Definition of Marketing Mix - Product, Price, Place and Promotion

Getting the marketing mix right for your product or service means you are covering all of the important bases in your marketing campaign. Here is a definition of marketing mix and a description of its main components.

The term marketing mix refers to the primary elements that must be attended to in order to properly market a product. Also known as The 4 Ps of Marketing, the marketing mix is a very useful, if a bit general, guideline for understanding the fundamentals of what makes a good marketing campaign. Here is a brief description of each component of the 4 Ps of the marketing mix.

Product: The marketing mix concept has its roots in the 1950s U.S. corporate marketing world, and the practice of marketing has obviously evolved tremendously since this term was invented. One of the changes is that there are a lot more services available nowadays, such as those available online. Also, the distinction between product and service has become more blurry (e.g., is a Web-based software application a product or a service?). Either way, product here refers to products or services. The product you offer needs to be able to meet a specific, existing market demand. Or, you need to be able to create a market niche through building a strong brand.

Definition of Marketing Mix - Product, Price, Place and Promotion

Price: The price you set for your offering plays a large role in its marketability. Pricing for offerings that are more commonly available in the market is more elastic, meaning that unit sales will go up or down more responsively in response to price changes. By contrast, those products that have a generally more limited availability in the market (but with strong demand) are more inelastic, meaning that price changes will not affect unit sales very much. The price elasticity of your offering can be determined through various market testing techniques.

Place: This term really refers to any way that the customer can obtain a product. Provision of a product can occur via any number of distribution channels, such as in a retail store, through the mail, via downloadable files, on a cruise ship, in a hair salon, etc. The ease and options through which you can make your product available to your customers will have an effect on your sales volume.

Promotion: Promotion is concerned with any vehicle you employ for getting people to know more about your offering. Advertising, public relations, point-of-sale displays, and word-of-mouth promotion are all traditional ways for promotion. Promotion can be seen as a way of closing the information gap between would-be sellers and would-be buyers. Your choice of a promotional strategy will be dependent upon your budget, the type of offering you are selling, and availability of said promotional vehicle.

Marketing has come a long way from the 4 Ps of yesteryear, and yet understanding this marketing mix is for your product remains very relevant today. The marketing mix serves as an excellent touchstone for continually checking that you are covering all of the bases in your marketing campaign.

Definition of Marketing Mix - Product, Price, Place and Promotion
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Email Marketing - Communicate Properly With Your Subscribers

List of Good Email Marketing Practices

Build a list of people that will benefit from your message. Your campaign starts with a list of emails. The more contacts that you have on your list the better. But what is the good of having 100,000 contacts if 90% of them are not interested in what your message is?
Capture 100% opt-ins by giving your prospects the option to sign up through trade shows, website or social media newsletter sign-up.
There are some pretty cool email marketing softwares for purchase out there but I prefer to use online email software. Its cost-effective, scalable and created to be very user friendly. When it comes to these platforms some are good and some are bad. I prefer i-Contact.
Build a branded template to represent your companies image. You usually have the option to choose from pre-built templates or for a more customized design you can hire an expert to build your vision.
Schedule specific messages to coincide with key events you want to highlight.
Run click-through reports to find out what groups are interested in what service or product you offer. Then bundle those groups into specific lists that receive those specific campaigns.
Link your messages with any social media accounts you have set up. this increases your visibility.
Educate yourself with CAN-SPAM Act. Always give your recipients the option to opt-out of your messages.
Utilize the multiple reporting features you have at your disposal. This is how you will refine your marketing and find out what is workin and what isn't.
Create a interconnected web-work online. Link you campaign to you website, social media, blogs etc.

List of Bad Email Marketing Practices

Email Marketing - Communicate Properly With Your Subscribers

Don't purchase your list. This is a big no no and can get you black listed. There are plenty of companies on the web that will sell you email lists. The problem is that they sell those same lists to hundreds of other people. Imagine being one of the people on those lists and getting bombarded by all these companies. Someone will complain and that's when people get blacklisted.
Send your messages using a business email. When your message comes across and its sent from [blahblah@gmail.com] it just doesn't seem as professional.
Do not add people to your list without them knowing. Its against the CAN-SPAM Act. and the law.
Most email messaging software requires that you have an opt-out option on you email, however if there isn't, make sure you don't send without it.
Don't try to jam too much content into one blast. This could overwhelm the recipient and turn them off.
Keep your design consistent. Don't send out a circus of images and content. Your message should revolve around the brand of your company.
Try not to message to often. Once a day could make people angry.
Don't send with just images. Most email providers have images turned off by default. If you have text the recipient will at least know what the message is about until they can activate images.
Don't send without an online link to your email message. If people cannot see the message in their email they will be redirected to an online version where they can see you message.
Don't forget to study your reports to see what your market wants.

