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Mobile marketing can be classified into two types based on the technology involved. The more traditional form involves marketing on the move like moving billboards and road shows. The second type refers to marketing on a mobile phone like cell phone. Since the onset of millennium, mobile marketing though cell phone has become very popular. Short message service popularly known as SMS has made marketing by this method a lot easier.

There were some problems in the beginning as unwanted information was being sent to the people. Most of the SMS that were passed around was spam and it received negative media response in all parts of the world. This was because a sector of the advertisers bought list of mobile users and began sending them unsolicited messages. They were later stopped due to strict security measures and laws passed. Marketing industry recognized the potential of mobile marketing and utilized it to the full extent. The mobile service providers coded guidelines and laws. It then became a legal advertising channel. The Mobile Marketing Association and Interactive Advertising Bureau also have laid down guidelines for the proper functioning of mobile marketing.

Mobile marketing has become popular in Asia and Europe as it is a novel idea and in Europe alone hundreds of millions of pounds have been investing in SMS advertising. Now SMS has become the most famous part of mobile marketing. Because of the popularity of short codes, SMSing has become a lot easier. This has created a new approach to reach out to potential customers. Now mobile short codes are looked upon as mobile domain name, by many of the brands around the world, when the customers message the brand at any occasion.

In America, the first SMS short code campaign was started in 2002. SMS containing short codes are easier to send a message with complete information. Short codes are usually numbers that are assigned to mobile operators of a particular location, which they use for brand campaigning and other purposes. They are very small, like they contain only four to five words. These numbers are always under scrutiny by the service provider and each and every message is monitored to see that they do not go against the original service description.

Like opt-in emails, customers have to opt for SMSes. This is the biggest criterion, which the advertiser has to follow in order to send a promotional SMS. Some of the mobile operators ask for double opt-in form from the receiver. At the same time opting out is made easy for the customer. When the customer wishes to terminate receiving messages, they have to send STOP word by SMS. All these guidelines have been laid by the Mobile Marketing Association consumer best practice guidelines and it’s a compulsion to follow those by all the marketers who wish to do mobile marketing in America.

Now, service providers have started to provide the option of sending SMS to email addresses. Other than this, other services provided are mobile games, mobile tones etc., which are used for promotional purposes. This has lead to the invention of MMS or Multi-media Message Service, through which short promotional videos and animations can be send. Bluetooth is another good technology. It started in 2003, and many companies in Europe have found it useful. When a message is send via Bluetooth, the receiver should accept request from the sender. So, sending messages by this method is legitimate. The message transfer speed is high and is also a free service as it is a radio-based technology.

The method of sending SMS advertisement to mobile phone users based on their geographical location is known as Location based service. The customer is tracked via a GPS chip which is built-in the phone. Radiolocation signals from the nearest cell phone towers are used for this purpose.

Mobile marketing follows a very safe marketing strategy, as it is customer opted. The short message sent through this method is known as mobile originated or MO message. If the advertisement is done through a call, the call is known as mobile terminated or MT message. As there is a phenomenal increase in the number of mobile phone users, this kind of marketing is a sure hit.

Email marketing is one of the forms of direct marketing, which is done via Internet. Emails are sent to potential customers to boost the business, and gain the trust of the customer by disclosing relevant information and help them to make good shopping decisions. It also enhances the relationship with a current customer, by repeating business with them. In simple words the procedure of sending emails to customers is known as email marketing.

The major advantage of email marketing is that it doesn’t consume a lot of time, is minimal resource consuming and is also cost-efficient. Within a short period, a large audience can be targeted. Features such as Subscriptions, bounced messages, web bugs, and click through help enables businesses to track potential customers. Since the customers can be directly reached, feedbacks can be collected with ease. In terms of cost also it is not as expensive as newsletters. Reports have proven that this is the next best marketing technique after search marketing. It is effective in tracking the returns on investments.

Email marketing is a modernized version of mail marketing. The advantage over direct mail marketing is that it takes less time to reach a customer than mailing. Like people check their mailboxes daily, inbox is also checked by majority of the Internet users on a daily basis. Over the period of time, lots of helpful tools and web services have been developed. List host is web service that provides lots of options to the marketers like managing huge emails and email address database. If the budget is more, list managers can be hired who can be given charge of opt-in-email newsletters and managing databases. Software is also available in the market that does this job too.

