Basic example of building customer relationship

Marketing core lies in the point to make a good customer relationship the simplest example for this is how a vegetable seller makes good customer relationship?

The vegetable seller make good customer relationship by his good behave and the extra little spices and thania he gives to us on what every we by from him .he might not know he is doing marketing but this one of the basic example

Value Marketing

lets look at three different bakeries Shezan, gourmet and xy. The Shezan sells high quality at high price and xy sells low quality at low price but gourmet sells at right combination of quality at reasonable price. Value marketing means rather than offering high quality for high price or lesser quality at low price marketers try to offer fair combination of quality and service at reasonable price. The importance of value marketing has increased with the storm of economic downfall in the world. Gourmet profit is ever increasing so they are able to diversify their products

Mcdonald & Marketing

The Mcdonald menu is nothing for a simple person but for marketers it has applied major marketing technique it has segmented its consumer on the bases of single eater , kids and user rate. To target kids it has especial happy meal deal with a toy that attract kids and indirectly force parents to buy for their children further then the toy attraction it has especial playing area where children play always like to come. For user rate attraction advertisement with burgers filled with cheese etc. and raising the slogan" i'm loving it". Single eater handsome deal with more quantity and reasonable price.

As Mcdonald has branches in different countries so it also has to do geographical segmentation in which it has take account culture of that region and so has to modify its products. For example

• In India there are no Big Macs because the Hindu people don’t eat beef. However, they have the Maharaja Mac, which is a Big Mac made instead with either lamb or chicken meat. There is also a vegetarian burger called the McAloo Tikki.
• In Germany McDonalds serves beer!
• In Japan they serve Ebi Filet-O (shrimp burgers), Koroke Burger (mashed potato, cabbage and katsu sauce, all in a sandwich), Ebi-Chiki (shrimp nuggets) and Green Tea-flavored milkshake
• In parts of Canada you can have a lobster dinner with the McLobster roll.
• in Greece you can enjoy Greek Mac, a burger made of patties wrapped in pita.
• In Hong Kong you can order Rice Burgers, where the burgers are in between two patties of glutinous rice.
• Israel is one of the only countries that cooks the meat over charcoal versus frying. They also have the McKebab, which are two patties in seasoning stuffed into a pita bread.

Marketin is applied every where and it has let Mcdonald serve it customer individually and creat its value for customer.
the example of product changes is taken from http://blog.studentuniverse.com/2008/06/17/mcdonalds-menu-around-the-world/

viral marketing

Definition

Marketing phenomenon that facilitates and encourages people to pass along a marketing message.

Information

Viral marketing depends on a high pass-along rate from person to person. If a large percentage of recipients forward something to a large number of friends, the overall growth snowballs very quickly. If the pass-along numbers get too low, the overall growth quickly fizzles.

At the height of B2C it seemed as if every startup had a viral component to its strategy, or at least claimed to have one. However, relatively few marketing viruses achieve success on a scale similar to Hotmail, widely cited as the first example of viral marketing.

material taken from

http://www.marketingterms.com/dictionary/viral_marketing/

strategic thinking

Strategic Thinking

The smartest and most effective activists think, plan, and act strategically. Inexperienced activists make the mistake of focusing only on stopping things. Their only action is reaction. Duff Conacher of the Democracy Watch says, “All they do is maintain the status quo and they actually lose in the long run, because the rules never change and there are all sorts of things they’re not stopping.” (Quoted in Tim Falconer’s Watchdog’s and Gadflies, Activism from marginal to mainstream.)

Strategic action is necessary in situations where an opponent blocks the way to an objective. In such cases, smart activists use strategic thinking to identify where an opponent is vulnerable, and then try to figure out how to exploit that vulnerability. They also use strategic thinking to solve problems before they happen, coolly examining the pros and cons of various moves in order to identify the best course of action.

Creating a Strategy

Creating a strategy for a public interest campaign involves:

~ defining goals and intermediate and short-term objectives,
~ identifying opponents,
~ carrying out a SWOT analysis,
~ imagining and playing scenarios,
~ identifying primary and secondary targets,
~ identifying allies,
~ deciding what resources are required (salaries, expenses, other),
~ devising tactics, and
~ drawing up an action timetable.

Because this is a problem-solving process it is a loopy. In other words, you might define an objective up-front, but realize later that resources are inadequate to achieve this goal or that there is no clear target. This will mean looping back to redefine the objective.

