Easy Notes - By Manoj Singh

Definition

Marketing your products or services through online tools (internet based) to reach out at your targeted customers is often termed as online marketing. There are various activities which are being done nowadays to promote products through online mediums such as website creation, SEO/SMO, content management, blog writing, reviews management & showcasing of products at online market space.

Marketing mix is a tool which was propounded by E. Jerome McCarthy in 1960s to help decision makers to decide on various components of product / services which affect a lot in their success and failures. Researchers / professionals generally call it as 4Ps / 7Ps / 4Cs of marketing. This mix answers most of the questions being asked related to product / services and helps a lot in gaining competitive advantage. 

This term was propounded by Theodore Levitt in 1960’s and became most popular when it got published in Harvard Business Review (HBR) magazine in 60’s. This is the most common mistakes made by companies when they start focusing on the product / services which they sell instead of focusing on customer’s need. The main motive of doing business gets defeated when we don’t act as per consumers need and demand. We have seen in past as to how a brand / product get extinct or loses the market share when they don’t focus on consumer’s needs. Keep a constant eye on the changing preferences of end consumers and act accordingly. 

Below mentioned are 11 points which should be given due consideration while drafting effective marketing strategies. 

1. Identify your target customers first and focus on them only. Without identifying your customers, you can’t find them. Hence, this is the first step while preparation of marketing strategy.

2. Prepare your marketing budget and plan accordingly. Take special care while preparing budget & try hard on making this more realistic. This can be done by involving all relevant department heads in your company.

3. Measurable & Achievable: Make your plan measurable and achievable. Fix targets / goals in consultation with the marketing team & break them into quarterly, monthly & fortnightly targets.

4. Position yourselves correctly: Don’t confuse your customers as this is the most common mistakes which are generally made by companies. Make your customers clear about one basic questions i.e. what does your product stand for? E.g. If you talk about “Ferrari”, I understand sports car. If you say “Cartier”, I understand luxury watch. 

5. Create awareness: Advertise about your product through most suited advertisement medium. Plan in advance about this spend in your budget as this plays a very vital role in building a brand and impact a lot on revenue. One can choose between print media, online advertisement, TV commercials, outdoor hoardings and many more depending upon your pocket size and target customers. Most of the companies prefer more than one advertisement medium for increasing their presence faster.

6. Focus and strengthen your USP (unique selling proposition): If your product has some unique feature which your competitor doesn't have then please highlight those and harvest on the same through aggressive marketing campaigns. 

7. Watch your competitor closely: Know your competitors thoroughly and keep a close eye on their movement and marketing tactics. 

8. CSR (Corporate social responsibility): Include some CSR initiatives & highlight the same during all your advertisement campaigns. 

9. Flexible: Make your plan flexible enough for further changes as you may be required to alter your plans due to competitor’s move or customer’s requirement.

10. Make your online presence: This has become very important nowadays due to rising online customer base. Below mentioned are few activities which one should do in order to improve your online presence.

a) Get your website ready with user friendly features.

b) Create your pages on social media websites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and many more.

c) Manage your reviews & testimonials tactfully and act promptly on negative reviews. 

d) Put product or company video on Youtube.com or other relevant websites.

e) Buy e-tailing space on leading online retailer’s website such as Amazon, e-bay, Alibaba etc by registering your product or company.

f) Get the SEO (search engine optimization) done for your website through good online marketing company. 

g) Submit blogs on relevant websites. 

h) Respond quickly to online queries posted by customers.

11. Control measures: After doing lots of hard work, one needs to know the real impact of the strategies which has been implemented during the year. One can compare the results through measuring sales figure of previous year and current year. If all your marketing strategies are not giving positive result then it would be advisable to re-work on the pricing strategies and re-define your target customers. 

This is one of the vital decisions which a company makes during the life cycle of goods / services. Success and failure of product is directly linked to the pricing nowadays. Many goods are priced on higher side but are not demanded by customers & once the price is reduced, the same product becomes a huge success. Few goods are priced on higher side and are demanded very much by customers but once the price is reduced then demand also gets reduced. Hence, pricing decisions are very tough to be made. There are various strategies which are being followed nowadays related to pricing and few of them has been discussed in detail as under.