Category: Marketing

Categories
Marketing

How to Make Profit in Off Season

जीडीपी
जीडीपी

?Introduction

  • Do you run a seasonal business?
  • Are you unable to run your seasonal business during off season?
  • Do you know how to make profit in off season?

Ice cream, cold/hot drinks, woolen cloths, summer clothes, agro products, tourism, firecrackers, and colors are among those businesses, which are either fully seasonal or semi-seasonal.

Such products or services are sold only during one particular period or season, while the rest of the time, sales of these products drop so much that merchants find it difficult to cover even their operational cost.

If you are also running a seasonal business, then let’s find out the answer to how to make profit in off season through following ways:

Tip #1: Go Where the Season is

It is the first tip of how to make profit in off season. It means think geographically. Select those places for your business where the demand for that product is, or where you can sell more products.

Example:
A merchant running a business of woolen cloths will find difficult to sell his products during the summer season. He can ’explore hilly places’ to sell his products where there are ’winters for an extended period’. 

Tip #2: Extend Your Season

Seasonal businesses can also be extended by giving off season promotions and schemes to attract consumers before and after the season.

If your business Season is Diwali (Business Period – 1 week)

 If your business Season is Winters (Woolen clothes) (Business Period – 4 Months)
You can extend your period by giving off season promotions like Pre-Diwali offers. Add 2 months pre-winter season.
You can extend your period post-Diwali offers. Add 2 months post-winter season.
Extend your season for 2-3 months before and after Diwali. Bring some schemes in pre and post-season months to attract customers
By extending your business season you can increase the size of your business even during offseason.
Tip #3: Contract Manufacturing/Channel Partner
Instead of selling your products with a small brand name and limited reach or customer base, you can make a deal with big brands to sell your products even during off-season through a heavy dose of branding.
It is one of the tips on how to make profit in offseason.
?  Contact with Big brands to sell your products with their brand name.
?  Build business partners in locations where you don’t have to reach.
Tip #4: Serve Other Industries
Even during off-season you can explore the opportunity to sell your products to different industries by creating market demand through marketing and sales strategies. 
Don’t depend only on one Sector or Season to sell your products.
The below example will tell you how to bring customers in offseason of your business. 
Example:
A cracker manufacturer, apart from Diwali season, can sell crackers to event organizers, wedding planners, national festivals and other celebrations. 

Tip #5: Stay on the Top of your Customer’s Mind

Through various marketing and branding strategies, you can influence customer’s minds during the off-season to increase sales.
Make optimum use of ’guerrilla marketing’ to stay on top of customer’s mind via Social Media, Print Media, TV/Radio Ads, and Hoarding/Billboards.
Tip #6: Build a Referral and a Loyalty Program
There are some businesses that run during some specific period or season and remain saturated during the rest of the time such as Aviation, Hospitality, and Tourism, etc.
During the summer season, hotels in hill stations get maximum customers, while their business remains saturated during other seasons.
To know how to make profit in off-season, you should:
?  Build loyalty with your past & existing customers
?  Give them attractive offers and deals through various mediums
?  Try to get the reference of new customers from existing customers
Tip #7: Add Complimentary Freebies Product or Service
Instead of giving discounts during off-season, you can give your customers off-season promotions schemes like ’small freebies along with the main product’ to increase your sales.
You can give exciting offers to your customers like free home delivery, gift & voucher, and extended warranty, etc. These are some of the offseason promotions techniques. 

Tip #8: Focus on What You can’t do During the Season Time

During business season, since you remain too busy with customers and vendors in selling and buying products that you hardly get time to focus on other activities which can increase your sales and stop leakages.
However, you can perform such activities during off season to increase your sales in the upcoming season.
To know how to make profit in off season, you can focus on below given things:
?  Build a low-cost infrastructure
?  Reduce purchasing cost
?  Create web/digital infrastructure
?  Build a digital marketing team  
?  Hire and train better manpower

Tip #9: Build a New Product Line Specifically for Off-Season

You can also bring required changes in your product as per customer’s demand to sell it during the off-season to keep your recurring revenue from fluctuating.
Example:
A manufacturer of blazer can design a light waistcoat which can be sold even in the summer season.
Tip #10: Money Saved is also Money Earned
When there is a slowdown in your sales during off-season, you can work on implementing new ideas to reduce your operational cost by a leakage management system.
It is another tip to how to make profit in offseason.
You can reduce your operational cost during off-season by changing:
?  Supply chain
?  Hiring contractual staff
?  Changing vendor
’Business can be seasonal but commitment should not be seasonal’
Categories
Marketing

How to Create a Hook to Attract Customers

Introduction

  • Do you want to increase your sales?
  • Do you know how to create a hook to attract more customers?