When the customer fills the form for the first time, there are check boxes to be ticked which reflects their interests. Depending on these choices, an advertiser sends information to them, this is known as opt-in-email advertising, because the customer has opted to receive emails and marketing like this isn’t illegal. The content of the email can be elaborate, but it shouldn’t be too long as people are really busy for that. The call to action, also known as effective words, in the email should be chosen with care. It’s not necessary that the content should revolve around only one item; related product’s information can also be included. This is known as cross selling. By using email blasting or sending an email to multiple customers at a time can save a lots of time and will also increase the efficiency.

The dark side of email marketing is spamming or also known as bulking. Some companies collect email addresses of people illegally and send irrelevant mails to them, which can be very annoying. Some hackers design an email like an advertisement, but when clicked on downloads adware and viruses that can destroy a computer, which makes it even more dangerous. To make matters worse, the Direct Marketing Association of America has petitioned to make spamming legal. Some prohibitions are also placed on providers who help out business organizations to manage their email marketing by giving them already prepared email templates.

Most of the mailing websites have added the facility of separating spam from genuine email by creating separate folders for both and this is known as spam filtering. But in case of large number of spam mails, a useful mail can go into that folder and can go unnoticed and gets deleted with the rest of the spam mails. This kind of mail is known as false positives. But the chances of this happening are rare. There are many laws against spamming like United States’ Can-Spam act, Europe’s privacy and electronic communications regulations. According to these laws, the companies should get their return address authenticated, false physical addresses should not be included and a one click unsubscribe link should be place in the email. The lesser penalty involves companies sending spam to be blacklisted and on a larger scale, they can be heavily fined.

The whole idea of the marketing and sales is to play with the psychology of the consumers. In any campaign, efforts should be made it make it so influential that the decision making of the customer is totally in the favor of the company.

There are some tricks to manipulate the mind of the consumers, which can be utilized by not only ordinary sales person, but can be used by larger firms. Although they are used unknowingly, there is no set list.

Mutual exchanging is the first and powerful trick. The company can start with giving something for free to the customer. He will take it for the first time, but from next time he will feel obliged and will try to return the favor. Offering the product for free initially can do this. And if the customer is satisfied with the product, he will buy it for himself from next time. Some salespersons get confused with this principle. For example, it is ineffective and wrong according to this principle, to quote ‘Spend over $25 and get a free t-shirt’. The offer is not free; the customer has to spend something to get the free product. The product being given should be totally free without any condition to be fulfilled. For example, the line ‘Get the latest lipstick shade absolutely free’ will do the trick. If the shade is really good, they will buy it the next time and might even think of buying other shades of lipstick.

The next trick is to present something as of high value, but the company should incur only small or no amount in producing it, like information. It can tempt the customer by saying that the information provided to them is a big time secret and is not known to anyone at all. But some mess it up, by saying that they are providing very valuable information, but it turns out to be another advertisement.

Another example is giving out free sample to the targeted customers. Again the mistake made here is that companies distribute samples of poor quality or rejected products. This certainly lowers the customers liking towards the product and he will assume that’s the way the product is actually and won’t go ahead to buy it.

Use words, which initiate immediate action, like ‘Limited time offer’, ‘Offer ending soon’, and ‘Offer till stocks lasts’ are really motivating. The customer gets the impression that the offer will end really soon as the products are limited edition and he should go out and buy it at the very first chance. This works well specially with customers who have an interest in collecting antiques, collectibles and anything which are not easily available.

Tricking the customer in making a commitment is another next good method to increase sales. The trick is to make the customer to take small steps toward the goal, without realizing about it. Like when the customer requests for some information, provide them with the relevant information for free and make them fill a form and take contact information from them. This is like committing to get offers and information about products in future. Do not advertise in this step. In the next step advertisements about products and services can be sent to the customer to the address provided by them. Conducting surveys is another example.

Lottery is another good method. When a person buys a lottery ticket, he fills his address on the ticket. This information can be used to contact the customer in future. In the above practices it’s very vital to not to advertise in the first step. Only after getting the customer contact information, should promotional mails be mailed to him. Long advertisements that are featured in the newspaper are a small twist to this trick. If the customer invests time to read the whole advertisement, he has committed and will surely respond to the ad.

Relationship Marketing is targeted at building stronger and long lasting relationships with clients and other companies. The business is done with a strategic orientation, where the relationship is improved with existing customers rather than finding new customers. It is meant to cater to the needs of individual customers. Its major part involves studying the need of the customer and how it changes in different circumstances.

Relationship marketing applies techniques like marketing, sales, customer care and communication. The relationship is not only enhanced but its life period is increased by these strategies. And as the customer realizes the value of relationship, they are drawn closer. This marketing not only focuses on building relationship and attracting customers to their products and services but also how to retain them.

