Posts Tagged ‘marketing’
In this day and age, there are a ton of different ways that you can make money. but wouldn’t it be great if you could create and sell products of your own? Creating products to make money is something that is fun and totally fulfilling. You get to be your very own boss as well as make all of your own work hours. You also get to see your very own products sell. However, you must be warned that marketing and creating your own product is very difficult in the beginning and that you have to be dedicated if you want to see results.
You see, having a product is not a guarantee for success. It is not enough to have an idea or even a fully developed product. You have to have a market for it. No one is just going to stumble upon your designer handbags or awesome new computer program unless you advertise it properly. If you want to create products you make, you are essentially becoming an entrepreneur. That means you have to consider every aspect of buying, selling, and marketing. You will be in charge until you have enough money to hire professionals.
Creating your own products starts with a good idea that you want to develop. You don’t need to have a huge idea right away — in fact, your business can start with just a flicker of an idea to drive it. For example, the person who came up with ‘Bump It’ to volumize your hair is a genius, and many girls have bought and are using this product. Just think about something that you might want to use or need to use everyday and an idea should come to you in no time at all!
After you get an idea, the next step is to do research on it. You want to make sure that you find the ideal market for your product. You also have to find out — even before you start the production of the product — if people want to buy it. You can do a poll and figure out exactly if people will be interested in your product and be willing to pay for it.
There are many things that you can gain from conducting a poll: for example, you’ll get a good estimate for the price of your product, how many people will consider buying it and how often people would use your product. In order for your product to be extremely successful, you have to make sure that it has some sort of niche as well as some sort of market following.
You will also have to test your product. This will of course require some kind of prototype, or prototypes, depending on how many focus groups you want to hold. Still, before you ever try to market it, you will need to know exactly how your product works. You also need to know how much it will cost to make. That way, you can estimate how much profit you will be receiving in return.
You also have to advertise as much as you can. You have to let as many people as possible know that your product exists. Otherwise, they will not even know to purchase it. You can do a lot of advertising on the internet. Put together a web site, do some social bookmarking, figure out SEO.
Remember, though, that there are other advertising venues available as well. Do not forget about newspapers and magazines, on both local and national levels. Think about putting together a brochure as well.
The Internet has developed no end in the last ten years where seeing more and more web presenter on websites today. From being a simple information-sharing network it has become a living, breathing network used to sell things, buy things, start relationships and just chat to mates. This growth in Internet use and the advances in technology have begun to challenge the media industry, TV can now be viewed anytime, and any place online, the same with films and music. This has obviously added to illegal downloading issues, but also created a whole new market, which has caught the attracted the interest of advertisers.
Online marketing is worth big money, for a few key reasons:
TV adverts are only shown between programmes, whereas Internet adverts and banners are on screen nearly all the time. Giving the advertiser a bettter spread.
*The amount of people that can be reached is incredible. For example last year google had 1,118,000,000 view their advert that’s over 18 times the population of the UK.
*Targeting the right market is fairly easy, working out the markets interests and then placing adverts on the main sites of these interests can quickly aim the information straight into the segment the advertiser wants to reach.
Some sites such as myspace and facbook know that their users visit the site almost everyday to check their messages or comments and they know this regular traffic is worth a lot of money. Linking between sites is a technique less well known websites can use to gain traffic, by making a post on for example myspace which includes the web address to their site, owners can guide a section of myspace’s users towards their website and therefore boost their own traffic.
Some website owners have even used internet user’s mistakes to gain traffic. You can tell where a domain is from by its ending, such as Great Britain has .co.uk, America .com and France .fr. Cameroon in Africa has .cm and one entrepreneur came across a brilliant and highly profitable idea. He bought up hundreds of domains ending in .cm that sounded similar to their .com equivalents. By using user mistakes to gain traffic Kevin Ham made well over 2 million dollars!
Company owners are also starting to realise that text based websites don’t hold their audience interests for as long as needed. Website creators are attempting to combine website video production and website to create new, more interesting sites that not only entertain but more importantly sell. These website tour guides can greet site guests, show them round and help a company communicate their brand image and intentions. Not only this, but tests have proved that people stay longer on sites that feature a video tour guide rather than just text and user retention is highly important to potential advertisers.