As a hook is required to catch a fish, similarly you require a hook in your product to catch the customer’s attention. You require a hook in your advertising brand campaign.

Your customer is busy. If you provide him a complex and long message, he will forget it quickly. You need to grab his attention in the minimum time.

You need to create that attention grabber through which the customer is able to connect with you.

This attention grabber is the hook.

Before you get to know how to create a hook, you must know what it is.

What actually a Hook is?

A hook is any benefit or information about your product that the customer can recall.

It can be a small title or a tagline explaining what you are doing differently in your business.

It also includes a promise or commitment that your customer requires.

Your hook should be surprising, touches the extreme emotions, and exclamatory.

Use a hook in your all the communication material including your website, brochure, business

card, hoarding, lanyard, landing page, social media, email, or your corporate dress.

How to Create a Hook?

You can create a hook through six types of hooks.

Fear of Missing Out (FOMO)

Your customers should have a fear that they can miss out on your product.

Good hook sentence example:
 

’Sirf ek tapakti boond, apki kismat badal sakti hai.
’ The advertisement of m-seal created a hook by using this catchy sentence. 

Customer Convenience or Comfort

You can create a hook that promises customer convenience or comfort.

With given example let’s understand how to create a hook by using the sentences that comfort consumers. 

Good hook sentence example
: Surf excel created a hook by saying, ’Daag ache hain.’

It promises the mothers that they need not worry about the stains as it can be easily washed with the help of their product.

The feeling of Belongingness and Relation between the Company and Customer

Good hook sentence example:

The tagline of Tata Salt is, ’Desh ka namak, Tata namak.’

This creates a feeling in the hearts of the customers that this is our country’s salt.

Help your audience to achieve their goals: Your tagline should be like -you can help the customer in solving their problem or achieving their goals.

Good hook sentence example:

Big Bazar says, ’Is se sasta aur accha kahin nahi.’

This is an assurance to customers that we will help you in achieving your goal of purchasing the cheapest and best products.

How to Create a Hook by Power of Thrill and Excitement

Good hook sentence example:

Mountain dew says, ’Darr ke aage jeet hai.’

All the advertisements of mountain dew include adventure and thrill like people climbing in the mountains. This gives a feeling of thrill among the customers.

Convert Hurt, Mystery, or Disappointment into Hope

Good hook sentence example:

CP Plus is a CCTV camera brand which became famous from its hook: ’Upar wala sab dekh raha hai.’

In the advertisement, someone is stealing something but is being watched by top-fitted CCTV cameras. In the background voice says, ’Upar wala sab dekh raha hai’ referring to the CCTV cameras.

Essentials for Creating Hook

For creating a hook, you need to be:

  • Creative and think out of the box.
  • Conduct research about your competitors and the taglines they are using to attract customers.
  • Study the buying behavior of your existing customers.

Your hook should be the problem-solving USP of your product. It should be able to take out or touch the hidden emotions of your customers.

So, your hook should be like that it can enable your customers to recall your product immediately. For this, you can use the six types of hooks discussed above. 

Categories
Marketing

How to Build Customer Loyalty

Introduction

  • Is your customer loyal to you or feel connected with you?
  • Do you want to know formulas to calculate customer’s loyalty?
  • Do you want to know how to build customer loyalty? 

Getting a customer is easy, but getting their loyalty is the difficult part. To make your customer loyal, you first need to do his purchase analysis.

Whenever a customer comes to your store, you need to observe which kind of products he is purchasing and in which kind of products he is interested.

If you incentivize the products in which he is interested, he will buy your products and become your loyal customer.

To know how to build customer loyalty, you need to understand the customer loyalty formula. 

Following are the 5 important loyalty formulas on how to gain customer loyalty.

Formula #1: Repurchase Rate

The repurchase rate is one of the formulas to know how to gain customer loyalty.

Repurchase rate = (Number of repurchases/ Number of unique purchases) x 100

For Example:

10,000 people purchase your product. Among them, 1000 people came again to purchase something from you. In this case, your repurchase rate is 10%.

Once you got the repurchase rate, it becomes easy for you to increase it.

Formula #2: Net Promoter Score (NPS)

NPS is also one of the ways to know how to gain customer loyalty.

