CHALO VIRAL KARTE HAIN!

Going Viral!, does these keywords sound familiar. This is the sound of the new marketing communication where the digitization has made it place. It accounts for 2% of the 20,000 crore advertising market and soon will be bigger.

The integrated marketing communications campaign by Coca Cola..."Chalo Viral Karte hain" was a hit. The reason was the marketers did some research where they found that today that most of the accounted age groups live their life online. So, why spend more money on other media vehicles. They understood that viral is done by the customer and not marketers. The major benefit of this vehicle is that the learning curve is faster and up-scaling.

The recent example of Toyota Etios, where its integrated digital media campaign including Facebook, Twitter, Direct messaging and blogging helped them make the new car a success amongst the target audience. Why are we forgetting that if customer like the product, he will market it for us. This is going to save cost on using other media vehicles and innovative way of communicating the message.

Developing an interface for the customer is not enough, work has to be done on its presentation, engagement factor and the way its rewarding the customer. This is a normal trait of a human being, he/she needs motivation to do something.


So, remember "Engaging with the customer on-line is a marketers job and the rest is for the consumer to carry it forward".

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BUSINESS UNIT STRATEGIC PLANNING!

SWOT Analysis

After careful management audit we are able to judge the possible assumptions cumin up relating to strengths, weaknesses, opportunities which we can focus upon and threats which can arise due to various factors which can be both internal and external.

Goal Formultion

Marketing objectives are made out of the assumptions because it helps us in designing the marketing strategy regarding what possibly we can do in order to satisfy the customer with the help of required resources and how on the basis of present growth can guide us in designing further strategies.

Strategic Formulation

After laying down the marketing objectives we can do the most important part that is budgeting the  plan which not only includes budgeting for operational activities but also long term projects which will come up as a result of diversification and other unexpected change in government policies  and prices of raw materials and other things etc.

Program Formulation and Implementation

After this some companies in order to monitor  whether the plan made is good enough to last in the market for long an implementation is done on a trial basis and time period is stated as per the company wants to.

Feedback and Control

It is done to find loop holes and doing required modification.

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CORPORATE AND DIVISION STRATEGIC PLANNING

Mission Statement or Defining the Corporate mission

Mission statement includes the mission of an organization which it needs to achieve through careful marketing research by carefully analyzing the needs and wants of what customer wants and providing him with the same. They have some characteristics such as a good mission statement should be: -

Firstly, should be limited to few goals.

 Secondly, it should be such that there should enough individual discretion to be acted upon the company’s major rules and policies. Thirdly, it should be defining the competitive spheres(Industry like one industry or, Products and applications, Competence like the kind of use of technology being used or if it is having the capacity to use it, market segment, Vertical like distribution channels and geographical) in which the company would be operating. Fourthly, it should be take a long term view and lastly, it should short, memorable and meaningful.

Establishing SBU’s

It talks about how market oriented definitions are stronger than product oriented definitions due to various factors. It tells us that if as a company u are giving the definition which is making u a company operating in a particular product line in a particular segment basically a product oriented definition but if we use a market oriented definition it helps us in diversification in the same segment and in product lines. E.g. IBM redefined itself  from a hardware and software manufacturer to a builder of networks , another example for target market definition is of Pepsi which defined that the target market for coca cola is the same i.e. only  drinks is its but did not realize when it is giving the market definition other drinks. Juices and water also comes under its product line. Each SBU has several characteristics: -

1 If it is a single business or a collection of businesses it can be planned separately from the business.

2 It has own set of competitors

3 One manger is responsible for the strategic planning and profit performance, which controls most of the factors affecting profit.

Assigning resources to SBU’s

It basically focuses on the investing decisions or to allocate corporate resources. It basically focuses on the working of BCG Matrix Model.

Assessing Growth opportunities

It means adding, downsizing or terminating the older businesses. It focuses on filing the gap between future desired sales and projected sales by adding new businesses. It tells us that lowest curve of the gap is expected sales over the period and highest curve depicts the sales over the same period and how fast company will grow.

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IS SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING IMPORTANT!