Email Marketing - Communicate Properly With Your Subscribers
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Interested in Email Marketing? I manage multiple email marketing campaigns on a weekly basis. For help or for more information visit my site:

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Effective Marketing Strategies for Property Managers

Many small companies get creative when it comes to running their businesses on tight budgets. It can be a challenge to compete with large or small marketplace players, especially when resources cannot always be allocated to areas that do not directly drive bottom line revenues.

Marketing always falls into this category. It doesn't generate revenue of its own even though it gives sales the tools it needs to generate its revenue. Therefore, from a finance perspective, marketing is the non-revenue generating extra that they think they can afford to cut. In reality, they cut marketing and then slowly see a decline in sales. Some understand what they have done to themselves. Some never make the connection.

Marketing is, in fact, a resource and a support network that assists and enables not only sales but also internal culture and communications. Marketing even on a local/regional level includes several elements that get exposure and leads for vacant properties.

Effective Marketing Strategies for Property Managers

Most property management groups have the staff, resources and budgets to handle their local and regional marketing elements. This can include everything from brochures, advertising and websites.

Today's marketplace for rental property encompasses much more than local opportunities and it takes a different strategy to take advantage of the market changes.

Developing national presence to attract renters outside of your local market presents great challenges to your resources.

Get creative with your national strategy.

Look for venues that present you to a national market. By participating in partnerships that open access nationally, property management groups of all sizes can expand their market beyond their city limits.

Venues with national scope enable single companies to include themselves in a comprehensive palette of choices and therefore broaden their range of potential customers to a national level. These venues create a marketplace environment that utilizes complex Internet marketing strategies to reach the consumer base. Individual property management groups just don't have the resources to support this. The price points for being part of the marketplace, however, remain at affordable levels for individual groups.

Almost immediately, a locally and regionally focused property manager can diversify its customer base and protect itself from sometimes fickle localized market conditions.

This strategy is terrific and works incredibly well. Property managers all over the United States are growing their businesses in ways that their traditional local methods cannot.

This grows your market, but it still doesn't provide you with unique services that differentiate you from other property management groups, does it?

Become Unique. Offer more.

What else do your renters need that you can provide?
What could help you make your business run more smoothly or more cost-efficiently?

The answers to these questions should give you a good start.
Or you can partner with someone who can help you make the answers to those questions a reality.

By working with other companies who have like needs, or by finding a service provider who has created an environment for your market niche, you can quickly enhance what your business offers.

For example, your renters need to have renters' insurance. Through a partnership, you may find a way to offer access to one - easily and perhaps even inexpensively. For your own business, your consortium connections may get you access to business operations services that free your employees up to spend more time with your customers - not in front of a computer screen.

The beauty of this approach is your LOW total investment cost. Partnership gives you price point advantages for services and products you previously may have been unable to consider. All the while, you maintain the flexibility of a small company.

Partnerships and consortium programs can open up access to tremendous benefits that impact your growth, your market differentiation and your business stability. Elements such as these enable you to insulate yourself from local market changes, to take advantage of growth in other geographic areas and most certainly to create unique values that identify your company as the property management group that everyone wants to do business with.

Effective Marketing Strategies for Property Managers
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Jill Purdy is director of marketing for Rent2Buy America™. Rent2Buy America, LLC is a Charlotte, NC based Internet venue for rental property. By focusing on the needs of property managers and the demands of renters, Rent2Buy America makes advertising properties easy and effective, and renting homes easier than other traditional processes. Rent2Buy America has properties available across the United States and works with national partners to offer products and services to renters and to property managers that help them each reach their goals.

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The e-Marketing Plan - Brief Overview and Working Scheme

I. Summary of a marketing plan

The marketing planning (concretized in the marketing plan) is an essential organizational activity, considering the hostile and complex competitive business environment. Our ability and skills to perform profitable sales are affected by hundreds of internal and external factors that interact in a difficult way to evaluate. A marketing manager must understand and build an image upon these variables and their interactions, and must take rational decisions.