NPS is the rate to which your customers are satisfied with your products and services. NPS is calculated as follows:

NPS = Promoters (Highly satisfied customers) ’ Detractors (Dissatisfied customers)

You can determine your number of promoters and detractors by taking customer feedback on a scale of 1-10. Different ratings on the scale have different meanings like:

Rating 1-6
’ means customers are not satisfied with your products or services

Rating between 7-8
’ means customers are neutral about your products or services

Rating between 9-10 
’ means customers are highly satisfied with your products or services

Let’s talk about customer loyalty example:

If 100 people visit your restaurant in a month and 70 people gave you either 9 or 10 rating, 10 people gave you 7-8 rating and the 20 people gave you a rating between 1- 6, then your NPS is:

Net Promoter Score (NPS) = 70 ’ 20 = 50

Formula #3: Up-Selling and Cross-Selling Ratio

To know how to build customer loyalty, you need to first determine the up-selling and cross-selling ratio.

Suppose, you have a fast food outlet and a customer buys a burger from you.

Can you sell something else with the burger like a cold drink or ice cream?

If yes, then you can create a meal for him like McDonald’s does.

If a person comes to buy a particular product but he buys some other product as well, this is called cross-selling and up-selling.

Up-selling and cross-selling ratio:

= (Number of customers buying more than one product/Number of customers who bought a single product) x 100

For Example

If 5000 people are buying 1 product from you and among them and 1000 people bought more than 1 product, then your upselling and cross-selling ratio will be:

Upselling and cross-selling ratio = (1000/5000) x 100 = 20%.

Now, you just have to increase this upselling and cross-selling ratio and your turnover will increase drastically.

Formula #4: Frequency and Recency

Frequency means how frequent a customer buys your product, whereas recency means how recently the customer bought your product.

Calculate the frequency and recency of a loyal customer.

You need to know whether the customer is coming to your shop because he loves to shop there or he is coming just because the other shop is closed.

Formula #5: Redemption Rate

Give free coupons to your customers and ask them to redeem it on their next visit. This will encourage the customer for repeat purchases.

Soon, he will become your loyal customer as he is getting extra benefits from you.

Redemption rate = (Total loyalty points issued by you/Redeemed points) x 100

For Example

If 10,000 loyalty points were issued in a month by you and about 5000 points were redeemed, the rate comes out to be 50%.

All the above formulas will help you in understanding how to build customer loyalty efficiently and effectively.

An increase in customer loyalty will not only increase your customer base but will also grow your sales and profit.

Categories
Marketing

How to Build Brand Loyalty

?Introduction

  • Are your customers not buying your product?
  • Do you know how to build brand loyalty among customers? 

’Brand Loyalty’ and ’Customer Loyalty’ are two strong points in any business. So, companies are focusing on how to retain customers and build brand loyalty.

Today, every big brand and small company is continuously creating brand loyalty to retain their customers. 

You need to have a customer loyalty department whether you are running a small business or big to retain your customers.

Now, the question arises ’what is loyalty?’ and how to build brand loyalty? 

Understanding Loyalty

To know how to build brand loyalty, you need to first understand what loyalty is.

Loyalty is a bond between you and your customers. It is different from customer satisfaction.

Customer satisfaction is more like a rating system, wherein your customer says, ’I’m 10 out of 10 satisfied’. But this doesn’t mean that he is loyal to your brand. 

This is because a satisfied customer can move to the next product or services on any day at any time.

For Example

It is not necessary Apple’s customer is satisfied with Apple mobile, but he is brand loyal and will never leave this brand.

Harley-Davidson – Customer won’t like to switch from this brand to Hero Moto Corp.

Thus, loyalty is an emotion tool which can be built step by step. Every businessman can create brand loyalty and their customers will never switch from their brand on any condition.

Loyal Customers is Your Promoter!

A loyal customer starts spreading about your brand through ’Word of Mouth’ marketing.

In effect, he is not just your customer, but he becomes a Promoter to your company and generally works like an unpaid salesman.

If you can retain 5% of the existing customers then your profit will increase from 25% to 95%.

– Harvard Business School

’Foundation of Loyalty is TRUST’, where trust is more Likelihood, Likeliness of business increases many folds. 

Thus, loyal customers:

?  Increases your brand equity.

?  Brings down your cost almost by 7X.

?  Increases Repeat and Repurchase.

Now, let’s see how to retain customers and build brand loyalty.