A raw form of Marketing came into existence in the 1960s. But, organizations were still facing difficulty in selling products, so a system was developed to sell low cost goods to larger group of customer. Leonard Berry and Jag Sheth originated this marketing, in 1982. It was started in B2B markets and industries, which involved long term contracts for many years. Over the period of time, various marketing strategies were improved and relationship marketing was one of them.

Relationship marketing is applicable where the customers have many options in the market for the same product or service and the customer is entitled to make a selection decision. In such a kind of market, businesses try to maintain their clients by providing comparatively better products and good service and hence, achieving customer loyalty. And once it is achieved it becomes difficult for competitors to do well in the market. The customer turnover wasn’t paid attention on as the main attention was on customer satisfaction. This kind of marketing was initially named as defensive marketing. Offensive marketing is the marketing strategy where not only new customers are attracted, but also the sales are stepped up by increasing the purchase frequency. This kind of marketing concentrates on freeing dissatisfied customers and acquiring new customers.

According to a research, the cost of retaining an old customer is only ten percent of the cost of getting a new customer, which makes sense to not to run around to get new customers in relationship marketing. And according to another research done by cross-sectional analysis, says that, a five percent improvement in customer retention is responsible for twenty-five to eighty-five percent of the profit. Usually high cost is incurred when getting new customers, so if sufficient number of existing customers is retained, there will be no need of acquiring new customers.

Once the customer trust is gained his chances of switching to other company becomes relatively less, he buys goods in bulk, he buys other supplementary goods and he starts neglecting average price variation. This maintains the unit sales volume and there is an increase in dollar-sales volume. The existing customers will be like a living advertisement. If he is satisfied with the company he will recommend it to his friends and acquaintances.

Since the existing customers are familiar with the process, it will take less time and money to educate them about the procedures putting fewer burdens on employees also and making them feel more satisfied with their jobs. The customers are divided into groups based on their loyalty. This procedure is known as relationship ladder of customer loyalty. The groups in ascending order are prospects, customer, client, supporter, advocate and partner.

Due to the advancement in computers and Internet, software has been developed to facilitate customer relationship management. With the help of this software the tastes, activities, preferences, and complaints of customers are tracked. Almost all the companies have this software in their marketing strategy, which benefits the customer as well as the company.

Thus the main aim of relationship marketing is to construct and maintain relationship with committed clients who are meant to bring profit to the company. The other benefits achieved are confidence building and social benefits.

The first attribute of a successful selling strategy is a website that provides information about the products and the service they are providing. The advantage of that is we can sell those products and services online. Selling is a talent to be cultivated. It requires a lot of understanding to find what the customer is looking for and then fulfilling his needs.

It is very important to get the complete attention of reader. The content of the message should be make reader think. This can be achieved by using power words, along with color and visuals. Once the attention is grabbed, it should be retained till the end of the message. The customer should be prompted to take some action and their involvement should be sought. They can be made to sign up for newsletters or can be made to take the survey by visiting the company’s website.

The consumer should be convinced to buy the product. All the features of the company should be specified, with the more relevant ones on the top. They should be explained logically through these points how the products will fulfill their needs or solve their problems. It does only by convincing the customer about this will motivate them to buy the product. They should be made to understand what wonders the product can do to him. Strong emotional words should be included in the sentence. The customer should either fear the loss of the product if he doesn’t buy it in time or he should be given the greed of the advantages the product can provide. These reasons will create an emotional impulse and will make them think that they have no other option to buy it. They will have a logical reason to make the purchase. The emotions of the buyer should be manipulated with words.

Something like ‘limited edition’ or ‘limited period offer’ will create a sense of urgency. The customer thinks that he should get this product somehow. It’s nice to have sales often, especially to clear out old inventory in the name of some offer. The products which have an obvious damage should be sold out at a special price. But the damage should be mentioned to the customer. If it’s not mentioned, the first time the customer will be tricked into buying something, but he will loose trust and won’t come back again.

Always hold seasonal sales and offers. Since all the competitors will be giving out different offers to attract customers, it’s a good point to have one, too. But it should be remembered to not to imitate anyone. Only a unique offer will make the customers not go to the competitors’. Once in a while offer free shipping offer also works. A condition like if a customer spends particular amount of money, all items will be shipped for free. This is another attractive deal which will surely tempt the customer. Thanks to search engines and online stores anything can be purchased from the comfort of the home. Give away free sample to the customers or keep a pre-sale price for introductory products. The customers won’t think twice to spend a little money to try something new.