Let us see what do we call a "marketing plan"? It is the result of the planning activity, a document that includes a review of the organization's place in the market, an analysis of the STEP factors as well as a SWOT analysis. A complete plan would also formulate some presumptions on why we think the past marketing strategy was successful or not. The next phase shall present the objectives we set, together with the strategies to achieve these objectives. In a logical sequence, we will further need to evaluate the results and formulate alternative plans of action. A plan would consist in details of responsibilities, costs, sales prognosis and budgeting issues.

The e-Marketing Plan - Brief Overview and Working Scheme

In the end, we should not forget to specify how the plan (or plans) will be controlled, by what means we will measure its results.

We will see how to build the marketing plan, what is its structure: after we will see how to build the traditional marketing plan, we will take a look at the e-marketing plan and see how the unique features of the internet will require some changes in the approach of writing a marketing plan.

But, before we continue, we must understand and accept that steps of the marketing plan are universal. It is a logical approach of the planning activity, no matter where we apply it. The differences you meet from a plan to another consist in the degree of formality accorded to each phase, depending on the size and nature of the organization involved. For example, a small and not diversified company would adopt less formal procedures, because the managers in these cases have more experience and functional knowledge than the subordinates, and they are able to achieve direct control upon most factors. On the other hand, in a company with diversified activity, it is less likely that top managers have functional information in a higher degree than the subordinate managers. Therefore, the planning process must be formulated to ensure a strict discipline for everyone involved in the decisional chain.

II. The general marketing plan

The classical marketing plan would follow the following scheme of 8 stages:

1. Declaring the mission: this is the planning stage when we establish the organizational orientations and intentions, thus providing a sense of direction. In most cases, this is a general presentation of the company's intentions and almost has a philosophic character.

2. Establishing current objectives: it is essential for the organization to try to determine with preciseness the objectives to be reached. These objectives, in order to be viable, must be SMART. SMART is an acronym and stands for "Specific", "Measurable", "Attainable", "Realistic" and "Timed". The objectives must also convey the general organizational mission.

3. Gathering information: this stage is based on the concept of marketing audit. After performing the audit of the macro-environment by analyzing the STEP factors (social, technologic, economic and politic), we should turn the focus upon the immediate extern environment (the micro-environment) and analyze the competitive environment, the costs and the market. Finally, we will conclude with the SWOT analysis, by this way we will have a general view upon the internal environment compared to the external one. The SWOT analysis combine the two perspectives, from the inside and from the outside, because the Strengths and the Weaknesses are internal issues of an organization, while the Opportunities and Threads come from the outside.

4. Re-formulating objectives: after the close examination of data gathered in the previous stage, sometimes it is needed to re-formulate the initial objectives, in order to address all the issues that might have come up from the previous stage. The distance between the initial objective and the re-formulated objective will be covered by appropriate strategies. We must ensure the re-formulated objective is SMART as well.

5. Establishing strategies: several strategies are to be formulated, in order to cover the distance between what we want to achieve and what is possible to achieve, with the resources at our disposal. As we would usually have several options, we should analyze them and chose the one with more chances to achieve the marketing objectives.

6. Plan of actions: consists in a very detailed description of the procedures and means to implement the actions we want to take. For example, if the strategy implies a raise in advertising volume, the plan of actions should establish where the advertisements will be placed, the dates and frequency of the advertising campaigns, a set of procedures to evaluate their effectiveness. The actions we plan to take must be clearly formulated, measurable, and the results must be monitored and evaluated.

7. Implementation and control: consist in the series of activities that must be performed in order to run the marketing plan in accordance to the objectives set by the marketer. At this stage, it is critical to gain the support of all members if the organization, especially when the marketing plan is due to affect the organization from its grounds.

8. Performance measurement: constitutes the last but not the less important stage of the marketing plan, since we can achieve only what we can measure. In order to measure the performances achieved through the marketing plan, we need to constantly monitor each previous stage of the plan.

The marketing plan that has a feedback cycle, from 8th stage back to the 4th. That is because sometimes during the planning process, we might need to perform stages 4 to 8 several times before the final plan can be written.