How to Build Brand Loyalty?

#1: Point-Based Loyalty

It is one of the ways to how to build brand loyalty.

By giving, points on each shopping one can generate online conversion and in-shop experience.

It will ’increase the engagement of your customers with your brand’ and they would like to redeem points on their next shopping. 

For Example

Amazon Prime has become ’King of Brand Loyalty’ through Impulsive shopping, Value for Money, Exclusive deals and Free Videos.

Nowadays, social media has emerged as a big platform to increase loyalty on Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram.

#2: Customer Referral Program

It is another way how to build brand loyalty.

If you have a platform where you can increase customer engagement then it will lead you to more customers. In this, the customer becomes your partner in the customer acquisition process.

You can give some benefits or perks to your existing customers for making new customers.

For Example

Ola and Uber give free rides to their customers on referring their App to new customers.

#3: Data Analysis

Try to analyze the data history of your customers through Electronic Virtual System (EVA). Based on this data, try to interact with your customers and make them loyal.

You can also increase involvement through Whatsapp for business, chat, messages, which could ’involve your customers emotionally’ or solve their problems.

#4: Omni Channel Strategy

It is the fourth way to how to build brand loyalty.

It is a very important and successful strategy. You just try to touch your customers emotionally by using one of the following tools-

  • Social Media
  • Mobile
  • Online Sites
  • Physical store
  • CRM and big data

You need to make them feel special by –

?  Wishing your customers on Birthday.

?  Offering coupon or discount voucher

Always follow 80:20 Rule
– It says if you send 8 messages related to awareness for customer’s benefits, then only send 2 messages to ask them to buy your product or services.

You can adopt these strategies of how to retain customers and build brand loyalty and achieve great success in business.

Categories
Marketing

10 Employee Retention Strategies

Introduction
  • Are your employees leaving your company frequently?
  • Are you unable to retain your manpower?
  • Do you implement employee retention strategies in your organization?
The two most important problems in any business are ’competition’ and ’attrition.’ Competition is outside, while attrition is inside.
Attrition means how many employees leave your company.
Usually, top companies worldwide don’t give high salaries, but ’dole-out ’Maggie’ in the form of various perks and benefits’ to retain employees.
Now, let us understand innovative employee retention strategies used by big companies to keep their attrition rate very low compared to others.
#1: Accommodation and Pick & Drop Facility
It is one of the most creative employee retention strategies to retain employees. It won’t cost much to the employer as part payment is deducted from the salary of employee itself but it ’gives a sense of pride and convenience to the employee’.
#2: Tea, Coffee and Snacks Counter
Apart from providing free tea, coffee or other snacks, some companies also provide food at a subsidized price. It also acts as innovative employee retention strategies.
#3: Timely Salary, Bonus, Appraisal and Promotion
It has been seen in various new companies and Startups that they don’t provide a salary to their employees on time.
The employer needs to understand employee’s expenses like- EMIs, Bill payments, Groceries, and Pre-planned monthly expenses.
It is also an innovative employee retention strategies.
#4: Insurance
In addition to salary, if the employer adds insurance into it then gross salary increases automatically.
Due to the sedentary lifestyle and unhealthy eating habits, every now and then new diseases come into existence.
It is advisable that employer provide health insurance of at least Rs. 1-2 lakh to its employees by selecting a good insurance company.
Again, it won’t cost much as the part premium would be deducted from an employee’s salary.
It is also one of the most creative employee retention strategies to retain your employees.

#5: Work from Home or Flexi-Schedule

Among the most important creative employee retention strategies is a flexible working environment.
There are some departments in the company where performance is easy to measure and they have less dependency on other departments.
If there is any such department in your company, you can give employees the flexibility to finish 9 hours of their shift, irrespective of check-in and check-out time.
For Example
You may allow your employees to work from home or can give flexibility in office-timings, which increases their productivity and performance.
It will decide whether your employees will live and grow, or they will leave and go.
#6: Kanyadaan or Scholarship Scheme
Another most innovative employee retention strategy is providing scholarships to children of employees. 
You may propose to your employees that if they stay for 5 years or 10 years in your company, you’ll add some specified money into Kanyadaan or scholarship fund every month, which will ’help in their child’s marriage or education in future.’
#7: Free Grocery to Blue Collared Employees
Apart from the regular salary, if you ’provide grocery bag worth Rs. 2000’, to your blue collared employees like driver, peon or office boy, it will act as a ’comfort factor’ for such employees. 
Hence, it is an easy and innovative employee retention strategies to retain blue-collared workers.
#8: Benefit against Contract
If your employee requires any expensive items like a car, bike, laptop, etc., you can give it to him/her against a contract.
Now, the item will be purchased on the employee’s name, and the company will pay the price, provided that employee shall remain in the company for next 3 or 5 or 10 years, depending upon the item purchased and policy of your company.