Defining goals and objectives
Your goals are the broad results you wish to achieve over the long term. Objectives are what you want to accomplish more immediately. Your objectives should follow naturally from your goals. They help you reach your goal. If the goal is winning the war, an objective might be winning a particular battle. If you lose sight of your goals and objectives, everything goes haywire. Consider a project to address the problems of global capitalism; it leads to a street protest, which brings about a police attack on protesters. A protracted inquiry into police brutality then sidetracks the whole project, obscuring the message of the protest and trumping its main objective.

Identifying opponents and obstacles
What stands in the way of reaching your objective? Who can make the necessary changes? Who specifically do you need to influence? In many cases you will be trying, in some way, to bring about changes to government policy or legislation. You will want to avoid making incorrect assumptions about how government works, who is responsible, or what is the most effective route for bringing about change.

Carrying out a SWOT analysis
It’s easier to make choices after identifying strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. A SWOT analysis can be applied to a position, an idea, an individual, or an organization. Do a SWOT analysis for your group as well as for your target.

Imagining and playing scenarios
Strategic thinking is often described as reflective dialogue about the future so that one can avoid pitfalls as well as take advantage of opportunities. One way to do this is by imagining how events will play out, then devising effective responses. Future scenarios may be framed as “what if” questions. Let’s say you are planning to hike up a mountain. The sun is shining, so you may prepare gear and clothing based on a default scenario that assumes an easy hike in fine weather. But your preparations will change if you consider “what if” questions. “What if fog makes it difficult to see?” “What if it snows?” “What if someone sprains their ankle?” Good scenarios require informed imagination. If it’s not informed, you can waste energy on the improbable. If it’s not fueled by imagination, you can be blindsided.

Identifying primary and secondary targets
If your group cannot itself deliver a public good, you must be able to identify a decision maker or primary target who can. Campaigns directed at getting a target to do something usually require negotiation, campaigning, and confrontation. These tactics work best on people who are elected. Hired bureaucrats and appointed officials are more resistant.
You should also identify one or more secondary targets. These are people who will cooperate with you, who have some power over the primary target, Secondary targets might be regulatory officials, important customers, or politicians from a more senior level of government.

Identifying allies
If you can’t influence a decision maker on your own, are there others who can help? When groups with similar interests create strategic alliances, they are much more likely to achieve their goals. The tendency for groups to compete for funds and influence merely serves the opposition.
Allies may also be sympathetic insiders. Citizens need intelligence to make the right moves. The best intelligence comes from inside organizations that can influence the success of your project. Let’s suppose your goal is to change government policy. Reading government reports will provide some useful information. But talking to bureaucrats will provide additional, up-to-date information and a quick rundown on attitudes inside government. A sympathetic senior bureaucrat who understands your project can provide the most help. Finding such a person will help you make all the right moves.

Devising tactics
Tactics are the action part of a strategy. Generating good tactical alternatives requires creative thinking. Choosing which ones to use requires a knowledge of what works in a particular context. It also requires some consideration of what will be good, interesting, or exciting for the group.
Does the key decision maker agree with your objectives and your solutions? If so, cooperative tactics make sense. Does the decision maker agree with your objectives but not your solutions? If so, consider tactics focused on persuasion and negotiation. Does the decision maker completely disagree with both your objectives and your solutions? Then confrontation may be the only option.
Tactics differ in what they try to accomplish. They can aim to —

• win an objective by giving the other side something it wants (credit, votes, support),
• win an objective by depriving or threatening to deprive the other side of something it wants (credibility, respect, money, labor, employment),
• build public support in the media, or build the support of allies or secondary targets
• show a target the size and concern of your constituency, or
• build the morale of your group.

Most campaigns include many different kinds of tactics. To evaluate potential tactics, try to answer the following questions.

Is the tactic focused on a primary or secondary target?

Is it based on a thorough understanding of the target?

Is the tactic in tune with other things that are happening?

Does it demand action?

Is your group comfortable with the tactic?

If it is confrontational, has your group exhausted all options for cooperation and negotiation? Confrontation should be a last resort.

If it is confrontational, does it respect Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals?

Drawing up a detailed action timetable
Your timetable should be a multilevel chart with start and completion dates for everything you want to do, as well as start and completion dates for all significant external events such as voter registration. Strategies that involve winning something from a target usually begin with opening a line of communication with the target, and then move on to action meetings.

material taken from

http://www.vcn.bc.ca/citizens-handbook/strategicthinking.html

Emotions relation with product

Unleash the Emotional Appeal of Your Product

Posted by Rita McGrath on August 20, 2008 1:07 PM

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In our book MarketBusters, my colleague Ian MacMillan and I encouraged companies to think about how adding an emotional appeal to their offerings can create massive differentiation in an otherwise crowded field.