III. The e-marketing plan

The e-marketing plan is built exactly on the same principles as the classical plan. There is no different approach, but there might be some formal differences given by the uniqueness of the internet environment. Many of these differences come from the necessity to ensure a high rate of responsiveness from the customers, since the e-world is moving faster and requires faster reaction from its companies, compared to the traditional offline marketplace.

Even though it is perfectly acceptable and is a common practice to use the 8-stage classic model for the e-marketing plan as well, you might want to consider the simplified version proposed by Chaffey, who identifies four major steps to build the e-marketing plan:

1. Strategic analysis: consists in continuous scanning of the macro- and micro-environment. The accent should fall on the consumers' needs that change very rapidly in the online market, as well as on surveying the competitors' actions and evaluating the opportunities offered by new technologies.

2. Defining strategic objectives: the organization must have a clear vision and establish if the media channels will complement the traditional ones, or will replace them. We must define specific objectives (don't forget to check if they are SMART!) and we must also specify the contribution of the online activities to the organization's turnover.

3. Formulating strategies - we do that by addressing the following essential issues:

- develop strategies towards the target markets;

- positioning and differentiating strategies;

- establish priorities of online activities;

- focus attention and efforts on CRM and financial control;

- formulate strategies for product development;

- develop business models with well-established strategies for new products or services, as well as pricing policies;

- necessity for some organizational restructuring;

- changes in the structure of communication channels.

4. Implementing strategies: includes careful execution of all necessary steps to achieve established objectives. It could refer re-launching of a website, promo campaigns for a new or rewritten site, monitoring website efficiency and many more.

Note: a common strategy to achieve e-marketing objectives is the communication strategy. The steps to built a coherent communication plan will be presented within a further article.

IV. The e-marketing plan (sample titles)

1. Executive Summary

a. overview upon present conjuncture;

b. key aspects of the strategic e-marketing plan.

2. Situational Analysis

a. characteristics of the e-market;

b. possible factors of success;

c. competitors' analysis;

d. technological factors;

e. legal factors;

f. social factors;

g. possible problems and opportunities.

3. The e-Marketing Objectives

a. product profile;

b. target market;

c. sales objectives.

4. The e-Marketing Strategies

a. product strategies;

b. price strategies;

c. promotion strategies;

d. distribution strategies.

5. Technical Issues

a. website content;

b. website "searcheability";

c. logging security (for customers and staff);

d. customer registration procedure;

e. multimedia;

f. autoresponders;

g. order forms and feedback forms;

h. access levels to online resources;

i. credit card transactions;

j. website hosting;

k. website publishing;

l. technical staff (size, requirements)

6. Appendix

7. Bibliography

The e-Marketing Plan - Brief Overview and Working Scheme
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Otilia Otlacan is a young certified professional with expertise in e-Marketing and e-Business, currently working as independent consultant and e-publisher. She developed and teach her own online course in "Principles of e-Marketing" and is also a volunteer Economics teacher.

You can contact her via her personal website at BRAINmarketing.net [http://www.brainmarketing.net] or check out her developing Marketing, e-Marketing and e-Business resources portal at TeaWithEdge.com

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e-Marketing Strategy: 7 Dimensions to Consider (the e-Marketing Mix)

What is e-Marketing?

e-Marketing is still quite a controversial subject to talk about, since no one succeeded to unify the various theories around it; however there is one thing upon which there is no doubt - that e-Marketing first appeared under the form of various techniques deployed by pioneer companies selling their products via the internet in the early 90's.

The frenzy around these new marketing techniques created by e-tailers and supported by the internet rapidly gave birth to a new dimension of what we knew as Marketing: the e-Marketing (electronic Marketing).

e-Marketing Strategy: 7 Dimensions to Consider (the e-Marketing Mix)

There are many definitions to what e-Marketing is, the simplest and shortest one being formulated by Mark Sceats: e-Marketing is Marketing that uses the internet as manifestation media. A working definition is that coming from a group of CISCO specialists: e-Marketing is the sum of all activities a business conducts through the internet with the purpose of finding, attracting, winning and retaining customers.

e-Marketing Strategy

The e-Marketing Strategy is normally based and built upon the principles that govern the traditional, offline Marketing - the well-known 4 P's (Product - Price - Promotion - Positioning) that form the classic Marketing mix. Add the extra 3 P's (People - Processes - Proof) and you got the whole extended Marketing mix.

