Internet and Traditional Marketing
Although Internet and Traditional Marketing have some similarities, they are almost entirely different regarding approach. What is similar in these two types of marketing is that one has to know the audience to perform in the market successfully, and the initial purpose of both approaches is to promote a product or service. There are, however, a significant number of differences. The most important distinction lies in the way that both Internet and Traditional Marketing are presenting a product to their focus audience. While Traditional Marketing relies on presenting the product or service to as many people as possible directly, Internet Marketing aims at creating a dedicated community. This approach of the Internet Marketing allows better engaging the audience, therefore promoting the product.
To incorporate Internet Marketing into promoting one’s product, certain questions have to be answered: “Why?”, “How?”, and “What?” Why is the product important to the customers? How will you tell your client about the product? What exactly are your company’s goals? Each of these questions forms The Golden Circle of Internet Marketing. It is important to always re-visit it to make the adjustments that will push the product’s promotion further.
While exercising Internet Marketing, one is expected to form a new mindset of a storyteller. The process of storytelling is, of course, metaphorical. However, it is a useful term to represent what needs to be done to create engagement successfully. “Stories” serve as a mean of solving audience’s problems which is why they are created and shared.
The Integrated Marketing Plan functions as a blueprint for the future promotion of a product or service. It contains the most important parts that a website promoting a product must provide, while also presenting a plan of communication with the focus audience. Five pages that every website must have are home page, about page, products and services, contact us page and blog page.
The audience, in turn, is concentrated in the most popular social networking services such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. This is where the audience should be selected. While targeting such media services, one has to remember that the message should be appealing not only visually but also content-wise. For example, it is not enough to just state that the organization is selling their products or services. The message should have its voice. Therefore, a need arises to use the means that every individual network presents. Hashtags for Twitter, carefully edited videos for YouTube, and professionally shot photos for Instagram. Traditional Marketing can also benefit from using social networks. However, it is often more planned through, and thus more expensive.
Pricing Strategies
Several pricing strategies correspond to different needs of the organization that sells products or services. There are Price Penetration, Price Skimming, Loss Leader Pricing, Psychological Pricing, Going-Rate Pricing, Price Discrimination, and Destroyer/Predatory Pricing.
In Price Penetration, the price is intended to “penetrate the market.” Lowered prices are deployed to allow producing in high volumes. This pricing strategy is most typical in mass market products such as household goods, foodstuffs, etc.
Price Skimming strategy is characterized by having high prices for low volumes of production. Its intention is to skim the profit from the market. It is most suitable for products that will become obsolete in a certain amount of time. The obsolescence may be a result of the product having a short life cycle or facing competition or a patent running out. Most notable examples are the Apple products like iPhone. The products that are priced under this strategy will enter the market at high price to allow for better profits in a shorter time.
Goods and services that are priced according to Loss Leader strategy are deliberately sold below cost to create better sales in other spots. The primary goal is to attract a customer to stores by lowering the most demanded products’ prices.
Psychological Pricing predicts the customer’s expectations and places the price accordingly.
Going-Rate Pricing allows following the current leader’s approaches. Therefore, by adjusting the prices to be similar to the ones of leader, rivaling organizations may stay equally relevant in the market.
Price Discrimination strategy is used to raise profits by charging a different price for the same product or service in different markets. For example, rail travel expenses for the same route may vary depending on what time of day it is. Such strategy requires market to be impenetrable, while providing elastic demands in each market.
Finally, Destroyer or Predatory Pricing is aimed at forcing rivaling organizations to leave the market by offering the customers free products. The purpose is also to prevent new companies from being created. If it can be proved, such strategy is regarded as anti-competitive and illegal. A notable example is the former policy of Microsoft.
Survey Research Fundamentals
Survey research begins with evaluating the current situation. The necessary steps to be completed: start course project and develop brand name, perform psychographic segmentation, develop a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis. After all of the steps are completed, Market Research must be initiated. There are six steps to follow. The first step is to identify and define the problem. Further comes development of the approach to solving the problem. After that, the research is designed. When the design is completed, one must collect the data and analyze it which concludes steps four and five. Finally, the research is presented with a report.
Another important topic is designing questionnaire. Certain guidelines are to be followed in the process of its creation. There must be no misinterpretation, questions and wording must encourage respondents to most accurately complete the questionnaire. The big questions go first; the questionnaire itself must be brief with closed-ended questions. Confidentiality protection must be in place, the value of providing information made clear. Finally, explanation of why is it important to complete the questionnaire is a must.