#9: Interest-Free Loan for Emergency and Adversity

A person remembers only two types of people, one who was with him in his good times and the other, who was with him in his bad times.
Your number 1 customer is your employee; if you support them in their adverse time then they will never leave you.
? You don’t have to earn interest on that loan.
? Don’t fear that he will run away with your money.
Giving a loan of amount 3 times his salary won’t affect much, provided he spent some time in your company.
#10: Additional Week-Off with Every Year Completed
Tell your employees that:
  • If they complete 1 year in the office, they will be given 1 Saturday off.
  • if they complete 4 years in the company, they will get 4 Saturday off.
  • After 4 years, they will be eligible for gratuity.
This motivates them to spend many years in your company.
By applying these ideas you may not need to give hefty hikes to your employees as they are complacent with the security and safety provided by you.
These are the 10 employee retention strategies which will help you retain your manpower. You may think it will cost you dearly but in reality, it won’t.
Categories
Marketing

Is Cost of Customer Acquisition Eating Away Your Business?

Introduction

  • Are you facing a problem in calculating your Cost of Customer Acquisition(COCA)?
  • Do you think that your margins are low because of High COCA?

Many businesses fail because they spend too much on acquiring a client without calculating the cost.

This impacts their margins and profits that hit the company despite the best strategy.

So, it is important to understand and calculate customer acquisition costs.

What is COCA?

The full form of COCA is the Cost of Customer Acquisition. It is the customer acquisition cost, which means the cost of convincing a potential customer to buy/use a product or service.

In simple terms, the company incurs a lot of expenses on marketing & advertising its product to reach out to the potential buyer along with the salary of its employees. The total amount spent in this process is called the Cost of Customer Acquisition (COCA).

Once COCA is calculated, we can arrive at the actual Average Cost per Customer.

Calculating COCA

Let us take an example to understand how to calculate customer acquisition cost. 

A businessman spends Rs 1 crore on ’Marketing + Advertising + Sales’ and acquires 100 new customers.

Now, Cost of Customer Acquisition or COCA can be calculated as:

COCA = (Sales and Marketing Expenses)/New Customers Acquired

COCA = Rs 1 crore/100

            = Rs 1 lakh

That is, Rs 1 lakh is spent by the businessman to acquire one additional customer, which is the customer acquisition cost.

Now, your next step is to analyze whether you can afford 1 lakh rupees to add one more new customer or the Cost of Customer Acquisition.

If you have a business of repeat sales i.e. recurring revenue model business, then a new customer can give you good business in the next 5 years.

If a customer is buying only once and cost to add a new customer is more than what you get by selling your product, in that case, it is not a good idea to invest so much in acquiring a new customer/client.

Points to Remember

Business Loss = COCA > Business Expenses

COCA < Expected COCA, here you consider your friends, family & relatives as your customers and once they go away, you find yourself in a tough situation. So, it is important to make some budget for bearing cost of customer acquisition without plunging into the negative margin.

It is important to understand the long-term relational value while acquiring a new customer.

You need to identify those behaviors that are indicative of a loyal customer. And then you need to hold your customers for repeat business.

Retention marketing is a new battleground in the business, where tracking is compulsory.

Categories
Marketing

Methods for Understanding Customer Needs!

?Introduction

  • Are you understanding customer needs?
  • Are you looking to improve your understanding about customers?

You need not become Steve Jobs to innovate. 

This is because Innovation is Approachable, Easy, Doable and Feasible.

You can do it by understanding customer needs.

Here are 8 methods that will help you in identifying customer needs and behaviour.

Method #1: Start with the Existing Data

Before launching any product, you should study the consumer behavior. To do so, you should analyze the customer data which will help you in understanding customer needs and determine their buying behaviour. 

  • Compile all the customer data available on your computer, call logs, or data bank.
  • Analyze the customer data to identify which product has a high demand.
  • Collect the details of customers from feedback forms to study their buying pattern.

Example:

Apple Inc. collects data of all the customers visiting its retail stores across the world and analyzes it for identifying customer needs and their buying behavior.