Until here, there are no much aspects to differentiate e-Marketing from the traditional Marketing performed offline: the extended Marketing mix (4 + 3 P's) is built around the concept of "transactional" and its elements perform transactional functions defined by the exchange paradigm. What gives e-Marketing its uniqueness is a series of specific functions, relational functions, that can be synthesized in the 2P + 2C+ 3S formula: Personalization, Privacy, Customer Service, Community, Site, Security, Sales Promotion.

These 7 functions of the e-Marketing stay at the base of any e-Marketing strategy and they have a moderating character, unlike the classic Marketing mix that comprises situational functions only. Moderating functions of e-Marketing have the quality of moderate, operate upon all situational functions of the mix (the classic 4 P's) and upon each other.

1. Personalization

The fundamental concept of personalization as a part of the e-Marketing mix lies in the need of recognizing, identifying a certain customer in order to establish relations (establishing relations is a fundamental objective of Marketing). It is crucial to be able to identify our customers on individual level and gather all possible information about them, with the purpose of knowing our market and be able to develop customized, personalized products and services.

For example, a cookie strategically placed on the website visitor's computer can let us know vital information concerning the access speed available: in consequence, if we know the visitor is using a slow connection (eg. dial-up) we will offer a low-volume variation of our website, with reduced graphic content and no multimedia or flash applications. This will ease our customer's experience on our website and he will be prevented from leaving the website on the reason that it takes too long to load its pages.

Personalization can be applied to any component of the Marketing mix; therefore, it is a moderating function.

2. Privacy

Privacy is an element of the mix very much connected to the previous one - personalization. When we gather and store information about our customers and potential customers (therefore, when we perform the personalization part of the e-Marketing mix) a crucial issue arises: that of the way this information will be used, and by whom. A major task to do when implementing an e-Marketing strategy is that of creating and developing a policy upon access procedures to the collected information.

This is a duty and a must for any conscious marketer to consider all aspects of privacy, as long as data are collected and stored, data about individual persons.

Privacy is even more important when establishing the e-Marketing mix since there are many regulations and legal aspects to be considered regarding collection and usage of such information.

3. Customer Service

Customer service is one of the necessary and required activities among the support functions needed in transactional situations.

We will connect the apparition of the customer service processes to the inclusion of the "time" parameter in transactions. When switching from a situational perspective to a relational one, and e-Marketing is mostly based on a relational perspective, the marketer saw himself somehow forced into considering support and assistance on a non-temporal level, permanently, over time.

For these reasons, we should consider the Customer Service function (in its fullest and largest definition) as an essential one within the e-Marketing mix.

As we can easily figure out, the service (or assistance if you wish) can be performed upon any element from the classic 4 P's, hence its moderating character.

4. Community

We can all agree that e-Marketing is conditioned by the existence of this impressive network that the internet is. The merely existence of such a network implies that individuals as well as groups will eventually interact. A group of entities that interact for a common purpose is what we call a "community" and we will soon see why it is of absolute importance to participate, to be part of a community.

The Metcalf law (named after Robert Metcalf) states that the value of a network is given by the number of its components, more exactly the value of a network equals the square of the number of components. We can apply this simple law to communities, since they are a network: we will then conclude that the value of a community rises with the number of its members. This is the power of communities; this is why we have to be a part of it.

The customers / clients of a business can be seen as part of a community where they interact (either independent or influenced by the marketer) - therefore developing a community is a task to be performed by any business, even though it is not always seen as essential.

Interactions among members of such a community can address any of the other functions of e-Marketing, so it can be placed next to other moderating functions.

5. Site

We have seen and agreed that e-Marketing interactions take place on a digital media - the internet. But such interactions and relations also need a proper location, to be available at any moment and from any place - a digital location for digital interactions.

Such a location is what we call a "site", which is the most widespread name for it. It is now the time to mention that the "website" is merely a form of a "site" and should not be mistaken or seen as synonyms. The "site" can take other forms too, such as a Palm Pilot or any other handheld device, for example.

This special location, accessible through all sort of digital technologies is moderating all other functions of the e-Marketing - it is then a moderating function.

6. Security

The "security" function emerged as an essential function of e-Marketing once transactions began to be performed through internet channels.