We enjoyed hunting down examples of this type of competitive differentiation. For example, consider the ordinary light bulb - you wouldn't think there was much to get emotional about there, would you? And yet, pink-shaded bulbs for make-up mirrors (for those of us who are no longer in the first blush of youth), piercingly bright lights for security purposes, and lately of course the "feel green" appeal of compact fluorescents are all examples of adding a formerly emotional tag to a fairly mature product category.

Some companies of course have known this all along - after all, with one sneaker being pretty much like another, it's the feeling of a Nike swoosh that makes for major advantage. And the Kodak moment? At one stage those soppy commercials could bring me to tears.

We call positive emotional appeals "exciter" features in our book, and encourage companies to think about how they might leverage the potential of an emotional element. It seems that more and more organizations are finding that as technologies are copied instantly and the web levels the playing field on things like local pricing, emotions remain a strong differentiator. What made me think of this was a recent article in the Wall Street Journal entitled "For Olympic Marketers, Emotions Pay." The reporters note that unlike events such as say, the Super Bowl, or the World Cup, the Olympics are fertile ground for emotions. Surprising upsets, stunning victories, proud - if disappointed - losers are all delicious backdrops to the power of emotions.

So how do you get at the power of emotions in the things you offer?

First, think hard about your customer segments. Good segments reflect behaviors - remember that even customers who are demographically similar may have very different behaviors and preferences.

Second, you need to think deeply about the customers' situation as they are interacting with your offer. What's on their minds? What are they worried about? Looking forward to? Would they rather be doing something else than dealing with whatever issue you solve for them?

Third, consider what emotions you might legitimately play to - I'm definitely not advocating anything that is manipulative or inauthentic. Then do some brainstorming with members of your team - what could they come up with that might trigger that connective feeling.

Lastly, experiment - try the appeal out on representative members of your customer segment and observe how they behave. By the way, observation is absolutely key. Customers often won't - or can't - tell you what is really driving their behavior.

So what do you think? What are your favorite examples of a product that brings on an emotional appeal?

material taken from http://discussionleader.hbsp.com/mcgrath/2008/08/unleash-emotion.html

Don't write just mission statement write mission mantra

Mantras Versus Missions

Who among us has not had the horrible experience of an corporate offsite to build teamwork and to craft a mission statement? The offsite usually went like this:

Day 1: Teambuilding. Selection of cross-functional teams so that, God help us, engineering has to work with sales. A day of exercises such as, “Each of you will come up to the front of the group, turn your back to the group, close your eyes, and fall backwards into the arms of your colleagues. This will teach you to trust your fellow employees.”

Day 2: Crafting the mission statement. A hot, crowded room with easels of white paper and a facilitator who knows nothing about your business. Everyone who is a director level and above in the company is there—that’s sixty people. You each figure you get one word, so at the end of the day, you have a sixty word mission statement like this:

“The mission of Wendy’s is to deliver superior quality products and services for our customers and communities through leadership, innovation, and partnerships.”

Don’t get me wrong. I love Wendy’s, but I’ve never thought I was participating in “leadership, innovation, and partnerships” when I ordered a hamburger there. The root cause of mission statement-itis is that most organizations are run by people who have either gotten an MBA or worked for McKinsey—or both.

I give up trying to get people to create short, different, and meaningful mission statements, so go ahead and spend the $25,000 for the offsite, facilitator, and consultants to create one. However, you should also create a mantra for your organization. A mantra is three or four words long. Tops. Its purpose is to help employees truly understand why the organization exists.

If I were the CEO of Wendy’s, I would establish a corporate mantra of “healthy fast food.” End of story. Here are more examples of corporate mantras to inspire you:

Federal Express: “Peace of mind”
Nike: “Authentic athletic performance”
Target: “Democratize design”
Mary Kay “Enriching women’s lives”

The ultimate test for a mantra (or mission statement) is if your telephone operators (Trixie and Biff) can tell you what it is. If they can, then you’re onto something meaningful and memorable. If they can't, then, well, it bad.

If you still insist on doing a mission statement, then at least let me help you save a lot of time and money. Just go to the Dilbert Mission Statement Generator. There, without a consultant, facilitator, and offsite, you can get the mission statement of your dreams.

material taken from http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2006/01/mantras_versus_.html

Hear what people are saying (active listening)

Active Listening

Hear What People Are Really Saying

Listening is one of the most important skills you can have. How well you listen has a major impact on your job effectiveness, and on the quality of your relationships with others.

We listen to obtain information.
We listen to understand.
We listen for enjoyment.
We listen to learn.

