One of the Levi's Marketing Strategy:

Consumer research told Levis that customers found shopping for dress pents gave remarks as: slacks dept were dirty, finding the right size was difficult, and getting alternation was frustrating. Customers wanted Cash and Carry, off-the-rack dress pents. So Levi's devised a carefully crafted strategy to overcome the typical male distaste for dress pents shopping. Slates were sold in scientifically tested selling areas consisting of mohogany-toned circular store displays that allows easy access to the various styles and sizes. Levi's also responded with off-the-rackpants that require little altering. whereas most dress pents come only in even waist sizes, forcing alternations for off-size men, slates also come in odd sizes. All slates are hemmed and cuffed and have double pleats in the front. For customers with larger waist sizes, the pleats are more kindly placed.

posted by Abd ur Rehman

Marketing Online - Men and Women Use the Internet Differently..

When it comes to marketing online, you must understand your consumers. This means learning what they look for, and how they use the internet. This can help you grab their attention and get your marketing message in front of the right audience.

It's also important to realize that when it comes to online habits of men and women - they differ. I know, surprise! In the past there has been a lag with women when it came to the adoption of the internet, that is no longer the case. Truth is, studies show that women under the age of 65 are quicker to use the internet than men. As women we love to use the internet for research, where men prefer to use it as an entertainment tool. Do you see how this information can help?

When we review studies that have been done on the different ways that men and women use the internet, we can gain a greater deal of knowledge on how to position our products online.

Let's take a look at what a past study done by Pew Internet and American Life showed, while this study was done in 2005 I still believe much of the knowledge is applicable and can be used today.

Men are more likely to use the internet to:

• Read the news
• Buy travel services or make reservations
• Check sports scores and gather sports information
• Stay updated on political news
• Participate in online auctions, such as ebay
• Write content to publish online
• Download music
• Buy and sell stocks, bonds and mutual funds

A Forrester study done in 2007 also showed that on the average men tend to stay online longer and devote more time to online entertainment and researching technical gadgets.

Women use the internet to:

• Get health information
• Read spiritual and religious information
• Gain access and participate in support group websites

A few other interesting statistics that were provided in a different study done by Burst Media in the beginning of 2009 stated the following:

• 62.3% of women use the internet as their primary source for information on the products they were considering purchasing.
• 51.7% of the women studied use the internet as the primary way to keep in touch with their families

As you can see men go online to be entertained and hunt down information, where women tend to go online to gather information that assists them in nurturing, themselves and those around them. Clearly while both men and women generally spend allotments of time online, gender stereotypes are prevalent in what they do with their time online.

Putting it to Use: Think about who your potential customer is online. Is the majority male or female? Can you see how this information can assist you in not only where but how to position your product or service in order to increase the conversions you gain online? How will you use this information in upcoming marketing campaigns?

http://marketing.about.com/od/internetmarketingstrategy/a/genderdifferences.htm

Four Small Business Marketing Steps You Need to Put Into Check

I think the biggest mistake we make in marketing is making everything so difficult for consumers to understand that they don't get it. Literally. And if they don’t get it, they usually don’t feel compelled to act, buy, etc. ... you see where I’m going with this.

Marketing is about informing consumers about your products and services and telling them why they should pick you over your competitor - it really is that simple.

Are you doing that? If you are not it's time to really analyze your marketing strategy and evaluate the point you’re trying to get across.

I daily watch small businesses try to market like big companies, when in fact they've missed the core components that will get a person to buy their products or services. My first piece of advice is stop trying to compete with the "big dogs" - find your own niche and your own market and become one of the big dogs.

How do you do this? It's by moving a customer from the point of just attracting their attention to inspiring them to actually take action - which is making a purchase from you. There are four steps to doing this.