There has been a recent debate about the value addition to entrepreneurs through Facebook, Google+ and Twitter. In today's scenario if a brand has to practically achieve its penetration level in the minds of the customer, social media marketing is a necessity. As, we all know that word of mouth plays an evident role when it comes to marketing communication. Social media Marketing is another form of word of mouth wherein you have social circles built in the form of groups, one to one interaction with friends and colleagues. So, why wouldn't a company want to capitalize on an effective means of spreading awareness at such a low cost. It not only helps a company understand the market vibe in relation to a particular product but also helps in better customer engagement.Social Media Marketing is making news for its presence, low cost, brand building and most of all regaining customer loyalty.

Social media Marketing is necessary because people today are so busy with their lives, they have hardly time to look around and see what is happening in terms of the new brand launch, roll out of new products, movies etc. The only thing people take out time for is to update their status, tweet or adding people into different circles. So, if you want your brand to survive in the market and hit the right target audience, opt for social media marketing.

In order to choose the right social media partner, listed below are some distinction between them, which is as follows: - Source:- ( Quora)

This is one of the ways that can help you in selection, other factors is the determining the traffic, target audience, the policies, the application used, the methods that can be used for promotion etc

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MARKETING PLANNING

Marketing planning is all about firm marketing activities. It can also be pertaining to a specific product or an organization as a whole.

So, when the senior management is taking the decision regarding the formulation and planning of business strategy they indebted to incorporate the marketing activities into the plan which they think are appropriate for the plan.

A (Product planning) marketing plan includes the following things: -

Executive Summary and table of contents:- containing the senior management goals and recommendations and other supporting rationale and operational detail

Situational Analysis: - Situation is judged in terms of the market, competitors, sales and various other macro environment forces. Also critically scrutinizing what all SWOTS tells us.

Financial Projection:-it tells us about the sales forecasts and also break even analysis. Hereby, on the revenue side the company would mention the sales volume by the product and month category. On the expense side it mentions the expected costs of marketing broken into fingers. The break even analysis mentions that if there is not a monthly offset of fixed cost and average per unit variable cost the sustained market share of a company after a saturation point would decline.

Implementation Controls: - Monitoring and adjustment of plans. It basically looks whether the company is a set budget and situation is able to perform at a particular standard.

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The Tipping Point

Here's the scoop -  This book has built-in appeal: little changes can have big effects; when small numbers of people start behaving differently, that behavior can ripple outward until a critical mass or "tipping point"" is reached, changing the world. Much like the butterfly effect. Much like an epidemic.

According to Gladwell there are three conditions necessary to create epidemics.
The first one is “The Law of the Few”, which states that there’s a 80/20 Principle. This principle says that 80% of the work gets done by 20% of the people.
The second rule is “The Stickiness Factor”. This factor points to information and the types of information that will stay with you, stick with you, like a kick-ass commercial that touched on something for you.
The third rule is “The Power of Context”, which is all about sensitivity to our surroundings and how it can influence us whether we accept it or not.

Gladwell also introduces us to the particular personality types who are natural pollinators of new ideas and trends, the people who create the phenomenon of word of mouth. These are Connectors, sociable personalities who bring people together; Mavens, who like to pass along knowledge; and Salesmen, adept at persuading the unenlightened. 

He analyzes fashion trends (why hush puppies became a rage in the 90s), the crime rate, smoking, children's television, for clues about making ideas infectious and visits religious communes to multinationals to understand how to start and sustain ‘epidemics.’

It is a fantastic read and should be read by everyone. It would give us all a better insight into human behavior and can be used in business, social and personal arenas.

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VODAFONE BAGS ON CONVICTION

Vodafone in its latest advertising campaign has focussed on the conviction aspect of advertising. Its latest advertisement is on borrowing credits. They have tried to analyze the inner desire of the exsisting customer and cater to them accordingly. They know that friends share everyhting, so, why wouldnt they share credits. This is how the communicators fullfills his/her job by narrowing down the convction in a particular category and transform it into a need. This advertising strategy not only helped them in achieving the goal of brand differentiation but also building a great brand depth( Brand depth can also be referred to as TOP OF THE MIND BRANDS).

This link below gives you a sneak peak into Vodafone's Latest Ad
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gaBR74Bmfg

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