I wanted to start this blog by welcoming you all dear readers, which ofcourse sounds too formal, but none-the-less I mean it sincerely.
To give a perspective, this blog is an attempt to highlight the fundamentals of marketing in real practice. The focus would definitely be on the service sector as that happens to be my specialty.
So the important question is what is marketing? A very simplistic answer to that is that marketing is a combination of all activities which drives a consumer to consider about buying a particular product or a service and also keep him / her engaged with the brand post purchase.
It is often said that marketing has changed with the times but no, essentially concept is still the same. How do we engage with the consumer and keep getting his attention span is still the key to winning the game . What has actually changed today is the way consumer interacts with the brands and makes the purchase decision. With the advent of internet, big data, social media and what not, marketing activity needs to be "on forever". While in earlier days, through the regular promotional channel marketing used to end by getting the brand in consideration set of buyer.
360 degree capture of customer's attention and total engagement is the required marketing in practice today. Digitization is the channel to be used for most of the campaigns. Marketing mix of 4 P's or 7 P's has to be re-defined to adjust to the needs of modern consumer. The adjoining venn gives a perspective:
Customer today has all information at his finger-tips. The first search result itself must provide the real value proposition to customer otherwise the brand drops off from the consideration set right at this stage.
With a crowded market-space, the pricing has to be competitive and honest. If there are hidden charges like some fees for special service ot feature, it must be mentioned upfront. In case we are marketing a premium product then of course the strategy varies. But more on that later.
Even though we are not actually selling the product online, atleast partial fulfilment of the product or service must be provided for. For example, there can be "express your interest" page and a follow-up call happens to the interested customer.
Now is the age for really integrated campaigns in promotion strategy - all most relevant touchpoints for different stages of campaign must be used in the campaign.
To give a perspective, this blog is an attempt to highlight the fundamentals of marketing in real practice. The focus would definitely be on the service sector as that happens to be my specialty.
So the important question is what is marketing? A very simplistic answer to that is that marketing is a combination of all activities which drives a consumer to consider about buying a particular product or a service and also keep him / her engaged with the brand post purchase.
It is often said that marketing has changed with the times but no, essentially concept is still the same. How do we engage with the consumer and keep getting his attention span is still the key to winning the game . What has actually changed today is the way consumer interacts with the brands and makes the purchase decision. With the advent of internet, big data, social media and what not, marketing activity needs to be "on forever". While in earlier days, through the regular promotional channel marketing used to end by getting the brand in consideration set of buyer.
360 degree capture of customer's attention and total engagement is the required marketing in practice today. Digitization is the channel to be used for most of the campaigns. Marketing mix of 4 P's or 7 P's has to be re-defined to adjust to the needs of modern consumer. The adjoining venn gives a perspective:
Customer today has all information at his finger-tips. The first search result itself must provide the real value proposition to customer otherwise the brand drops off from the consideration set right at this stage. With a crowded market-space, the pricing has to be competitive and honest. If there are hidden charges like some fees for special service ot feature, it must be mentioned upfront. In case we are marketing a premium product then of course the strategy varies. But more on that later.
Even though we are not actually selling the product online, atleast partial fulfilment of the product or service must be provided for. For example, there can be "express your interest" page and a follow-up call happens to the interested customer.
Now is the age for really integrated campaigns in promotion strategy - all most relevant touchpoints for different stages of campaign must be used in the campaign.
