Marketing technologies are methods of promoting a product (service) to the market. In addition, these are ways to increase sales. Marketing is not limited to advertising and sales promotion. Everything related to the product refers to it: quality, ergonomics, properties, design. This is the price, the choice of points for implementation, promotions, loyalty programs.
Consider what types of marketing technologies exist. Find out what their features are.
Network marketing
It is about creating a sales chain. Independent agents of the company sell its products. They attract other people, becoming their leaders. New agents soon also become one step higher. They begin to control a group of other implementers. Managers receive a percentage of the value of goods sold by lower-level agents.
Network marketing allows a company to minimize costs. The manufacturer does not need to look for wholesalers who will sell the goods in stores. No need to pay for transportation vehicles and storage facilities. No costs for managers. You can even save on advertising, because this function is performed by the agents themselves.
Merchandising
The use of marketing technology consists in the correct placement of goods. The seller creates such conditions that the buyer easily and quickly find what he needs. That he perceived being in the store as entertainment, pleasure and spent as much money as possible. Products must have attractive advertising descriptions and the right price tags.
Call center
The company places the number of its call center on the packaging of goods or in television advertising. Sometimes he promises to send a small gift to the consumer for making a call. The telephone exchange distributes all the callers to the call center. The first talk with the operators. The second is waiting for the specialists to be free, and at this time they are listening to information about promotions, discounts of the company.
Talking on the phone increases brand awareness, trust and customer loyalty. For questions asked by callers, you can create a portrait of the consumer, understand the needs. Comments and recommendations allow the company to make a product or service more attractive to customers.
Viral marketing
It consists in the fact that people themselves share product information with each other. Divided by:
- Rumor spread. The manufacturer conveys to the masses certain information for the purpose of advertising. People tend not only to interpret in their own way, but also to add something of their own. As a result, the information is distorted. But companies such gossip profitable, they increase recognition and interest. It happens that the information is so misinterpreted that it can harm the reputation of the manufacturer.
- Directed word of mouth. The company employs people who talk about the benefits of the product, call it the best. Moreover, this is presented as a conviction of a particular person, and not as an advertisement.
- Gifts, discounts for attracting other buyers.
- Product advertising from the mouths of opinion leaders, celebrities. This technology is expensive, but usually pays well.
Guerrilla marketing
By this term, some mean covert marketing. Others mean non-standard. Such confusion in concepts gives the right to talk about two subspecies of guerrilla marketing. This new marketing technology has arisen in response to the glut of advertising information space and real life. Consumers have developed insensitivity. They just stopped noticing ads.
Hidden guerrilla marketing is when people do not notice that they are trying to make them loyal to some brand, product. For example, a mobile phone company has attracted well-known media personalities. They asked passers-by to photograph them on a smartphone and at the same time talked about its advantages. Everything looked natural, like an exchange of personal experience.
Customized guerrilla marketing involves low costs. It is suitable for small businesses or low-budget startups. The essence of the technology is the distribution of promotional products of unusual appearance and content. Example: a yoga center business card is made of neoprene. It looks exactly like a rolled up exercise mat.
Cross marketing
Companies join forces and promote products together or promote each other. Firms must produce a different product. The target audience is one or intersect. It is important that consumers of both products have approximately the same income level. Budget and high-end products will be difficult to promote together.
Types of cross-marketing:
- Tactical. One-time cooperation for a short time. This can be a holiday promotion or discounts on the occasion of the company's birthday. However, this technology can be used often, as well as attract any number of partners.
- Strategic. Companies (two, rarely three) agree on long-term cooperation. They offer a loyalty program, order general advertising or promote each other.
Product Placement
Marketing technologies have settled in culture for a long time. Product placement is a confirmation of this. What is its essence? The plot of a movie, video game, clip, book introduces an advertisement for a product or brand. The spread of this technology is due to the fact that consumers began to consciously avoid advertising. They switch the channel, install a blocker on the Internet. Product placement is of three types:
- Audible. A character or voiceover mentions a product.
- Visual. Viewers through the movie character see a logo or product. For example, a sign on the street, a drink on the table.
- Kinesthetic. The character interacts with the product, for example, makes sharp turns on a motorcycle of a famous brand.
Internet Marketing
This is the newest technology that has developed in a separate direction. Internet promotion has subspecies. We will analyze each of them.
SEO optimization
It is necessary to attract more Internet users to the site. To do this, the page should be in the first positions or on the first pages of the search engine. SEO optimization is internal and external.
Internal optimization improves the quality of the site. A good page should respond to a request from visitors, contain the correct keys. Of great importance are the usefulness, structure, uniqueness and volume of the texts. Site linking and other components of internal optimization make it more attractive to people.
External optimization involves placing links to a web resource on other sites. It is important not only the quantity, but also the reputation of third-party resources. You can exchange links with high-quality, visited sites. Their credibility and mention of your site will help in promotion. It’s dangerous to buy so many links at a time and post them on one-day websites. Search engines can recognize the trick, and the rating of a web resource will drop.
SMM
This is social media marketing. The company, in order to interest buyers, leads groups on social networks, it also conducts surveys and contests. You can “be friends” with other groups to increase the number of subscribers.