Swedish company, IKEA, uses an Artificial Intelligence-based Chat Bot on its online platform to interact with the customers. This helps them to study the customers’ buying behavior.

Method #2: Interview the Internal Stakeholders

Another most powerful way for understanding customer needs is by establishing direct communication with the internal stakeholders. 

  • Get reviews from people who come in direct contact with the customers.
  • Assemble all reviews from the team members of sales, services, delivery, and customer care department.
  • Based on these reviews, try identifying customer needs.

Method #3: Identify Pains & Gaps in the Customers’ Buying Process

For identifying customer needs, when a customer comes to your shop or online platform, you need to understand:

  • What he really wants? 
  • What are the gaps that influence his buying process?

Method #4: Scan All Interaction Touch Points

You can figure out all the ’touchpoints’ when your potential customer interacts with you or comes in contact with your company through any medium. It is one of the ways of identifying customer needs.

  • Map out the whole process from the first interaction with your customer until he actually ends up buying your product.
  • Identify all the touchpoints for understanding customer needs and try to improve them as per customers’ feedback.

Example:

Before buying a company’s furniture, a person checks out its online presence. 

If he finds it satisfactorily, then he fills up an online form to request an enquiry. 

It is followed by a call from the company. 

If he finds it impressive, he decides to visit the company’s showroom.  

While visiting the showroom, he will observe the company’s parking facility, security check, beautification and interaction with the salesman. 

When a customer is satisfied with each touchpoint of a company, he decides to buy the product.

Method #5: Conduct Follow Me Home Research

For understanding customer needs, many companies opt for this method to observe their existing customers’ feedback about their products. 

It involves getting feedback from your customers while using the product at their home. 

It is a very powerful step to understand:

  • How do customers feel about your product?
  • Why does a customer use your product?
  • What are the challenges they face?
  • What are its competitive dynamics?
  • What are your growth gaps?

Based on the feedback, you can bring the required changes in your product.

Method #6: Focused Group Interview of Customer

Understanding customer needs of current and potential customers before introducing any new product or service. 

It can be done by interviewing your existing customers. 

You can ask them different questions in different ways to know what kind of product they need and what changes are required to be brought in your product. 

Example:

Britannia once decided to launch a biscuit with the flavor of Kaju Barfi, as this sweet is very popular among Indians. 

Before launching the product, they invited some of their regular customers to get feedback on the product.  

However, the customers rejected their idea after tasting the sample of biscuits.

This led Britannia to stop committing a big mistake.

Method #7: Analyze your Competition ’ SWOT Analysis

It is one of the methods for identifying customer needs.

No matter how big or small your company is, you need to analyze your competition through SWOT analysis i.e. Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, and Threat.

  • Strength and Weakness are Internal
    ’ What are the strengths and weaknesses of your company?
  • Opportunity and Threats are External
    ’ Which opportunity is waiting for you in the market? What are the competitive advantages of your competitors? What are the threats to your company? 

Method #8: Diary Study and Feedback Form

Feedback form is a traditional method, but it can be converted into a non-conventional method. 

How? 

You just have to allow your ’customers to write their feedback about your product on the scale of 1 to 10.” 

This will give you the Net Promoter Score, thus, enabling you to bring in the required changes to improve this score.

So, the above 8 methods will enable you to identifying customer needs and behavior so that you can take informed decisions in your business and make it successful.

Categories
Marketing

Zero Budget Branding of Product by Cross Promotion Technique

Zero Budget Branding of Product by Cross Promotion Technique
Zero Budget Branding of Product by Cross Promotion Technique

Introduction

  • Do you want to advertise your product at a low cost?
  • Are you not getting the expected results by spending so much money on advertisement?

When you have a limited budget to market your product, then the only way that can help you to advertise your product is Cross Promotion Technique.

It allows you to advertise your product using an established and non-competing brand without investing too much.

What is Cross Promotion Technique?

When two or more non-competing brands, which are targeting the same Psychographic and Demographic audience, come together to promote each other without threatening each other’s consumer base is called Cross Promotion Technique.

Benefits of Cross Promotion Technique

  • Cross-promotion gives more promotion and exposure to non-competing brands without investing too much.
  • It is the most cost-effective technique to add new customers to both brands simultaneously.

 

No-Risk Campaign

If your marketing budget is extremely less, then you have the option of no risk campaign, a process in which you need to search the right cross-promotion partner.

All the below-mentioned brands utilize the goodwill and assets of each other to promote each other without increasing their marketing and branding cost.