What we need to keep in mind as marketers are the following two issues on security:

- security during transactions performed on our website, where we have to take all possible precautions that third parties will not be able to access any part of a developing transaction;

- security of data collected and stored, about our customers and visitors.

A honest marketer will have to consider these possible causes of further trouble and has to co-operate with the company's IT department in order to be able to formulate convincing (and true, honest!) messages towards the customers that their personal details are protected from unauthorized eyes.

7. Sales Promotion

At least but not last, we have to consider sales promotions when we build an e-Marketing strategy. Sales promotions are widely used in traditional Marketing as well, we all know this, and it is an excellent efficient strategy to achieve immediate sales goals in terms of volume.

This function counts on the marketer's ability to think creatively: a lot of work and inspiration is required in order to find new possibilities and new approaches for developing an efficient promotion plan.

On the other hand, the marketer needs to continuously keep up with the latest internet technologies and applications so that he can fully exploit them.

To conclude, we have seen that e-Marketing implies new dimensions to be considered aside of those inherited from the traditional Marketing. These dimensions revolve around the concept of relational functions and they are a must to be included in any e-Marketing strategy in order for it to be efficient and deliver results.

e-Marketing Strategy: 7 Dimensions to Consider (the e-Marketing Mix)
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Otilia Otlacan is a young certified professional with expertise in e-Marketing and e-Business, currently working as independent consultant and e-publisher. She developed and teach her own online course in "Principles of e-Marketing" and is also a volunteer Economics teacher.

You can contact her via her personal website at BRAINmarketing.net [http://www.brainmarketing.net] or check out her latest developing Marketing resources project at TeaWithEdge.com

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Advantages and Disadvantages of Direct Marketing

The term marketing implies the single goal of profit. It is categorized into two, direct marketing and indirect marketing and there is a significant line of difference between the two. Direct marketing is basically business from manufacturer to consumer without the involvement of middlemen, whoever it is. This is generally done by mailing the consumer or contacting him directly, so he can know about the products. The use of media advertisements is very limited and whatever little use is made includes only the demonstration of their products with call back numbers. Direct marketing is a boon and a bane, both in some respects:

Advantages:

- Direct marketing involves direct business. So it is cost beneficial for consumers, as there is no price hike due to wholesalers or retailers.
- Marketing executives can state certainly of the exact response to their products.
- The profit or loss can be more accurately judged.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Direct Marketing

Disadvantages:

- Sometimes, direct mailing offends the customers and many do not endorse it as they say it inhibits their private lives.

But most marketing managers are in support of this kind of business. The various forms in which direct business is made are:

- Direct mailing: Here, paper mails are sent to the selected groups of people, who likely to give positive response e.g. the paper mails of latest food processor is sent to all homes where house wives are resident so that immediate response is seen. Also CDs can be used as demonstrating media.

- Email Marketing: Here, emails are sent to all the selected customer categories with repeated intervals of time. But most of these are put into trash and spams. So the effectiveness of this form cannot be predicted.

- Telemarketing: In telemarketing, calls are made directly to the consumers and the concerned product is advertised. People sit at call centers to sell products on behalf of their clients. But this form of direct business is quite unpopular and most people oppose the uninvited calls. It was initially made illegal but later on new laws were re-enforced and calls are now made only to those who don't mind them.

- Voicemail: Telemarketing created a lot of consumer opposition and consumers would abuse the ones advertising on the phones. In order to avoid this, voicemail marketing was introduced, wherein; the entire advertisement is digitally recorded and presented.

- Use of coupons: Coupons are attached to direct mails and sent to the consumers. These generally advertise and give cost benefit to the consumers. So they avail these coupons and respond fast.

- Television marketing: Advertisements are given on the television and demos are with toll-free call back numbers or certain websites for the consumer to get in touch with the manufacturers.

- Broadcast faxing: This is the least popular form of direct marketing. The ads are directly faxed to the consumers.

Direct marketing can thus become successful only if the entanglements with the consumer are good. It can be B2B or B2C. It measures exact consumer response.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Direct Marketing
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James Copper is a writer for http://www.capsco.co.uk

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Internet Marketing - Advantages and Disadvantages

Everyone seems to be jumping on the internet marketing bandwagon lately. In the race to get their business online, many successful businesses forget to ask themselves some tough questions about what they are doing, what their expectations are and what their plan is to meet those expectations.

