Direct Response Marketing

Posted by admin | Marketing | Friday 23 July 2010 10:46 am

As the name suggests ?direct response marketing? is a form of marketing where the customer directly contacts the marketer or the seller. In here there aren?t any middle barriers. The customer directly calls or contacts the organization.

Unlike in direct marketing, where the marketer goes to the customer to get their attention, in direct response marketing the customer will see some advertisement or contact method for them to reach the seller and contact to obtain the product or the service. It directly grabs the attention of the customer and attracts them to contact the seller.
How can someone perform direct response marketing? It is fairly complex compared to other forms of marketing. In here the organization will have to be more creative. What exactly happens here is that the marketer needs to grab the attention on some aspect of a product or a service and attract them to search for the brand names of that product and call them or contact by email. Lots of organizations market their products through education provided for the customers. Customers will get educated from these free online videos or articles and thereby get the attention. The marketer can also provide a way of contacting them such as the website or a contact number, thereby creating a possible link between the customer and the marketer.

Thereafter the customer will call the seller directly and gets the service or the product hence making successful direct response marketing. There are definite advantages in using direct response marketing. This method of marketing is more ethical compared to direct marketing. People aren?t forced to look at the advertisement but only the interested ones will take a look. This way you will not be making anyone angry and creates a good impression on the minds of the customers. Once the customer goes through a free learning provider they would want to continue with that and get the paid ones as well in a service.

For a product they would want to buy the product once they see the needs of such product. For instance an organization will provide free lessons on the back ache problems and how to overcome them. They may mention in the same lecture series about an exercise machine the customers can use to overcome such back ache. Therefore the customer will visit the given website or call the organization and buy the machine. This would therefore be successful direct response marketing.

Disadvantage would be the cost and resources involved in processing. For instance, making the free educational program would include a lot of cost. It will also require some expert knowledge.

With all the advantages and drawbacks these direct response marketing will stand out as a win-win scenario for both the customer and the seller.

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Business Find Expertise in Outsourced Marketing

Posted by admin | Marketing | Thursday 15 July 2010 7:34 am

Not everyone is knowledgeable about marketing but outsourced marketing companies can help those who need to get results fast. These companies specialize in marketing techniques like branding, search engine optimization, and lead generation. Not everyone can understand the strategies that professional marketers implement but they can utilize their services.

Specialized Skills Are Effective

It takes years to understand the techniques that are used in online marketing and not all business owners have the time to invest in that learning. Instead of spending their time learning something that others are experts in they can turn to outsourced marketing companies to get results while they put their efforts into doing what they do best.

People outsource their marketing for many reasons but the main reason is that the companies they outsource to have expertise in the area of marketing. Marketing companies have specialized skills in branding a company, search engine marketing, and many other areas. They can help a company develop a marketing strategy or implement a plan. They may also assist companies in finding new and innovative ways to generate leads. Marketing companies tend to focus on one just a few focuses, which allows them to specialize. As they put their attentions on a few of the marketing strategies that businesses tend to implement, they become experts in their field, and in doing so help businesses to become more effective in their marketing.

Evaluate the Costs

Do you need to outsource your marketing for you company? Ask yourself a few questions to determine this. What are you doing now? What kind of results are you getting? How much time are you spending on it? Do you wish you could do more? If you are not getting the results you want or if you could be investing your time into another area of your business more efficiently then you may want to consider outsourcing.

Outsourced marketing does cost money but think of it as an investment because the money you spend on your marketing will free you to do things that you can be more efficient at and you can grow your business as well! You will be able to spend more time managing your company and producing the product or service that you offer whilst marketing happens in the background. If you want efficiency in your marketing strategies then outsourcing your marketing needs could provide great ROI for you.

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8 Mistakes to Avoid When Naming a New Business

Posted by admin | Marketing | Thursday 15 July 2010 7:06 am

Naming a business is like laying the cornerstone of a building. Once it’s in place, the entire foundation and structure is aligned to that original stone. If it’s off, the rest of the building is off, and the misalignment becomes amplified. So if you have that gnawing sense that choosing a name for your new business is vitally important – you’re right. With 18 years in the naming and branding business, I’ve witnessed the good, the bad, and the really bad. Here’s how you can avoid the worst of the mistakes and get off to a good start.

Mistake 1: The Committee (Getting all your clients, employees and family members involved)

We live in a democratic society and it seems like the right thing to do – involving everyone in an important decision. This approach, however, presents a few problems. The first and most obvious fact is that you will end up choosing only one name – so you risk alienating the very people you are trying to involve. Second, you often end up with a consensus decision, resulting in a very safe and very vanilla name. A better method is to involve only the key decision makers, the fewer the better, and select only the people you feel have the company’s best interests at heart. The need for personal recognition can skew results – so you are best served by those who can park their egos at the door. Also, make sure you have some right brain types in the mix. Too many left brains and the name often ends up too literal and descriptive.