Given all this listening we do, you would think we’d be good at it! In fact we’re not. Depending on the study being quoted, we remember a dismal 25-50% of what we hear. That means that when you talk to your boss, colleagues, customers or spouse for 10 minutes, they only really hear 2½-5 minutes of the conversation.

Turn it around and it reveals that when you are receiving directions or being presented with information, you aren’t hearing the whole message either. You hope the important parts are captured in your 25- 50%, but what if they’re not?

Clearly, listening is a skill that we can all benefit from improving. By becoming a better listener, you will improve your productivity, as well as your ability to influence, persuade negotiate. What’s more, you’ll avoid conflict and misunderstandings – all necessary for workplace success. )

Good communication skills require a high level of self-awareness. By understanding your personal style of communicating, you will go a long way towards creating good and lasting impressions with others.

The way to become a better listener is to practice “active listening”. This is where you make a conscious effort to hear not only the words that another person is saying but, more importantly, to try and understand the total message being sent.

In order to do this you must pay attention to the other person very carefully.

You cannot allow yourself to become distracted by what else may be going on around you, or by forming counter arguments that you’ll make when the other person stops speaking. Nor can you allow yourself to lose focus on what the other person is saying. All of these barriers contribute to a lack of listening and understanding.

Tip: If you're finding it particularly difficult to concentrate on what someone is saying, try repeating their words mentally as they say it – this will reinforce their message and help you control mind drift.

To enhance your listening skills, you need to let the other person know that you are listening to what he or she is saying. To understand the importance of this, ask yourself if you’ve ever been engaged in a conversation when you wondered if the other person was listening to what you were saying. You wonder if your message is getting across, or if it’s even worthwhile to continue speaking. It feels like talking to a brick wall and it’s something you want to avoid.

Acknowledgement can be something as simple as a nod of the head or a simple “uh huh.” You aren’t necessarily agreeing with the person, you are simply indicating that you are listening. Using body language and other signs to acknowledge you are listening also reminds you to pay attention and not let your mind wander.

You should also try to respond to the speaker in a way that will both encourage him or her to continue speaking, so that you can get the information if you need. While nodding and “uh huhing” says you’re interested, an occasional question or comment to recap what has been said communicates that you understand the message as well.

Becoming an Active Listener

There are five key elements of active listening. They all help you ensure that you hear the other person, and that the other person knows you are hearing what they are saying.

1. Pay attention.
   Give the speaker your undivided attention and acknowledge the message. Recognize that what is not said also speaks loudly.
• Look at the speaker directly.
• Put aside distracting thoughts. Don’t mentally prepare a rebuttal!
• Avoid being distracted by environmental factors.
• “Listen” to the speaker’s body language.
• Refrain from side conversations when listening in a group setting.
  
  
2. Show that you are listening.
   Use your own body language and gestures to convey your attention.
• Nod occasionally.
• Smile and use other facial expressions.
• Note your posture and make sure it is open and inviting.
• Encourage the speaker to continue with small verbal comments like yes, and uh huh.
  
  
3. Provide feedback.
   Our personal filters, assumptions, judgments, and beliefs can distort what we hear. As a listener, your role is to understand what is being said. This may require you to reflect what is being said and ask questions.
• Reflect what has been said by paraphrasing. “What I’m hearing is…” and “Sounds like you are saying…” are great ways to reflect back.
• Ask questions to clarify certain points. “What do you mean when you say…” “Is this what you mean?”
• Summarize the speaker’s comments periodically.

4. Defer judgment.
   Interrupting is a waste of time. It frustrates the speaker and limits full understanding of the message.
• Allow the speaker to finish.
• Don’t interrupt with counterarguments.
  
  
5. Respond Appropriately.
   Active listening is a model for respect and understanding. You are gaining information and perspective. You add nothing by attacking the speaker or otherwise putting him or her down.
• Be candid, open, and honest in your response.
• Assert your opinions respectfully.
• Treat the other person as he or she would want to be treated.
  

Key Points:

It takes a lot of concentration and determination to be an active listener. Old habits are hard to break, and if your listening habits are as bad as many people’s are, then there’s a lot of habit-breaking to do!

Be deliberate with your listening and remind yourself constantly that your goal is to truly hear what the other person is saying. Set aside all other thoughts and behaviors and concentrate on the message. Ask question, reflect, and paraphrase to ensure you understand the message. If you don’t, then you’ll find that what someone says to you and what you hear can be amazingly different!

Start using active listening today to become a better communicator and improve your workplace productivity and relationships.

taken from http://www.mindtools.com/CommSkll/ActiveListening.htm