Today, brands such as Pepsi, Coca-Cola, Ikea, Snickers and many others are known to every consumer. But they started from the smallest, being created as a small family business. But a properly built marketing campaign allowed them to achieve more. Competent marketing moves have done their job, and now these companies are known not only in their homeland, but also far beyond its borders.
Golden Sales Principles
To increase the number of customers, and, accordingly, sales, you need to pay attention to the problems and needs of consumers, and also do not forget to remind yourself. Each successful marketing move is preceded by golden principles of sales:
- Sponsorship and word of mouth. The more a business owner sponsors small events in his city, the more he will receive visitors. People tend to share news.
- Branding on the web. It is very important not to forget about the promotion of goods / services on Internet platforms, as every year people are increasingly starting to make purchases without leaving their computer monitors.
- Demonstration. Perhaps one of the main strategies to attract customers. The consumer needs to present his product, for example, you can organize a tasting or give out test samples.
- Satisfaction of needs. Each product or service that has entered the market must solve the problems of consumers. If a person gets what he needs, he will definitely return, and regular customers are the key to success.
- Analysis and optimization. You can not stop there. It is necessary to constantly research the market and introduce new ideas. Consumers are not a stable substance, their needs and requirements are constantly changing, and you need to keep up with these changes.
- Marketing research. Only by analyzing the market, you can make an effective marketing move.
- Remind yourself. It is necessary to orient the company's activities towards long-term cooperation with consumers, so do not forget about the memorable logo, slogan and image of the corporation as a whole.
Eight moves
To attract customers, companies most often use the following actions:
- Calling bases of "cold" customers. This allows you to find out if there is a need for a particular product, as well as talk about your assortment.
- Partnership programs. To increase sales, the Internet is increasingly being used, companies are resorting to affiliate programs that help them reach the target audience and disseminate advertising information.
- Assortment and prices. It is very important to keep track of the sales season. Of course, there are goods that are necessary for the buyer all year round, but there are also those that are in demand only in a certain time period. Therefore, in order not to be left without profit in the off season, you can change the assortment, lower prices or hold a promotion.
- Local sale. If there is a store in the corporation’s network that buyers bypass, that is, it brings the least profit, an excellent marketing move would be to conduct a local sale. It is necessary to notify buyers in advance that it is in this store that the sale of goods will take place.
- Advertising and sweepstakes. There is no such person who refuses a freebie. Therefore, it is important to conduct draws with subsequent advertising. This marketing move is very popular on social networks, where you need to share an advertising record in order to take part in the drawing of a product or service.
- Active work in social networks.
- The introduction of new products. A person is such a creature that over time he will get tired of the same product, so you need to take care of creating something unusual, interesting, popular and useful.
- Coupon service. Offer discount coupons to potential consumers.
Advertising
Such marketing moves are known to every entrepreneur. You can even say that this is a classic of the genre. But to become a well-known company, this is not enough. You can’t go far in marketing alone, it’s important to pay attention to advertising, and it’s better to attract a specialist in this field for this purpose. If an entrepreneur can cope with marketing functions independently, then advertising is the destiny of the elite.
Marketing and advertising are initially complementary phenomena: with the help of marketing, you can determine the needs of customers, while advertising focuses on them. Depending on the brand’s image, the number of sales will increase or decrease. Each advertising campaign should answer the question of what kind of product it is and for whom it is intended. For example, 25 years ago, Leo Barnett created an advertisement for Marlboro cigarettes, which had a cowboy image. Even today they are considered the best-selling in the world.
Thus, marketing and advertising should complement each other qualitatively, attracting as many buyers as possible. To understand how this “kitchen” works, it’s better to give some popular examples of promoting a product or brand. Then it will be possible to realize how important marketing moves are in trade and advertising.
Camel offensive
Camel became famous at the time as a non-standard marketing move. It was difficult to surprise America smoking with some new tobacco product, but marketers did not give up. One fine morning, an unusual announcement appeared in all US cities with one word: "Camels." A week later they were replaced by no less intriguing ads: "Camels are coming."
The day before cigarettes were to appear on the market, the labels were changed again, completely stirring up human curiosity. Now the ads were extinguishing: “Tomorrow there will be more camels in the city than in Asia and Africa combined!” On the day cigarettes hit the market, the same ads were again changed: "Camel cigarettes are already in town." This message removed the tension that grew from curiosity, the Americans laughed at such a finale and eagerly tried new cigarettes.
The battery has not run out
Red Bull became famous for the well-known marketing move. When this company first appeared on the market, the niche of energy and tonic drinks was already occupied by the brands Molson, Pepsi, Labatt and Coca-Cola. Of course, these products were not energy in their pure form, but in advertising there were references to a tonic effect.
The marketing specialist in the advertising campaign, Dietrich Mateshnitz, was well aware that it was impossible to stand on a par with these giants, using standard marketing tricks. Therefore, the following was proposed: to reduce the volume of the can and make it look like a battery, which hints at being charged, and, of course, double the price. Therefore, the advertising campaign was not costly, and such “batteries” were placed in stores in the most non-standard places (however, this tradition has been preserved today).
