is a strategy which generates new customers and increases the value of the product. Let’s understand this in a very easy manner. Tell me what comes to your mind when you think of noodles ? ………Is it maggie ? , now think of a toothpaste ?…. Is it colgate ? okay last one , if you are asked to buy a branded notebook which notebook will you buy ? ….. wait, is it classmate ? I am sure most your answers were same as mine, probably we would have given the same answers in our subconscious state too, and that’s the power of these brands.

So far we came to know about the power of branding, but as there are two side of a coin, this strategy too has some disadvantages. A brand can also be the reason for the decline in the growth of a product. Let’s understand this with an example. Suppose their is company called ‘XYZ’ , this company’s name itself is a brand and it has got different product lines like XYZ-soaps , XYZ-drinks , XYZ- cosmetics. Some researchers found that this company is using harsh chemicals in it’s cosmetics but their other two product line has no flaws. But since their is a flaw in one of it’s product line people will start assuming that this brand uses harsh chemicals in all of it’s products and hence will stop buying the product which will eventually affect the company’s financial position.

That’s how simple is the concept of branding. As long as there will be competition in the market, companies will try hard to keep permanent impression of their product in their customer’s mind by improving their branding strategies.