As you can see the world of online sales and advertising is fast moving and constantly changing. The question is where will it go next and if you know then it’s definitely time to invest.
With the morning sun shining bright you are sitting in your office. With a cup of hot coffee by your side and memories of your last holiday still fresh in your mind, even if you say so yourself, today at least, life is sweet.
As you take a sip of your early morning double cappuccino a rush of cool air blows through the room and you catch a movement from the corner of your eye. In the blink of an eye there is now an smartly dressed stranger sitting in the chair opposite. Surprised, you bet; you didn’t hear anyone knock and just as you are about to say something he begins in a calm and measured voice.
‘The deal is this’
‘In every city of the world I am going to display your product on billboards at the busiest junctions.’
‘I will be able to tell you how many people see the advertisement, their gender, nationality and age group.’
‘I will tell you what they think of your product and in many cases I will give you their contact details. While they are reading the billboard I will make it possible for them to view your website and, if they feel the urge, make a purchase.’
‘I can have all this setup in two days and it will cost you less than a small advertisement displayed in your favourite trade journal.’
He pauses. ‘Interested?’
Now you might think that you should beware of offers that sound too good to be true, that you are going to wake up soon or maybe that you really should get a lock for that office door.
But let us just take a minute. If you are still reading this I am that man who has come from nowhere and offered you a deal.
The advertising site is on the Internet and the billboard I’m offering is the humble online survey.
Stop for one moment and start to associate an online survey not with ‘market research’ but with ‘marketing’. And not any type of marketing this is ‘Marketing’ with a very large capital ‘M’ and in flashing neon lights. Marketing that is quick, direct, effective and low cost.
You can advertise a published online survey on a website, or via email and like a billboard by the side of a transport hub, your message will appear in front of people. Unlike a static billboard where the amount of people that see an advert has to be estimated (based no doubt on some arbitrary percentage of passing vehicles), the online survey accurately records the number of times a survey is started.
Online surveys can ask demographic questions such as age, gender and nationality and in doing so allows you to collate metrics about the effectiveness of your promotion and confirm that you are interacting with the target respondent on a one-on-one level.
Unlike billboards where the message is often subliminal, or maybe just trying to achieve brand awareness, with online surveys you have the opportunity to connect with the public to find out what they really think about your product, how it relates to them, how it is perceived.
Using an online survey website it takes only minutes and hours to create a survey and using the power of the Internet an online survey can reach hundreds of thousands of people on a daily basis.
Even if you throw in a prize as an incentive for people to complete the survey, maybe invest in some Pay Per Click advertising to capture a wider, or more focused, audience you are still talking low cost effective marketing.
‘Okay then, tell me. Do we have a deal?’
Having video content on websites is much more effective then standard text because it creates a visual interaction with the audience so there for the audience will receive instant information about the web video production or services available. Video engages viewers more effectively than copy and keeps then on websites longer.
There are various online presenters out there one example is Marino Olova who hosts a web show on youtube called too hot for words where people will ask her random questions and she will give them an answer however her unique selling point is her breast as you may see in her videos and this has attracted viewers to watch her productions as sex sells, because she has a mass audience who watch her productions she now receives funding form marketing sources such as google where they will post a links on her pages and will get a certain amount of money every time her videos have been viewed.
In the year 2008 it came to knowledge that internet marketing has surpassed television hence why itv had a loss of 600 jobs because they where not turning in enough revenue from advertisement to keep staff on. The reason why the Internet has had such an effect on advertisement is because companies can aim their product towards more of a direct audience. Hence they can place their products on a specific website either 1 of two things that there product suits the target audience which visit that site or website that is popular and has an large audience which visit the website, hence why youtube has taken the nation and advertisement world by storm as they have a mass audience going into millions. This is the reason why such popular productions such as too hot for words gain funding because it has such a massive fan base that companies will want to advertise their product on her page to reach target audiences.
The popularity with video based content such as you tube, facebook and myspace, is growing as people are interested in watching other peoples productions and load up their own productions for the public to watch, same with face book which is a social network site and myspace where you can upload your own videos for your friends and family to watch and also add comments expressing their opinions on what they think of the production.
For any business that wants to offer products or services that are highly focused and well targeted market research is important. Business decisions based on good market research can minimise risk and pay dividends. By making market research part and parcel of the business process and conducting market research throughout the life cycle of a product or service market research will bring the following benefits:-
- Market research will help you better communicate – Your current customers experiences are a valuable information source, not only will they allow you to gauge how well you currently meet their expectations they can also tell you where you are getting things right and more importantly where you are getting things wrong. By asking the customer you can take the guesswork out of customer services and show them that you care.
- Market research helps you identify opportunities – If you are planning to operate a new service and want to know the preconceived attitudes people have then market research can help, not only in evaluating the potential for a new idea, but also by identify the areas where a marketing message needs to be honed.
- Market research will minimise risk – Market research can identifying what is needed for a new service and product and ensure that the development of a product matches demand.
- Market research creates benchmarks and helps you measure your progress – You need to be able to measure so that you can ensure that your organization is always improving. Early research can identify flaws in your service or areas where a product needs to be improved, by conducting regular market research it will identify if improvements are being made and, if positive, will in turn help motivate a development team.
Market research brings considerable benefits and it is perhaps surprising how few businesses invest sufficient resources to gather good intelligence that will help them improve business. Many may think that market research takes too much time and effort but that is just not the case anymore as through the power of the Internet online survey software is readily available and vital market research data can now be gathered in a quick, simple and cost effective manner.
What will conducting effective market research teach you?
Know your customers – Market research will help you better understand your customers in a number of ways including demographic information such as their age, gender and geographic spread. The better you know your customer the easier it is to fine tune your product or service towards the target market.
Know your target market – Who exactly are your existing customers and where do they live? What age group does your service or product appeal to? Who are your potential customers and where do they live?
Know your competition – Market Research will help you measure your service compared to others. What are the strengths and weaknesses of your business and are you improving in the areas that customers demand?
Products and services – Do you have the products or services that people want? Is what you offer value for money? How do your organization’s products and services compare to those of your competitors? If you have a product can you, do you, should you deliver directly to your customer?
Ease of doing business – Do your customers find it easy to deal with you and when they visit your store and/or website do they find what they want? Is there adequate advice and assistance on hand? Do you make it easy for people to buy from you? Are all your employees properly trained, knowledgeable, helpful and available?
Marketing – Is your marketing reaching the right people and is the marketing message clear and effective. What marketing channels are available to you, which ones should you focus on and which, if any, should you drop?
Do people correctly understand your marketing message? Does your marketing material accurately reflect your brand? Do you use the right promotion channels? Are you reaching your target audience?
With the power of the Internet it is now very easy to conduct market research using one of the many online survey software sites that make conducting surveys and collating good market research intelligence quick, easy and extremely cost effective.
By conducting effective market research what you can learn?
Know your customers – Market research will help you better understand your customers in a number of ways including demographic information such as their age, gender and geographic spread. The better you know your customer the easier it is to target your marketing and fine tune your product or service.
Know your target market – Who exactly are your existing customers and where do they live? Does your service or product appeal to specific age groups? Who are your potential customers and where do they live?
Know your competition – Market Research will help you measure your service compared to others. What are the strengths and weaknesses of your business and are you improving in the areas that customers demand?
Products and services – Do you have the products or services that people want? Are your products and services value for money? How do your services and products compare to that of your competitors? If you have a product can you, do you, should you deliver directly to your customer?
Ease of doing business – Do your customers find it easy to deal with you and when they visit your store and/or website do they find what they want? Is there enough good advice and assistance on hand? Do you make it easy for your customers to buy? Are all your staff properly trained, helpful, knowledgeable and available?
Marketing – Is your marketing reaching the right people and is the marketing message clear and effective. Which are the most effective and which are the least effective marketing channels?