The ending of the sales message is where most people mess it up. The whole efforts will be wasted if the customer gets a second thought. He should be convinced, by nice words, to buy the product till the very end. The content should be arranged with care. The key is to tell the customer what to do exactly after he finishes reading the matter, like ‘Grab the golden opportunity now’ or ‘pick up the phone and dial the number right now’, etc. Do not include links or short advertisement of other products or services. This will shift the focus of the reader and he might have a second thought. A list of the existing customers should be maintained and from time to time special offers should be mailed to them. So basically the whole idea is to influence the mind of the customer until he buys a product.

Research on marketing is essential to understand the pattern of marketing. This is possible by searching existing knowledge related to business marketing. It is a form of business research, business-to-business marketing research and business marketing research. Marketing research is done in many forms and all these forms are known as problem-identification research.

Research in advertising is done to determine the copy testing of advertisements. It is also used to know the efficiency of ads placed in any medium, the customer attention it gets, the message it delivers and how it motivates the customers to buy the product. Commercial eye tracking is done to understand the visual behavior of the customer. Ads, websites, etc., are analyzed for this. Before an advertisement is released in the market, its performance can be forecasted with the help of copy testing which takes consumer’s level of attention, motivation, brand liking, and entertainment into consideration.

When a customer buys something online he analyses it in order to make the decision, this one of the criteria on which consumer decision research is done. Interviews and surveys can be done to understand consumer’s level of satisfaction, which is known as customer satisfaction studies. The demographic and psychology of the people of a particular geographical region can be studied with the help of segmentation research.

When analyzing is to be done about brand recognition, brand performance, brand preference and awareness, ad tracking is done. A favorite brand can be recognized with the help of brand equity research. Tests are conducted so as to determine what customer thinks about a brand or a product and it is specifically known as brand name testing. The demand of a product can be understood by demand estimation. After the demand of the product is taken care of, the quality should be checked from time to time. Appointing mystery shoppers who is usually an employee of the market research firm does this. He buys goods through a salesperson and notes down the whole experience. This procedure can be used to do research about rival companies’ products.

Before practical application of a concept, concept testing should be done which tells whether the targeted audience will like the idea or not. Test marketing is done by introducing a product in small numbers in the market and observing the sales, after which the product is launched on a large-scale. After the initial phase, when the company thinks of increasing the price of the product, price elasticity testing should be carried out which shows customer reaction to price fluctuations. Distribution channel audits are conducted to understand the attitudes of retailers and distributors towards specific products and brands.

The more tech savvy form of marketing research is Internet strategic intelligence. The likes and dislikes of the customers can be directly known with the help of chats, blogs and forums. Online panels are a group of experts who accept the marketing research done online.

All the researches that are carried out can be classified as primary research, which gathers original research, and secondary research, which is based on a primary research and information published by other resources. Secondary research costs less as research is done on already researched data, but the result isn’t efficient.

The research designs used by marketing research are either based on questioning or are based on observations. Quantitative marketing research and qualitative marketing research are based on questioning. Quantitative marketing research is done to derive conclusions like questionnaires forms and survey. The number of respondents involved is high. Qualitative marketing research is done to understand something like in-depth interviews and projective techniques.

Marketing research based on observations is called experimental technique and ethnographic studies. Test markets and purchase laboratories are examples of experimental techniques. The quantity measured is determined by understanding the factors that are responsible for the success of a product and then one or some of the factors are changed and the result is observed. In ethnographic studies observations are done longitudinally or done at several instances of time or cross-sectional, or done at only a particular time.

Research on marketing is similar to exit polling in politics. The market is studied from different angles, at different time, and under different circumstances.

Marketing on the Internet involves online advertising to reach out to potential customers. It requires creativity like designing, development and technical aspects like marketing and advertising. Affiliate marketing, email marketing, search engine marketing and interactive advertising are all different facets of Internet marketing. It also includes sales, public relations, information management and customer service. Ever since the advent of Internet, it is widely used for all kind of purposes. Among the advantages of Internet, some helps in doing business, shopping, etc, from the comfort of the house. According to a research, a quarter of the Internet users shop online. It has also helped grow electronic commerce and Internet marketing is a part of electronic commerce.

Direct marketing techniques like radio and television commercials, mails, and newsletters are the inspirations for Internet marketing, which involves direct response marketing strategies and is rapidly growing. Business-to-business, also known as B2B, and business-to-consumer, also known as B2C, are the two business models to which Internet marketing can be linked. B2C companies were the first to start when Internet marketing originated. They are companies that sell directly to the customers. B2B companies are meant to do business with each other.