Mistake 2: The Train Wreck (Taking two words and colliding them head on)

When forced to come up with a creative name, many aspiring entrepreneurs will simply take part of an adjective and weld it onto a noun. The results are names that have a certain twisted rationale to them, but look and sound awful. Someone starting a high-end service franchise then becomes QualiServe. It’s a bit like mixing chocolate syrup with ketchup – nothing wrong with either, but they just don’t go together. Other common truncations include Ameri, Tech, Corp, Tron, etc. The problem with this approach is that it’s simply forced � and it sounds that way.

Mistake 3: Where’s Waldo? (Names so plain they’ll never stand out in a crowd)

The first company in a category can get away with this one. Hence, you have General Motors, General Electric, etc. But once you have competition, it requires differentiation. Imagine if Yahoo! had come out as GeneralInternetDirectory.com? It would be much more descriptive, but hardly memorable. And with the onslaught of new media and advertising channels, it’s more important than ever to carve out your niche by displaying your uniqueness. Nothing does that better than a well-conceived name.

Mistake 4: The Atlas Approach (Using a map to name your company)

In the zeal to start a new company, many businesses choose to use their city, state or region as part of their name. While this may actually help in the beginning, it often becomes a hindrance as a company grows. One client came to me with complaints he was serving more of the market than his name implied. He had aptly called it St. Pete Plumbing since he hailed from St. Petersburg, Florida. But yellow page shoppers assumed that was also his entire service area. With a little creative tinkering we changed the image of St. Pete from a city to the image of St. Pete himself, complete with wings and a plumber’s wrench. The new tag line? “We work miracles!”
Other companies have struggled with the same issue. Minnesota Manufacturing and Mining was growing beyond their industry and their state. To avoid limiting their growth they became 3M, a company now known for innovation. Kentucky Fried Chicken is now KFC, de-emphasizing the regional nature of the original name. Both of these companies made strategic moves to avoid stifling their growth. Learn from them and you can avoid this potential bottleneck.

Mistake 5: Cliche’ You Say? (A good name is worth a thousand words)

Once past the literal, descriptive stage, the thought process usually turns to metaphors. These can be great if they are not overly used to the point of trite. Since many companies think of themselves as the top in their industry, the world is full of names like Summit, Apex, Pinnacle, Peak, etc. While there is nothing inherently wrong with these names, they are just overworked. Look for combinations of positive words and metaphors and you will be much better served. A good example is the Fortune 1000 data storage company Iron Mountain, which conveys strength and security without sounding commonplace.

Mistake 6: Hide the Meaning (Make it so obscure, the customer will never know!)

It’s great for a name to have a special meaning or significance. It sets up a story that can be used to tell the company message. But if the reference is too obscure and too hard to spell and pronounce, you may never have the opportunity to speak to that customer. They will simply pass you by as irrelevant. So resist the urge to name your company after the mythical Greek god of fast service or the Latin phrase for “We’re number one!” If a name has a natural, intuitive sound and a special meaning, it can work. If it’s too complex and puzzling, it will remain a mystery to your customers. This is especially true if you are reaching out to a mass audience.

I pushed the envelope a little on this one myself, naming my branding firm Tungsten, after the metal that Thomas Edison used to create brilliant light. However, my clientele consists of knowledgeable professionals who appreciate a good metaphor and expect a branding firm to have a story behind its name. It’s also a way to differentiate my services (illuminated, bright, brilliant). So while it works for a branding firm, it would not do well as an ice cream parlor.

Mistake 7: The Campbell’s Approach (Using alphabet soup to name your firm)

This is a trend that is thankfully wearing off. Driven by the need for a matching domain name, many companies have resorted to awkwardly constructed or purposefully misspelled names. The results are company names that sound more like prescription drugs than real life businesses. Mistake 2 sometimes gets combined with this one and results in a name like KwaliTronix (or worse – mistakes 2, 4 … 7, resulting in KwalTronixUSA). It’s amazing how good some names begin to sound after searching for available domain names all night. But resist the urge. Avoid using a “K” in place of a “Q” or a “Ph” in place of an “F.” This makes spelling the name and locating you on the Internet all that much harder.

It’s not that coined or invented names cannot work; they often do. Take for example, Xerox or Kodak. But keep it mind, names like these have no intrinsic or linguistic meaning, so they rely heavily on advertising � and that gets expensive. Many of the companies that use this approach were either first in category or had large marketing budgets. Verizon spent millions on their rebranding effort. So did Accenture. So check your pocketbook before you check into these types of names.

Mistake 8: Sit On It. (When in doubt, make no change at all)

Many business owners know they have a problem with their name and just hope it will somehow magically resolve itself. The original name for one of my clients was “Portables,” which reminded some people of the outdoor restrooms or the portable classrooms – neither one a good association. This added to the confusion when phone operators tried to explain their new concept of moving and storage. After some careful tweaking, we came up with the name PODS, an acronym for Portable On Demand Storage. The rest is quickly becoming history as they expand both nationally and internationally.

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