Is the marketing message understood? Does all your marketing correctly reflect your brand? Do you use the correct advertising channels? Are you reaching the right people?
With the power of the Internet it is now very easy to conduct market research using one of the many online survey software sites that make conducting surveys and collating good market research intelligence quick, easy and extremely cost effective.
The use of video on websites has many positive effects on people who become interactive with the website. Websites that use website video production include, YouTube, Face Book, MySpace, E4, 4od etc. the way in which the video’s connect with the audiences are on many levels as the viewers can have a visual on things that they properly wouldn’t bother to read about.
The internet offers many sources of information, this information is shown in many different ways such as text based, video based, picture based etc.
With the internet becoming very popular and people relying on information on the internet, audiences will look for a specific type of information that they will be able to understand and connect with, the most popular source of information is video based.
When people are given the chance to either read or watch something giving out information on the internet, people are more likely to prefer to watch a video presenters. A video helps browsers understand what the product or service does faster.
Its so easy now through online paid ads to reach your target audience.
Another very successful way to advertise a product is to use a presenter to encourage people, this can be evidenced on websites such as homepages to internet services i.e. SKY, MSN etc. on these particular pages I found a detailed advertisement advertising “weight loss products” within this advertisement a woman is shown before and after in a bikini, with her discussing how the product worked for her and giving people details of how to use the product. By being able to see and hear positive feedback about a certain product convinces people to believe in the product.
Audiences need information to be laid out for them in the ways that they will want to watch it, if the information they are looking for is not set out in a specific way (Text, Video’s etc) they will immediately leave the website and look else where.
Certain websites only give out specific ways of presenting information, some are completely text based, video based or they could be a mixture of both.
Keeping your website interesting with video content will ensure visitors are kept more interested and stay on the site longer.
YouTube is a website that offers millions of video’s that can be easily found in the search engine, when logging into You tube it immediately gives you things that you may like to watch on the basis of videos you have already viewed. Its easy to find content on Youtube as they suggest videos that match video content you already have viewed. You tube is a very reliable website to find information by video.
The internet overall generates information in many ways. As people rely on the internet for information, it is very important that the popular and not so popular websites keep up to date with how information should be presented to audiences as this will have a huge impact on the views that the website receive.
What can you learn by conducting effective market research?
Know your customers – Market research will help you better understand your customers in a number of ways including demographic information such as their age, gender and geographic spread. The better you know your customer the easier it is to fine tune your product or service towards the target market.
Know your target market – Who exactly are your existing customers and where do they live? Does your service or product appeal to specific age group? Do you know who your potential customers are and where they live?
Know your competition – Market Research will help you measure your service compared to others. What are the strengths and weaknesses of your business and are you improving in the areas that customers demand?
Products and services – Do you have the products or services that people want? Do you represent value for money? How do your company’s products and services match up to that of your competitors? Can you, do you, should you deliver?
Ease of doing business – Do your customers find it easy to deal with you and when they visit your store and/or website do they find what they want? Is there adequate advice and assistance on hand? Do you make it easy for your customers to buy? Are your staff properly trained, helpful, knowledgeable and available?
Marketing – Is your marketing reaching the right people and is the marketing message clear and effective. Which of the marketing channels that are available to you are effective and which ones are proving ineffective?
Do people understand your marketing message? Does your marketing material properly represent your brand? Do you use the correct advertising and promotion channels? Are you reaching your target audience?
With the power of the Internet it is now very easy to conduct market research using one of the many online survey software sites that make conducting surveys and collating good market research intelligence quick, easy and extremely cost effective.
Why should you bother?
The life blood of any business is good customer service. New customers are important but good customer service will help generate customer loyalty and repeat business. With every satisfied customer your business is likely to go on and secure many more customers through recommendations and if you do not take proper care of your customers there is probably a competitor waiting in the wings that will.
Online customer satisfaction surveys will help you not only identify problem areas but will also demonstrate to your customers that you care and are proactive in looking for ways to improve the service that you provide.
Where to start?