Websites built for Internet marketing are slightly different than others. There are peer-to-peer modeled websites which are used to exchange products and services between each other. Other is name-your-price, where the customers have to specify their price range that they can spend and select products that fall in that price range. Priceline.com is an example of such a website. Amazon.com is a website which is based on find-the-best-price model, where customers can find the lowest prices. Last are online auctions sites, where items are bid. Ebay.com is an example.

The companies who use Internet marketing are at an advantage. They don’t need to put in huge amounts of energy and time in Internet Marketing like other traditional methods. With the help of only few resources national and international markets can be reached. Because of very low investment, even small businesses are turning to online marketing. Websites and blogs have been developed for this purpose. Internet marketing is advantageous in the sense that the data is easily available on the Internet. Newsletters can be directly sent to customers and if it doesn’t contain the information they are looking for, they can search for information about the product online, make a decision and purchase it online itself.

One of the factors that hinder the growth of online marketing is delayed loading of the page. The web pages that take a lot of time to download test the patience of the consumer. To add to that, if the businesses design complex web pages with lots of graphics and animations, it will slow down the speed even more. Another minus point of online marketing is that the customers cannot feel, taste, smell or try products in order to make a good decision. To over come this, some of the online stores have created liberal return policies with the help of which the customer satisfaction is guaranteed.

Another biggest threat of online shopping is identity theft. Paying online using credit cards, e-checks are susceptible to hackers and information can be stolen and used. Many hackers and websites have been caught who were involved in buying and selling of personal information. Most of the websites have taken measures and incorporated good security on their websites. One of the best methods is encryption. When the data is being transferred between two computers; there is a possibility of a hacker intercepting it. So the data is changed by applying some encryption algorithm and is sent through the network and upon receiving, the decryption algorithm is applied to bring back the data to its original form.

Online selling is influencing all kinds of businesses like banking, advertising, music, etc. Instead of going to a store for buying cassettes and CDs, music can be bought online. Bank transactions like depositing, withdrawing, transferring funds, and paying bills are all performed online. Billions of dollars are invested every year in online advertising alone.

Writing a sales letter is tough and writing a winning sales letter is even tougher. Many sales managers break their heads thinking why they can’t get it right. Well, to answer this question they should put them in people’s shoes and ask what “benefit “would I get by reading this sales letter? Remember that word “benefit” which is the crux of this discussion. Many sales people take bits and pieces of information from here and there and create mess out of a sales letter. They literally throw everything on people and then get what they deserve, instant rejection.

One should always remember that a sales letter works only when you have a product to sell and an offer to make. A sales letter should not be an introduction of your product or company. Remember every word is important in the sales letter and do not waste a single one which would distract your potential customer’s attention. They are not interested in the features of you product but an offer or a benefit to them. Think from the customer’s point of view and ask yourselves why should I read the letter? Is there any benefit or offer to me which cannot be refused? Can you convince me that it is really a good offer?

After keeping in mind these things, sales managers should apply thought in presenting their letter. The header or the headline is very crucial to any sales letter. It should target directly to the customers of your product. One also needs to be little tactful in use of words. But if you are not good at the trade do not attempt to do it and rather be simple in writing it. The headline should not be more a line, so try to be as specific as possible but with maximum affect. Nobody has time to read each and every letter in this fast paced era of instant satisfaction. If you are not able to convey your message to the audience in stipulated time, then you have lost those customers. The headline should start with a benefit being offered to the customer. This ensures that the customer goes to the body of the letter at least.

Now, having made a good effort with the heading, it’s the time to work on the body of the letter. How to maintain the level of enthusiasm that you created in the customer’s mind with the heading? Once again it is important to remember to not to focus on features of the product you are trying to sell but on the benefits and offers you are making to them. Things like how much money it is going to save them and how it would affect their lives should be mentioned in the body of the letter. Make them realize a need for it and compare it competitor’s product. Remember, a person reading your sales letter will constantly get questions in mind as to how this will benefit me, after each and every sentence. So be ready to clear those doubts and answer the questions. Being little informal in the approach wouldn’t do a harm and try to grab the attention by relating things to real life things. You can add a little bit of humor but unless you are sure that it won’t be in the bad taste of the reader. Bring in few previous clients to give testimony of your products. But keep the testimonials believable and something that people can relate to.

Once you’ve made clear about the product, do not forget to prompt your audience to take action. If it is an email, prompt your reader to click on a link to act now or provide a contact number if it is a direct mail. Also remind them again that if you don’t act now you will forfeit the offer as the offer is for limited time only.

Once you are done with the letter, one of the important parts of the sales letter is P.S. Many people simply read the beginning and end of the letter. So, try to convey something that will prompt them to go back to the letter and read it. It will be a perfect end to the sales letter.