The internet can be a powerful tool that can put you on solid footing with bigger companies. On the other hand, the other companies may have more money to pay for advertising. Here are a couple of things to keep in mind as you analyze your internet marketing strategy.

Advantage of Internet Marketing

Internet Marketing - Advantages and Disadvantages

- your store is open, 24 hrs a day, 7 days a week. Further, your customers are worldwide in reach, and can shop anytime that they want to

- the cost of spreading your message is next to nothing. Emailing your subscription base is more oftne cheaper than sending a letter through the mail

- updating your subscribers can be done almost instantly through email. Visitors to your website can get up to the minute information on each visit. If you are having a sale, your customers can start shopping at the discounted prices literally as soon as they open their email

- if you have an information sensitive business, such as a law firm, newspaper or online magazine, you can deliver your products directly to your customers without having to use a courier

Disadvantages of Internet Marketing

- online marketing is not free. The cost of software, hardware, wed site design, maintenance of your site, online distribution costs and of course, time, all must be factored into the cost of providing your service or product.

- slightly over 50% of households shop online. While that number will continue to grow, you are reaching less than two out of three households.

- the internet is still regarded as a source of information gathering for the majority of your customers. Of the number of visitors to your site, the vast majority of visitors who are motivated to buy will do so in person. Many people prefer the live interaction when they buy. If you have a small business with one location, this may deter customers from buying.

- easier to have outdated information on your site, thus timing of updates is critical

- there is no replacement for good old fashioned customer service. The majority of internet marketers lack customer service and inquiry response programs. As a result, many online visitors to your site will already have painted your site as poor service before they have even contacted you. The majority of websites also have poor navigation, which makes it difficult for your visitor to find what they are looking for. Many sites were created with a marketing view, not a customer service point of view.

- is your site secure? Does your customer know this? There are many incorrect stereotypes about the security of the internet out there. As a result, many of your visitors will not want to use their credit card to make a purchase. The fear of having their credit card info stolen is a clear and present danger in the minds of your visitors

- there is a lot of competition for your product already out there. By the time your visitor finds you, they have already been clicking many links. Unless they can find what they are looking for quickly, they are gone.

- many web visitors expect something for free. What do you have to offer them?

There are many other pros and cons of internet marketing. Its important for you to consider each when creating your internet marketing strategy. Each of the disadvantages can be overcome, but only if you view the customer experience from the eyes of your customer, not as an internet marketer.

Internet Marketing - Advantages and Disadvantages
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Northern Source offers web design services for small businesses. You'll find more helpful hints at http://www.northernsource.com

Christopher Smith has been creating web sites for small businesses for over 7 years. In addition to providing deisgn and consultation services, Christopher also provides tips on search engine optimization, internet marketing and traffic generation.

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Marketing Product And Services - What Is The Difference Between Product And Service Marketing?

It may be commonly perceived by many people that there is a world of difference between product and service marketing. They could not be further from the truth because in fact there is hardly any difference. This may be because most people are not given to purchasing products and services. Instead, what makes them buy a product or service is the usefulness of the product or service and how it will benefit them.

The product or service that people purchase is meant to be a solution to some problem, which may be simple or it could be serious problem. The job of marketing is to give to the customer something that is wanted and it may require attracting people to seek a particular solution that is a product or service. There must also be consistent follow-up action that will keep the customer informed about the benefits of the product or service being marketed.

Thus, the main difference between marketing products or services is that there is much more personal contact required when marketing a service as compared with marketing products. Marketing services may require meeting the customer in a face-to-face basis, or it may mean contacting prospective customers over the telephone.

Marketing Product And Services - What Is The Difference Between Product And Service Marketing?

In addition, you would also need to know what the potential customer wants and then give them just that, which is a sure shot means of getting more business. Getting more people attracted to your product or service will help you gather information that can be used to contact them, which is an important step in making a sale.

Once your marketing efforts get you good prospective clients who are coupled with follow-up action, the chances of converting a good percentage of these prospective customers into paying customers will greatly improve and there will be no real perceivable difference between marketing a product or service except perhaps the amount of personal contact made with the customer while marketing your product or service.