• Step 1: Get their attention
  You have competition, it doesn't have to be a lot of competition - but you have competition. It is up to you to get the attention of your consumers. Do you know how to do that? You speak to their need. You inform of them of the solution that you provide. If you don't provide a solution – it’s time to get back to the drawing board.
• Step 2: Create a marketing message that speaks to them.
  You know your solution, now you have to create a message that says "I’m your answer." Have you done that with your marketing message? If not, why do you think they will buy your products or services? If you don't inform them about your product who will? Craft your marketing message so it's easy to understand and a consumer doesn't want to walk out of a store without purchasing your product or service and taking advantage of it right away. Your marketing message has to speak about the solution as well as creating an urgency for the need. Have you done that? If not, again take it back to the drawing board!
• Step 3: Evaluate different marketing methods
  You have to evaluate the different marketing methods and really evaluate which ones will work for you. For example do you serve a market that is more drawn to the Yellow Pages or Twitter? Do they spend more time watching television or surfing the internet? Be aware of and informed about different marketing methods and which ones will work with your market. It's not a one size fits all deal.
• Step 4: Use marketing methods that are visible to your consumer
  The reason you need to evaluate the different marketing methods are so you can select the methods that are more visible to your potential purchaser. Why advertise in the Yellow Pages if your consumers are searching the yellow pages? Why spend money on television advertising if they are spending more time surfing the internet? When you select the right marketing methods, you create a placement that your potential consumers will see. When you select the wrong methods of marketing, you might as well throw your money out the window.
• http://marketing.about.com/od/strategytutorials/a/smallbusinessmarketing.htm

Quantity vs. Quality and Exclusion by Two-Sided Platforms

It is common for two-sided platforms to deny participation to some potential customers, who would otherwise be willing to pay the platforms' access and/or transaction fees. Videogame console manufacturers such as Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo, for example, restrict access to a select set of game developers and exclude many others by including security chips in their consoles, even though the latter would also be willing to pay the per-game royalties levied by the manufacturers. Apple routinely excludes certain application developers from its highly popular iPhone store. Professor Andrei Hagiu builds a simple model formalizing profit-maximizing two-sided platforms' choice of exclusion policies, which is fundamentally determined by a tradeoff between quality and quantity.

http://hbswk.hbs.edu/topics/marketing.html

Marketing Mix

The marketing mix principles (also known as the 4 p’s.) are used by business as tools to assist them in pursuing their objectives. The marketing mix principles are controllable variables, which have to be carefully managed and must meet the needs of the defined target group. The marketing mix is apart of the organisations planning process and consists of analysing the defined:

• How will you design, package and add value to the product. Product strategies.
• What pricing strategy is appropiate to use Price strategies.
• Where will the firm locate? Place strategies.
• How will the firm promote its product Promotion strategies.

read more on: http://www.learnmarketing.net

Introducing the marketing mix

Steps For Customer Satisfaction

Image source:
www.elmer.co.za/customer-satisfaction

Product mix strategies

Product mix strategies

• Company can add new product lines, thus widening the product mix. • Company can lengthen the existing product lines to become a more full line company. • It can add more product versions of each product and deepen its product mix. • The company can pursue more product line consistency, or less, depending upon whether it wants to have a strong reputation in a single field or in several fields.

The leadership question – Your feedback please!

If you checked out the social media activity of 100 businesspeople, do you think you would find many leaders?

Leaders lead: They have the courage to offer their own unique opinions and views. They act like leaders, from the front.

Followers follow: They copy what others do and share what their leaders have the courage to say and do. They act like followers, hidden within a crowd.

Personally, I see VERY, very few businesspeople in social media with leader profiles. However, I see a LOT of businesspeople, who seem to follow the crowd and just say / do what’s safe

The reason for this post

I’m curious what type of message it sends out to prospective clients or customers, when businesspeople sit back and play follow the leader, rather than displaying leadership themselves.

Would that kind of profile impact YOUR decision to hire a consultant or coach? If so, would that impact be positive or negative? I would REALLY value your opinion, so what do you think?

Smart objectives

image taken from: http://www.learnmarketing.net/

marketing research companies operating in Lahore

hey guys i found out some of the major marketing research companies operating in Lahore. You can know more detail about their profiles by clicking the link given below.

http://www.phonebook.com.pk/Dynamic/Search.aspx?SearchType=cat&Class_ID=1033&City_ID=2&