Advertising

Advertising can be defined as mass, paid communication (presentation and promotion) of goods, services or ideas by an identified sponsor. It is paid communication because the advertiser had to pay for the space or time in which his advertisement appears. Advertising appears in the recognized media, such as newspapers, magazine, radio, television, cinema film, outdoor hoardings and posters, direct mail and transit.

Advertising is a major promotion tool. It has the following basic plus points or strengths as a promotion tool: It offers planned and controlled message. It can contact and influence numerous people simultaneously, quickly, and at a low cost per prospect. It has the ability to deliver messages to audiences with particular demographic and socio-economic features.

Purpose of Advertising

1. Promotion of New product
2. Support to personal selling
3. Brand Patronage
4. Immediate Buying Action
5. Pre-sold Goods

Advertising is a powerful promotion tool to establish and retain brand loyalty and even store patronage provided the product itself does not suffer from quality deficiencies, errors in design or other handicaps and the retailers do not have deterioration in their customer services.

How to create a successful advertising copy

1. Define the goal of your message
2. Know your audience and what they want
3. Appeal to their self interest
4. Make an emotional appeal, not a logical one
5. Don’t give them any choices
6. Make your best offer

Mobile Marketing

Today the popularity of mobile phones has spread through all walks of life. Millions of text messages are sent every day using mobile phones. Mobile Marketing is an innovative approach to increase returns at low cost to the organization and can also help enhance and differentiate its brand. It is highly personalized, interactive and has an immediate impact. It is ideal for any business to generate leads and to reach prospective customers. Organizations can fully harness the power of SMS communications to tap potential customers.

SMS refers to “Short Message Service” and involves the delivery of text messages to mobile handsets. SMS is a general name for the technology that enables users to send and receive text message via mobile phones.

Currently, SMS has an extremely high consumer usage, but a low business adoption. But this relatively low business usage is changing rapidly, with more and more organizations realizing the benefits of SMS, and using it as a new media within their traditional marketing communications strategies. The reason for this increase in business is due to the fact that SMS is an extremely cost-effective, high-response-rate vehicle, which can help to acquire and retain consumers, sell and promote products, drive loyalty and reinforce branding efforts. Therefore, SMS marketing (Mobile Marketing) is named for its wider reach, low cost and high retention.

SMS is extremely personal in nature. Therefore, marketers should ensure that they treat the medium with the appropriate level of respect.

Creating a Sellable Product

Many marketers have created or acquired products that they thought would sell well and, in their enthusiasm, set up everything from sales letters to websites to getting traffic. However, a lot of these marketers have forgotten the single most important factor that will affect their product sales – the "sell ability" of the product.

When you begin creating products or buying rights to a certain product to sell, the most important factor you must take into account is the demand of the product. Do people want your product? It is simply stupid to waste a month's time preparing a product, setting up the website and required sales techniques only to find that people do not even flick an eyebrow at your product!

Your final goal is to deliver the product to your customer and collect his or her money. In order to do this, you must make sure your customer wants to buy your product in the first place. How do you find out if they want your product? Simple. Just ask! Ask in forums related to your niche. Hold a survey or public poll. The Internet is a flat playing field, and you have the power to reach just about anyone in the world who has an Internet connection.

Let's say you have this brilliant idea on creating a step-by-step instruction on how to cook Indian food. First, you must find out if anyone is interested (or even heard of) Indian food. To do this, go to a food-related forum and ask tactfully if anyone would be interested in learning Indian cuisine. Do not ask blatantly whether anyone would like to buy an eBook with instructions on how to cook Indian food or you might be in danger of being accused of spamming. On the other hand, you can give out a few samples of your Indian recipes to test the waters – see how the forum members react to them. If they show enthusiasm for learning more, then you definitely have a market in this. If they show no interest, then it is time to look for a new idea to market. You save time in the long run because you don't have to find out the low demand for your product the hard way.

If your idea is welcomed by the forum members you surveyed, you can go ahead and compile your extensive eBook on cooking Indian food because there is interest in the information you possess. Where there is interest, you can easily build up desire for your product, and with desire (plus good marketing), your purchases will arrive naturally!

Invest in Yourself

"Investing in yourself is the best thing you can do. Anything that improves your own talents; nobody can tax it or take it away from you. They can run up huge deficits and the dollar can become worth far less. You can have all kinds of things happen. But if you've got talent yourself and you've maximized your talent, you've got a tremendous asset that can return ten-fold" - Warren Buffett

Top entrepreneurs buy and read business and marketing books, magazines, reports, journals, newsletters, websites and industry publications, knowing that these resources will improve their understanding of business and marketing functions and skills. They join business associations and clubs, and they network with other skilled business people to learn their secrets of success and help define their own goals and objectives. 

Top entrepreneurs attend business and marketing seminars, workshops and training courses, even if they have already mastered the subject matter of the event. They do this because they know that education is an ongoing process. There are usually ways to do things better, in less time, with less effort. In short, top entrepreneurs never stop investing in the most powerful, effective and best business and marketing tool at their immediate disposal-themselves.

The best investment you can ever make is an investment in yourself. Invest in yourself first. Be willing to work for everything.

Supply and Demand for the Product

Supply and Demand: 

If no one wants what you are offering, you will not succeed in sales. You therefore, need to know if there is a market for your product(s) or services. Years ago, much of the mail order business was directed at getting products into the hands of people living in rural areas where such goods were not as readily available. By meeting the demand for such items, mail order flourished in this manner. Today, however, there are few rural areas in which you won't find at least a strip mall selling most of the popular conveniences. The demand for your product or services, therefore, comes from a wider scope of the population, and you need to seek out whether there is such a market and where it can be found. This means finding not only fishermen who will like your new fishing products, but also fishermen who are not already receiving catalogs from three other such mail order businesses that have beaten you to the punch. Demand means areas or markets that are underserved. A glut of companies selling the same type of items will reduce or eliminate the demand.

Product Creation

Many organizations have created or acquired that they assumed that would sell well and in their enthusiasm, set up everything. However, a lot of these marketers have forgotten the important factor that will affect their product is sell ability of the product.

When an organization start thinking about creating product or buying rights to a certain product to sell, the most important factor you must take into consideration is the demand of the product. Think whether people want your product or not. Customer satisfaction is very important while marketing the product. When there is demand for the product then your business will have continuous cash flow and can run the successful business.

Your ultimate aim is to achieve the customer satisfaction by occupying the seller’s need to convert his product into cash. In order to do this and earn revenue for your business you must make sure your customer wants to buy your product.