To increase your understanding of the phenomenon let’s discuss these cross promotion examples:

1. Coca-Cola & Mc Donald’s:

This partnership is running since 1955 and giving an additional growth rate of 5% to 10% to both the brands as their consumer base is the same.

2. BMW & Louis Vuitton:

Both are luxurious travel-based brands and also have high-quality excellence. The company especially designed BMW i8 in which Louis Vuitton bags fit perfectly. Thus, both brands give luxury services together and increase their customer base.

3. ARIEL & L.G Washing Machine:

Both companies’ customers get exposure and have multiple touchpoints.

4. Google Android 4.0 & Nestle Kit-Kat:

Kit-Kat launched chocolate in the shape of Google Android. This partnership increased visibility, viewership, and recall value of Google Android.

5. UBER & Spotify:

Both brands promote each other and are getting J curve growth simultaneously.

6. NIKE & Apple:

Apple provides workout data to the end-users of NIKE sports shoe users. Thus, both popular brands club their services.

7. GoPro & Red Bull:

GoPro sponsors all the events of Red Bull and both brands focus on Adventure, Youthfulness, and High Energy. Thus, promote each other’s’ brands.

You have to join some popular brands to stretch your marketing reach and reduce your budget. Only then you’ll get a desirable result.

5 Steps to Select Right Cross Promotional Partner

1. Pick the Right Partner

Before selecting the right promotional partner, you have to go through the market image and customer base of that brand to ensure whether it is going to promote your brand or not.

  • You should choose your partner that matches your target audience. For example, an educational institute can never make a partnership with Alcohol Company.
  • There should be a strong match between the target audience and similar business ethics.

2. Go Beyond Me

While searching for a perfect cross promotion idea and partner, you need to think about the benefits of not only you but also your promotional partner.

You need to show the cross-promotion benefits to your promotional partner.

3. Search Outside the Box

To promote your business without spending money, it’s necessary to “Think out of the box”, which means you have to think about every possible aspect that helps you in advertise your product.

For strong advertising, you can also associate with:

  • Cab Driver, Web Developer
  • E-mail Campaign, SMS Campaign
  • Direct Mail Company, Signage Company
  • Local News-Paper Magazine
  • Local Radio-shows & TV shows

4. Put Everything with a Legal Contract

Before joining hands with anyone in your business, it’s mandatory to frame a strong legal contract including the following points in your top priority:

  • Financial Responsibility
  • Expectation & ROI-Measurement

5. Consistency in Similar Language

There must be a clear connection and logical sequence between two or more products while choosing a cross-promotional partner.

You need to analyze that which kind of product or brand suits your requirement that can help you grow your business without high expenditure.

Avoid cross-promotion with unrelated products or businesses that may give mixed and confusing signals in the market and may hurt your brand value.

Categories
Marketing

How to Measure Customer Satisfaction?

Introduction

  • Do you know whether your customers are dissatisfied or satisfied with you?
  • Do you know how to measure customer satisfaction?
  • Do you know the Net Promoter Score calculation formula?

All this is Very Simple!

To know how to measure customer satisfaction, you need to first understand how to take feedback from the customer. Companies used to take customer feedback through feedback forms.

You need to bring a little change in your feedback form to evaluate whether your customers are also your potential unpaid business developers.

Are they your potential promoters?

Are they positive, neutral, or negative about you?

You can determine this by taking feedback from the customers on a scale of 0-10.


How Your Customers Rate You?

  • People who rate you between 0 and 6 are detractors – These are those people who are not at all happy with your company, goods or services. They will post negative things about you on social media. They will write various negative things about you in your customer feedback forms. These people will never recommend you to anyone. They will never allow their family and friends to go to you. In their personal, professional, and social life, they will make sure that nobody goes to you.
  • People who rate you between 7 and 8 are neutrals –  If someone goes to these people and ask about their experience with your company, goods or services, they will say it was ok or it was fine. These people will neither promote you nor defame you. They will not allow you to put their reputation on stake to be used to favor your brand.
  • People who rate you between 9 and 10 are your unpaid promoters –  Whenever somebody asks them anything about your industry, they will recommend you strongly. These are those people who will always try your new products and services. Whenever any of your new products come to the market, they will buy it. It is very likely that they can buy your products even at higher prices.

For any organization, it is important to calculate Net Promoter Score (NPS).