Benefits of SMM:
- in social networks, only the target audience, which means traffic to the site is better;
- feedback from consumers helps to improve the quality of services (product);
- users themselves disseminate information, share with friends;
- cheaper than SEO.
Disadvantages of SMM:
- no quick return;
- no guarantee;
- not suitable for complex industrial products and b2b segment.
Smo
This is a website optimization for popular social networks. The resource integrated with social networks has buttons “Share”, “Like”. On the site you can subscribe to updates via social networks, through it to comment on your favorite article.
Viral Internet Marketing
Thanks to social networks and the Internet as a whole, content spreads as fast as a virus, and reaches a huge number of users in a short time. Kinds:
- Viral video. This Internet marketing technology is used most often. The bottom line is placing a funny, unusual video on the site. Most often in the video there is no product advertisement - only the logo or company name in the credits. For people to share a video with friends, it must be very interesting.
- Viral game with prizes. The company holds a competition to complete some tasks, then an entertainment event. It ends with the presentation of gifts to the winners. This is an expensive technology, it is used only by major market players.
- Information transfer through well-known bloggers. This only applies to popular high traffic blogs.
- Viral marketing through social networks. Not only video can be distributed, but also a funny picture, photo, link to the site.
Direct marketing
It is synonymous with direct marketing. Technology involves direct one-way contact with potential customers. Users who are the target audience are sent a series of letters by e-mail or SMS. Using the newsletter, the company demonstrates its expertise to the client, shows how it can be useful. Then he tries to sell a product or service.
To start a newsletter does not need a huge budget. Conveniently, the company has statistics on open letters, links and orders. The difficulty lies in the fact that you need to accurately create a customer base, and then constantly replenish it. In addition, often emails get into spam. Some users do not fundamentally open such letters.
contextual advertising
On the page with the results of search results, the user can see the ad units. They are located on top, just below the search bar, and on the right. Still such advertising is found on sites of the same or similar subjects. Contextual advertising can be a text ad or a banner ad.
If the user is interested, he clicks the link and goes to the advertiser's site. For each transition, and therefore for each potential client, the manufacturing company pays money. The more popular the key phrase in the ad, the more expensive the ad.
The advantage of marketing technology is that from the very first day the company receives potential customers who switched to the site. No need to advance through optimization. However, customers may disappear when the ad expires. In addition, contextual advertising is not suitable for information sites. Resources that earn on traffic will not be able to recoup it.
Display ad
Speaking of display advertising, as a rule, they mean banners. These are images, animated drawings, or short videos. Banners look almost the same as ads on billboards or magazine pages. They inform consumers about stocks, products that have appeared.
The banner should be not only attractive and noticeable, but also catchy, that is, play on the emotions of a person. Placing a banner on a site with high traffic is expensive. This information and marketing technology allows you to see statistics. Unfortunately, it shows that there are not many site visitors who follow the link, become customers.
Internet branding
The essence and purpose of this modern marketing technology is the formation of a company’s brand, its development and promotion on the Internet. Internet branding at different stages has its own tasks.
- Introducing the audience to the brand. It must become recognizable, and for this company uses many of the above marketing technologies: banners, advertising in social networks, forums, cross-and direct marketing. The manufacturer explains to the audience the features of its product or service, tries to form the image of a professional. People must believe in the company's ability to solve their problems.
- Strengthening the brand’s position in the network. Due to the quality of products and services, the company has more and more customers. The manufacturer communicates with them through the site, social networks, involving consumers in the life of the brand. At this stage, product advertising by well-known personalities works well. As a result, customers become loyal to the brand.
- Constantly maintaining the image of the company. This stage is the most difficult. For customers to become supporters of the brand’s products, quality, sales and after-sales service, and fame are required. A company with a lot of followers can save on advertising.
Social Marketing Technology
Unlike farther ones, this technology is not intended to sell more services or to satisfy customers' need for a product. Its goal is to improve the quality of life of certain categories of people, to popularize an idea that is useful for a society or ecosystem. The company can help poor, orphanages, encourage people to join a charity event. Large manufacturers are promoting the idea of making recycled packaging or replacing plastic bags with paper bags.
Control system
Marketing technology management includes:
- Product policy. This is creating new products or updating. Product positioning in the market, ensuring its competitiveness. Packaging development, brand development.
- Sales policy. This is sales promotion, demand generation, marketing strategy development .
- Pricing policy. This is the choice of a reasonable price of goods, margins, discounts. Setting the initial price and options for its fluctuations.
- Technologies of marketing communications. They are used at all stages of promotion from the manufacturer to the client. The company decides in which areas it will advertise and conduct public relations. Develops ways of sales and their stimulation. It is determined with the creation of the brand image and criteria for the quality of service.
- Technology marketing research. These are observations, surveys of the target audience, experiments, expert evaluation, development of a mathematical model.
No matter how good the service, product, without the use of marketing technology companies cannot succeed. Recently, marketing has become very difficult, and the approaches that were effective yesterday still do not work today. Professionals who are knowledgeable in marketing technologies, as a rule, have specialization, for example, SEO, SMM or e-mail newsletters. It is better for companies to turn to professionals for promotion services.