Month: June 2018
Marketing environment is made up of all the factors and forces that influence marketing. These forces can be internal like departments (other than marketing such as finance department and human resource department) or external like competitors, suppliers, economic or political situation. To understand them better, marketing personals divide them in two categories namely macro environment and microenvironment. Lets have a look at some of the important factors involved in marketing environment.
Internal factors:
All the departments involved in business management affects the process of marketing as well, for example the finance or research department in large enterprises. Marketing department is bound to keep their expenses under the budget set by the finance managers or to consider recommendations from the research department. Similarly the supplies and collections can have an impact on marketing as well.
Customer markets:
Different types of customers markets include consumer markets (B2C), business markets (B2B), government markets (B2G), also a new type of customer market has emerged as a result of globalization i.e. international market. Where most other departments will treat these markets similarly, marketing team has to treat them all in different manner. Though most advertising campaigns are targeted to consumer market, the type of customer market does affect marketing decisions on the whole.
Competition:
Competition is becoming more and more influential in a company’s approach towards marketing. Competition stems from the business that is offering the same product as yours. A business has to counter this competition through marketing; some times businesses do try to have a hit at their competitors in advertisements (though not candidly). The level of competition is also a decisive factor when planning on how much to spend on marketing.
Different types of publics:
Another important microenvironment factor is the publics (government, consumer associations, financial or media publics). All of them can have an affect (positive or negative) on company’s reputation and marketing.
Demography:
Good marketing managers tend to spend plenty of time in conducting demographic research for their targeted consumers. Demography is the research of gender, age, race or anything else related to consumers. International businesses are concerned about various races (Asians, Hispanics, etc) and their different set of demands. While the terms like “baby boomers” or “generation X” were invented to reflect the specific age groups of consumers.
Economic Factors:
All the variables of economic markets like inflation, rate of exchange, fiscal policies and monetary policies fall under macro environment factors. They affect all businesses, and needless to say their marketing efforts as well.
Other Factors:
Other notable macro and microenvironment factors are marketing intermediaries, political stability (or instability), new technologies or natural forces.
Why did Nokia decline? The most nonsensical argument is that Nokia is too far away from Silicon Valley and it lost the ability to innovate and lead innovation. It can also be said that Nokia failed due to the continuous blow of Apple and Google. Especially Apple has rewritten the golden age of the traditional mobile phone manufacturers represented by Nokia.
Of course, this does not mean that Nokia will surely perish in the short term. Nokia will not get out of the Chinese market. Nokia can not be acquired in a short-term. However, Nokia’s decline has a variety of reasons. The only one that does not have to bear the important responsibility is probably Nokia’s marketing, especially China’s marketing team.
Nokia’s marketing has been very powerful. Whether channels or activities, whether endorsements or advertising, Nokia’s marketing and innovation are world-class. New Year’s Eve concert, superstar strategy, advertising campaign and the innovative application of Internet marketing, Nokia’s marketing throughout the industry is in the lead.
It is pity that Nokia who understands social media marketing is abandoned by the user. Even Nokia itself has given up Symbian and switched to Microsoft camp. The reality is so cruel. You may have not committed anything wrong, even always a plus in marketing, but the situation is hopeless. No matter what kind of marketing ideas and deeds can not change the decline of the Nokia product line.
Nokia’s decline is not much related with marketing, but Nokia’s case was enough to alert all the marketing people. Marketing is not everything. There are things more important than marketing, such as products.
Nokia’s has an absolute advantage in technology innovation. But the efficient operation of the corporate culture and cost control has become a stumbling block of innovative thinking. Nokia discarded the touch wave, just because it takes into account the risk of the high cost. It is reluctant to give up the lagged behind Symbian system early.
Although Nokia has seen competitors continually erode their market share, but Nokia is still reveling in the industry leader position in the past few years. When the rise of Apple and other smart phone threat and gradually replace its position, Nokia was awakened and rushed to find partners like Microsoft. Nokia today have lost even the hope of turning over.
Analysts of the industry say that technology innovation is the key factor of mobile phone manufacturers. Marketing is not everything. The products and technology innovation play a more important role.
You may or may not know that Internet marketing is available for a fraction of the cost of traditional marketing. In addition, the Internet allows you to display a plethora of information to potential renters like: pictures, maps, unit sizes, prices, and specials. In fact, you can even give customers the ability to rent instantly (if this feature is available on your website)! Internet marketing is flexible, meaning you can quickly and easily change your ads throughout the year. And arguably the best aspect of Internet marketing is that traffic, consumer patterns and behaviors and the actions these people take can all be tracked and monitored – making it easy for you to evaluate its effectiveness.
Because this topic is still new to some of you in the industry, I wanted to share the terms most commonly used when talking about Internet marketing:
1. URL – the website address you type into your browser to go to a webpage.
2. Search Engine – I’ll just say Google. Google is the most widely used search engine. Some other popular search engines include Yahoo, AOL, and MSN.
3. SEO – the acronym for Search Engine Optimization. This process helps YOUR website move higher and higher in the search engine rankings when people type in specific words or phrases into a search engine. The websites you see on the first page when you search for something are well optimized and are receiving most of the traffic.
4. PPC – the acronym for Pay Per Click. This is a form of Internet advertising (and a major source of Google’s revenue) that allows you to only pay when people click on your ad and are taken to your website.
5. CTR – the acronym for Click Thru Rate. This is the percentage of people who click on your ad out of all those who see it. The higher this percentage, the better.
6. CPC – the acronym for Cost Per Click. This is how much you pay each time somebody clicks on your ad. In the self storage industry this is usually between $1.50 and $3.00.
7. Impressions – the number of times your ad was seen by a searcher on a search engine.
8. Conversion Rate – the number of actual renters out of all your inquiries. You want this number to be high as well.
9. CPA – the acronym for Cost Per Acquisition. This is how much it costs you to acquire a new customer.
10. ROI – the acronym for Return on Investment. This is the ratio of money gained or lost on an investment; in terms of marketing it is how much profit you’re making for each marketing dollar you spend.
Your goal for Internet marketing should involve capturing as many tenants as possible through the Internet at the lowest possible cost (lowest CPA). Because the Internet allows you to display so much information to potential renters, often times these potential renters come to you already knowing where you’re located, your office hours, unit sizes, and specials and therefore, are ready to rent a unit.
People using the Internet will contact you in one of four ways: