Why do Firms Go Green?

Environmental issues have gained importance in business as well as in public life through out the world. It is not like that a few leaders of different countries or few big renowned business houses are concerned about the day to day deterioration of oxygen level in our atmosphere but every common citizen of our country and the world is concerned about this common threat of global warming. So in this scenario of global concern, corporate houses has taken green-marketing as a part of their strategy to promote products by employing environmental claims either about their attributes or about the systems, policies and processes of the firms that manufacture or sell them. Clearly green marketing is part and parcel of over all corporate strategy; along with manipulating the traditional marketing mix (product, price, promotion and place), it require an understanding of public policy process. So we can say green marketing covers Continue reading

Brand Irritation – A Case of Negative Brand Image Building

There are some gaps in between a company and its customers. These gaps are due to customer expectation with the brand and that expectation is not met with the actual brand offerings including other factors, which made customer experience not only negative but at the level of irritation. This customer irritation ultimately turns into brand irritation if necessary actions are not take. Brand irritation word coined by the Mr Alison Eastwood in the year 2003 in his article named “Brand irritation”. But in this article he had discussed on the term brand integration (the  use  of  commercial  products  in  the  story  line of  a  television  show,  film,  etc.  and  involving  the development  of  specific  objectives,  strategies, plans,  and  tactics  to  drive  the  business) and connecting it with the use of brand integration in American idol and same kind of initiatives adopted by other brands. He relates it with out of Continue reading

What is Social Marketing?

Nowadays, social marketing is very common in lots of places, for example government agencies, private nonprofit organizations, private for-profit firms and universities. However, many people don’t know what does social marketing is and how it differs from similar fields such as communications and behavior mobilization, it is being confused with generic marketing like ‘societal marketing’ and ‘socially responsible marketing’. There are some practitioners are doing social advertising but they think they are doing social marketing. Social marketing is to understand how to influence people’s behavior in a good way and make better standard of living for human, so it is necessarily to make all these marketing concept clear and to understand them more deeply. To discuss the concept of social marketing, we first have to know the definition of it. Social marketing is defined as the design, implementation and control of programs calculated to influence the acceptability of social ideas Continue reading

What is Customer Retention?

The customer retention is one of the approaches based on consumer behavior. It helps company to retain the customers, not even current customer but also attracts new customers and potential customers in domestic market and around the world. This approach helps customers from action to reaction in order to keep contact with them. Those marketers who recognize the important of customer retention will push as much emphasis to create or strengthen brand loyalty. The improvement of customer satisfaction and customer retention come from variety of activities available to the company. The gain in customer retention comes from improvements of service quality, customer complaint handling and service feature. Caring for existing customers used to be second to attracting new customers. Within a company, there is always a need of the salesperson who acquires the new customer as well as a salesperson that take care old customers. Nowadays, most of companies prioritize Continue reading

Methods of Pricing a New Product

We will address the following questions after new product development: How should a company price a new good or service? How should the price be adapted to meet varying circumstances and opportunities? When should the company initiate a price change, and how should it respond to competitive price changes? In the entire marketing mix, price is the one element that produces revenue; the others produce costs. Price is also one of the most flexible elements: It can be changed quickly, unlike product features and channel commitments. Although price competition is a major problem facing companies, many do not handle pricing well. The most common mistakes are these: Pricing is too cost-oriented; price is not revised often enough to capitalize on market changes; price is set independent of the rest of the marketing mix rather than as an intrinsic element of market-positioning strategy; and price is not varied enough for different Continue reading

Why Integrated Marketing Communication is Important?

For marketing communication to be successful, sound management decisions must be made in the other three areas of the marketing mix: the product, service or idea itself; the price at which the brand will be offered; and the places at or through which customers may purchase the brand. The best promotion cannot overcome poor product quality, inordinately high prices, or insufficient retail distribution. Likewise, successful marketing communication relies on sound management decisions regarding the coordination of the various elements of the promotional mix. To this end, a new way of viewing marketing communication emerged in the 1990s. It is called integrated marketing communication; this perspective seeks to orchestrate the use of all forms of the promotional mix to reach customers at different levels in new and better ways. Why Integrated Marketing Communication is Important? The evolution of the above mentioned perspective has two origins. Marketers began to realize that advertising, Continue reading