Marketing Product And Services - What Is The Difference Between Product And Service Marketing?
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Save Time By Creating Email "Signature Templates"

If you're like me, there are certain types of email that you send out regularly that follow a set form (client follow up notes, meeting notes, email article submission, etc). These can be irritating to have to recreate from scratch every time, but the tried and true method of creating a separate document-file template, then sending that out as an attachment, may not always be appropriate. For example, email-based article submissions generally accept only plain text in-message formatting and require rigorous adherence to detailed submission guidelines involving the placement of bylines, the structure and length of the article body and the arrangement and length of bio-boxes and other inclusions - any deviation from which will result in a refusal of submission. Aggravatingly enough, these submission requirements are often so completely different from one submission site to another that it is difficult if not impossible to keep them straight without an entire set of templates.

To get around these and other problems, consider using the signature option in your emailer program to create individual email "signatures templates" for these commonly sent and repetitive emails. Using the above example of an email article submission email, I might create a "signature template" that looks something like this:

Save Time By Creating Email "Signature Templates"

Title

Byline

Body (single spaced, 60-65 characters per line, no html)

Bio-box (no more that 3 sentences, no more than 2 links)

For a client follow-up or team meeting follow-up email, it might look something like this:

Client (or team member) Name

Date of Meeting

Summary of Meeting

Comments

Action Steps

Next Meeting Agenda

Once the "signature template" is complete, simply save it under a descriptive name ("articles-to-go submission" or "client meeting") and it's ready to use next time you're ready to send an email. Just insert the signature, then type around or over the contents as appropriate. Keep in mind, also, that you can add more than one signature to an email in most emailer programs, so using one of the above "signature templates" does not preclude your adding a standard business signature at the end of the email, as you would normal do.

I'm sure that if you think creatively and look at the emails you send out on a regular basis, you'll find many examples for which a simple "signature template" can save you time, trouble and annoyance. How many ways can you think of to use this time-saving trick?

Save Time By Creating Email "Signature Templates"
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(c) Soni Pitts

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Soni Pitts is the Chief Visionary Butt-Kicker of SoniPitts.Com. She specializes in helping others reclaim "soul proprietorship" in their lives and to begin living the life their Creator always intended for them.

She is the author of the free e-book "50 Ways To Reach Your Goals" and over 100 self-help and inspirational articles, as well as other products and resources designed to facilitate this process of personal growth and spiritual development.

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How to Find Someone on Facebook by Email Address

Facebook is one of the social network sites with the highest growth rate. If Facebook were a country it would be the world's fourth largest country. Facebook added 100 million users in less than 9 month! It has become obvious: Social Networking and specifically Facebook is not just a trend - it is the way of interaction of the future.

If you are new to Facebook please view my other article on 'Facebook - How to Sign Up' and 'Facebook - Personal Page, Group and Business Page' to get started the right way.

If you are already on Facebook you have got an option to find friends you already know: via the Friend Finder, which is the place where Facebook matches people you might know through mutual contacts. You can find those friends under the heading 'Suggestions' in the right column in your 'Home' Facebook page.

How to Find Someone on Facebook by Email Address

What if you want to find someone by their email address? Follow these simple steps:

1. Find their email address in your contact list

2. Copy the email address to make sure you have got the correct address

3. Go to your Facebook page, sign in, if you haven't already

4. In the top section next to the Facebook logo you can find three symbols and the search box next to it - paste the email address into the search box

5. Click on the search symbol or hit enter on your keyboard

6. Members with the email address will appear in a list

7. On the left side of the search results you will see whether the result is part of 'people', 'pages', 'groups' or other areas. Choose the one you are looking for, in your case 'people'.

What if the person does not appear after the search?

Either the person whose email address you have entered has not yet become a member on Facebook or is using another email address than the one you have entered.

In that case you can send them a message through Facebook and invite them to join. The search function will give you that step as an option if your search has not been successful. If you do not see that option, click on 'people' in the left column.

Alternatively simply send them on old-fashion email asking them whether they are on Facebook and if they want to add you as a friend!

How to Find Someone on Facebook by Email Address
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Want to know more? Have a look at my you tube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/nhimmelrich and my 'Technology Tutorials' group on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Top-of-the-World-CA/Technology-Tutorials/273647996113?v=info&ref=ts

Nathalie Himmelrich brings technology closer to you - learn how to use social networks efficiently and easily. Nathalie is working as a mentor and coach one-on-one and in groups to support clients in their personal growth using technology.

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