Digital Marketing

 Reassure Your Customers Consumers are naturally apprehensive after purchasing a product. They fear that they've spent money in vain, spent too much money, or acted impulsively. Your job is to eliminate this buyer’s remorse as quickly and thoroughly as possible. Depending on the type of product or service you're selling, it's most likely that people will have some questions about it. If it's software, they’ll have trouble installing it. If it's an e-book, they'll have questions about certain sections. Whatever product or service you have, people have questions about it. You need to be there for them during this initial questioning in order to build trust and have a chance at future sales. There's nothing more frustrating than a web company that disappears after the sale. If you have software to manage your help desk, make sure it works at all times and that customers get quick responses to the questions. A good idea is to send an automatic message as soon as...

 Lead, Don't Sell People instinctively want to buy from the seller who's best in class. Only in rare situations will consumers gravitate toward a company in second or third place. Granted, every company would like to think of itself as being in first place, but statistically and objectively, that's just not true. There is a reason why brand names dominate around the world, whether soft drinks, movies, music, clothing, etc. People are willing to pay a premium for the brand name, and that's simply because of perceived quality. Quality is a given with market leaders. Your goal as an online seller is not to sell per se but to build your business into the market leader position. You need to dominate your niche and develop your brand name so that it's recognized as a leader. When times get hard, as they are now, people gravitate toward leaders, not willing to risk their money for a product that may be of lesser quality, even if the price is better. So have you established...

 Show Customers the Value A well-known quotation goes like this: "I don't mind buying; I just don't like being sold." That expression rings true for a lot of Internet buyers. They don't mind buying more, even high-ticket items, if they feel they are getting more value than they're giving up. Whether it's $5, $500, or $5000, there's a buyer at each one of those price points if you, the seller, can convince him that he will get at least double his money back from the purchase. It’s not the dollar amount per se; it’s the amount of expected return. It's not about selling cheap, low-ticket items but about remembering that buyers always want more than they're willing to give. You have to show them very clearly the value of what you're offering. It's the classic distinction between features and benefits. Features are things that a product can do, but benefits are what those features can do for the buyer. You need to focus on the benefit to the...

 The Art of Selling Imagine a row of cramped stalls on the dusty road somewhere in the Middle East, several hundred years ago. The stalls sit side-by-side on both sides of a dusty street. Some people in the crowd are simply going from one place to another, and some have come to purchase a particular item. The vendors use all sorts of schemes and strategies to get the attention of the passersby and draw them to their own stall rather than to their neighbor’s. Each vendor must convince one person at a time that he has the best product compared to all those around him and that it would be a grave mistake to buy from anyone else besides him. The buyer has to be convinced that what he is giving up is nothing in exchange for the value that he is getting in return. This is the art of selling. Every business person, whether on a dusty street in the Middle East or in an air-conditioned high-rise in New York City, has to convince the buyer that his product is the best and that the buyer woul...

 Addressing Problems It is important to recognize potential problems in new marketing strategies so that they can be addressed in the future. Assume that a new domestic tourism operator specializing in surf holidays wishes to build an interactive web site that allows the customer to see in real time the weather, wind, surf and other data relating to their destination. As a new and bold initiative the operator wishes to tie in the price of the holiday with the weather situation. Better waves and better weather attract a higher price and vice versa. It is a new and potentially risky project and the owner of the business has asked you, a recent project management graduate, to assist him in planning for this project. For the marketing plan pertaining to this endeavor, it would be product to list the following: A) List the risks associated with this project B) List the top ten steps you would undertake in delivering this project There are many risks associated with building an interacti...

 Sharing and Editing Your Marketing Plan When you are attempting to involve everyone in your company in the editing process, you need to provide everyone with access to your marketing plan. Thanks to modern technology there are a handful of viable options in sharing the marketing plan in any stage, receiving feedback, and group editing of the marketing plan. There are online forums such as Google Documents where you can allow access as “view-only” to certain facets of the company, while others are allowed “edit” functions when viewing the document online. Another popular method for group viewing, sharing, and editing of marketing plans is Dropbox. Dropbox is a software program which lets you sync documents between computers, iPhones, Androids, and online. You can share them with other computers and then edit them on the web later. Dropbox is a great mechanism used to sync files between a main desktop and a laptop. You simply install it onto the computers or iPhones which you are us...

Reason for Having a Marketing Plan Your marketing plan is a small subsidiary of your business plan. The business plan is responsible for spelling out what your business does and does not do as well as the ultimate business goals. It is more than merely marketing as it discusses your locations, financing, staffing, and strategic alliances. It also includes your vision. Overall, think of the business plan as the cornerstone for your business. For new marketing or business measures, you need to alter the business or marketing plan. Your business plan should encourage an environment where your marketing plan can grow, thus both should reflect well on one another. Components There are many components to a marketing plan. The first component is a mission statement. Following this should be an executive summary. After the executive summary should be an internal or external analysis. You should include objectives after this point, followed by marketing strategies. Once you have determined your...

 GETTING STARTED One of the key aspects in becoming successful in business is being able to market your company to ensure that you get the most out of it. By being able to successfully get your company’s name out to the masses, you will find that you will be able to control what your company stands for more easily and be able to easily maintain a positive brand image. When you embark on coming up with a marketing plan there are certain areas and steps that you should follow in order to make the marketing campaign a success and making sure that your message is clearly represented and can be easily absorbed by your target audience. Overview First, take a good look at your business. You have to make sure that you understand your business clearly, what it is that you want your business to accomplish, more than just bring you profits. By ensuring that you completely understand what it is that you want to do you will be able to form a marketing database. The review of your company needs ...