Mateshnits also offered to give away free boxes of drinks near the student buildings, this is still practiced. In addition, the company sponsors various youth events, tactfully keeping silent about the fact that students prefer to mix energy with vodka.
As a result, marketers gained independent product positioning on the market and created their own niche, distinctive from other drinks.
Sales increase
An entertaining marketing move was used by Alkazeltser to increase sales. In the 60s of the last century, an advertisement appeared on television screens in which they began throwing not one, but two tablets into the water. As a result, the number of sales doubled.
Also, in order to increase sales, it is necessary to correctly orientate advertising campaigns to consumer requests and understand the mentality of the country in which the new product arrives from abroad. For example, in 1992, the Snickers bar appeared on the shelves of the domestic market. At first it was advertised as a snack, which can replace lunch or dinner. However, the domestic consumer did not understand how chocolate can replace soup, so they bought the bar as a dessert for tea. Seeing this state of things, marketers changed their advertising strategy, focusing it on adolescents. These children do not like soups, but they love sweets. This successful marketing move ensured product success.
Other marketing gimmicks
In the 80s of the last century, the now famous Timberland company was going through difficult times. Shoes, although they were of high quality, comfortable and inexpensive, were not bought well. Then the company made a simple and effective decision: set the price higher than that of competitors. As a result, sales increased, because the more expensive the product, the more desirable it becomes.
Thomas Dewar used an interesting marketing ploy to sell Dewar's whiskey. In the 19th century, drinks like brandy, rum and gin were popular in London. Selling whiskey was unprofitable and very difficult. Dewar, founder of Dewar's brand, took a very unexpected move to attract customers.
Thomas hired dummy shoppers who went to pubs and asked if Dewar's was on sale. Of course, this drink was absent, and the dummy buyers left in frustrated feelings. After some time, Thomas Dewar himself began to appear in the pubs and offered to conclude a contract for the supply of whiskey. Over two years of operation, its turnover has grown 10 times.
Complete failure
We have given only some examples of marketing moves. Successful, of course. But such events are not always successful. Even the largest and most popular companies from time to time bring to the market a product that does not bring them the desired profit and success. This happens for many reasons, but most often due to the fact that marketers do not pay attention to trifles, subsequently, such errors become fatal.
At one time, even the company "screwed up". In 2010, she launched the Ping Music Community Network. Steve Jobs assured that this service will be number one for listening to iTunes music. True, this service was never able to compete with Twitter and Facebook.
ITunes users have not enthusiastically accepted the launch of the Ping social network. It was possible to follow the creative achievements and public life of your favorite artists, as well as watch how the musical tastes of friends change and compose personal charts. Launch Day came on September 3, company vice president Eddie Kew announced that a third of iTunes users have already joined Ping. But this did not go beyond this. The next day, a lot of spam and fake profiles of musicians appeared on the social network. Journalists also reacted with coolness to this service. The failure became apparent even in 2010: few music artists were registered at Ping, moreover, the network was available in less than ten countries and was not integrated with Facebook, since Zuckerberg set onerous conditions (at least, Jobs thought so) .
In senseless agony, Ping lasted another two years, until in 2012 it was recognized as unsuccessful. The social network died quietly on September 30, leaving a farewell message: “Thank you for your interest in Ping. We are no longer accepting new users. ”
Unsuccessful New Coke
Coca-Cola was also defeated when it tried to increase the number of customers. In the mid-80s of the last century, Roberto Gazuete, who was considered the most successful sales manager of the twentieth century, began to be called the “main idiot”, as he tried to replace Coca-Cola with “New Cola”.
In fact, everything was done correctly: New Coke went through hundreds of tastings, the results of which said that a slightly sweeter taste would surely become the key to success among consumers. But when the company announced that the new stake would replace the old one forever, buyers rebelled because they were not given the right to choose. They stopped buying a new drink purely out of principle.
"Skeletons"
Danone's slogan sounds interesting enough: "Take care, children, about your skeleton." It seems nothing wrong, but when they draw a skull, skeletons and crossbones on sour-milk products, then this is too Gothic. Representatives of the Danon company believed that such a design and slogan would attract Russian teenagers, but the scary ’yogurts did not cause much enthusiasm.
Even worse: such packages scared the parents of the main target audience. A resident of Moscow even filed a lawsuit against Danone, demanding to stop producing products, which destructively affects the children's psyche. The Russian Orthodox Church is also outraged by the similar, considering such packing as an abuse of the dead. Later, the Expert Commission on Social Advertising Ethics joined in and convinced the company to stop releasing this brand in Russia.
It is worth noting that Danone is not the first time to miss the name of products entering the domestic market. In the 90s, the whole country repeated the slogan of advertising baby food “Bledina - everything your child needs”, only parents were not really eager to buy an “indecent” product for their kids.
Any marketing move requires prior preparation. You need to carefully study the market, the needs of consumers and even the mentality of a particular region, so as not to fall into the dirt face. Starting small, you can achieve significant heights, but for this you need to work, and not rely on luck.