Objective – Before you start creating your survey clarify the objectives of the survey, in that way you will find it easier to decide what are the right questions to ask.
Analysis – Having completed the survey consider how you will analyse the answers.
Bare in mind that ‘closed’ questions (where the respondents are asked to choose from a limited number of responses) are easier to analyse than questions that are ‘open’ (where the respondent can reply in anyway they want).
A lot will depend on the expected volume of respondents, the higher the volume the more important it is to have an easy method of analysing the results.
Opportunity – As well as obtaining valuable market research data keep in mind that customer surveys are also a good way to publicise aspects of your service that your customers may not be aware of.
It is important that before you publish the survey that you check that the questions you have asked will provide you with market research data that when analyzed will help you make informed decisions.
Then, from a marketing view point read through the survey, confirm that you have phrased each question so that every opportunity has been taken to promote your business?
The ideal question will perform the following three functions:-
- Market research – provide valuable feedback to help you improve your customer satisfaction levels and in turn your business
- Marketing – promote aspects of your business
- Information/Education – advertise a service that you provide that your customers may not have been unaware of
For example:- Do you find the in-store baby changing facilities useful?
By asking this question not only will the store receive good feedback on the facility they provide but they will also advertise their baby changing facilities and promote themselves as a family friendly store beyond those customers who have a specific need for the facility provided.
Warts and all – to benefit most from a customer survey you need to be prepared to accept criticism.
A customer satisfaction survey should be designed to highlight problems so that they can be addressed; regular customer satisfaction will prevent complacency and will also give early warning on where your competitors initiatives may be losing you business.
What to ask?
Depending on their own particular size and makeup each business is likely to have unique factors in relation to providing good customer services however there are common areas relevant to all businesses be they a physical store, online store or a service industry. The following are some key areas to providing good customer service.
Communication – Are you confident that you make it easy for your customers to contact you?
When a customer telephones is their call answered promptly; are enquiries about products or services handled properly? Good businesses will make every effort to ensure that whatever the customers query it is resolved by the right person, quickly, politely and fairly.
If a problem cannot be resolvable immediately do you promise to respond in a given time period and do you deliver on your promise?
Use a customer satisfaction survey to check that your customers find your staff to be helpful, courteous and knowledgeable.
Location – Do your customers find it easy to visit you, if a physical store, is it conveniently located with good access?
Making it pleasant, making it easy – For an internet business it is important to ensure that your website is easy to use and aesthetically pleasing.
Physical store or online website, is the store properly laid out, can your customers find what they need and is there sufficient information and help on hand to explain how a particular product works?
The right quality products – In addition to measuring the quality of the service that you provide you should ensure that the products and services that you provide match your customers’ requirements.
Value for money – Cheap or expensive is rarely a good measure, value for money is.
Is your business associated with value for money by your customers, if not, why not?
Speed and attention – Regardless of the type of business most customers will want to be dealt with quickly but attentively.
Are you doing everything you can to avoid any delay?
A good business will try to treat each customer as an individual, does yours? Attention is important but so is a quick and satisfactory resolution of the query.
Demographics and Specific issues – Take the opportunity to profile your customers, for example what is their age group and where do they live?
The better you understand your customers the more you will be able to properly target your business.
Encourage customers to highlight their specific problems and provide contact details.
What next?
Once the survey has been completed analyse the results.
Trends – Identify specific and common areas where the service needs improving.
Ask yourself if any criticism is valid and is there anything that can be done to resolve or minimise the problem?
Training – Are all employees properly trained and do they have sufficient knowledge?
If customer service training programs have been implemented have they improved the customer experience?
Follow-up – If a customer who has completed a survey has raised a specific issue do all you can to ensure that their complaint is addressed.
Do not lose a customer by squandering an opportunity to resolve a problem.
Continuously Monitor – Make changes based on the survey results and then re-measure by issuing follow up surveys.
If you are interested in tracking customer satisfaction and would like to see a sample survey for a store that demonstrates some of the above advice please view the following example that can be used as a customer satisfaction survey template.