(NPS) Net Promoter Score Calculation Formula:
Suppose, if out of 100 people, 40 people give you a rating between 0-6, 10 people have given you 7 and 8 ratings, and 50 people have given you a rating between 9 to 10, then your Net Promoter Score calculation formula will be:

NPS = Promoters (P) – Detractors (D) [+/- Neutrals (N)]

= 50 – 40 (+/- 10)

As neutrals will have no effect on your NPS score, so:

NPS = 50 – 40 = 10%

So, your NPS is 10%, it means that out of 100, 10 people will promote you.

Your NPS should be higher and positive.

Net Promoter Score calculation formula will help you to figure out your current customer satisfaction level, brand loyalty level, and brand loyalty measurement index. This figure will help you to strategize your future plans.

Measure your detractors and make a note of the complaints.

According to the new management strategy, the complaint is a gift. So, catch it because it will help you to strategize in the near future.

Neutrals will always remain neutrals. Try to engage promoters strategically and use them for your Brand Promotion.


You should listen to your detractors and solve their complaints otherwise they will keep on speaking negatively about you.

With the help of strategies of how to measure customer satisfaction given as above, you can understand what your customers’ needs, and scale up your business.

Categories
Marketing

How to Make Your Brand Go Viral With 5 Simple Steps?

?Introduction

  • Are you worried about making your brand viral?
  • How to make your brand go viral with less investment?

It’s easy to make your brand viral by incurring huge expenditure on marketing and advertising. But, how to make your brand viral through ‘Organic Branding’ and ‘Economic Branding’?

In other words, how to make your brand go viral by spending less on marketing and advertising?

In this article 5, important tips are given to make your brand viral by spending less. 

Let’s explore!

Tip #1: Feeling Vs. information

In your ads for branding and promotion, are you only talking about your product or trying to connect with the people’s emotions/feelings?

People Are Not Interested in Who You Are,

They Are Interested in How You Make Them Feel.

So, what kind of feeling your brand is able to generate is important for making your brand viral through organic branding.

Remember, all the ads that became viral had a great emotional touch with the audience. 

Example:

Do you remember the ad of Samsung LED TV Repair?

If you had seen it you certainly would. Because it had a strong emotional touch.

In the ad, a Samsung mechanic drives through the curvy and rugged hilly roads to repair an LED TV in a Blind Student’s hostel situated at the hilltop.

On reaching, he finds that all the blind students were waiting for their TV to be repaired so that they can listen to their host elite friend singing in a reality show.

Effect of the ad
: Samsung reported a jump in their sales of TV, that is, a J-Curve in Sales.
So, your Brand Recall Value depends on how you made the user feel through your advertisement, sales pitch, and promotional schemes.
Tip #2: Socially Responsible Emotional Story
To make your brand viral, you will not have to spend more on your brand’s advertisement, if you resort to ‘Organic Branding’ instead of ‘Paid Branding’.
You need to understand that buying behavior of consumers are influenced by emotion and not by logic
So, your advertisements and campaign should have a Socially Responsible Emotional Story.

Tip #3: Attention Seeking Potential

Earlier, the advertisers used to keep the end of an ad engaging so that users can go home with messages intact.
But with the coming of remote control operated TV sets, the user has more control over what they want to see.
So, your advertisement or campaign must be attention seeking from the very first second.
If this is not so, then the user can very quickly switch to other channels.
To get the attention of viewers, brands use advertisement techniques that invoke extreme emotions.

For Example:

In a Deodorant Ad, a man sprays deodorant on his body and girls get attracted to him from all the directions.
There are so many other ways of attention-seeking potential which can be handy for you and your product, so choose it wisely whichever suits your product.
The below methods will boost your understanding of how to make your brand go viral
A. Testimonial Route of Social Proof:
Some advertisers and brands use reports and surveys to make customers believe that the product they are showcasing is one of the best. If you don’t use it, you are going to be disadvantaged.
Some examples of such brands are USHA, Fena, Colgate, Sensodyne, etc. 
Moreover, many brands have this tendency to use a doctor’s coat to make people believe that the product is best for you.
B. Unexpected Expected Delightful Surprise:
To avoid huge investment, instead of hiring an expert agency, many companies opt for someone with little hands-on making creative ads and they spoon-feed their ideas to the audience. 
But it fails drastically because if you spoon-feed your audience, they will not admire the things they already know. 
The audience likes unexpected ads with delightful surprises in the end.
The ad should be designed in such a way that leaves a smile on the faces of people. 
Pidilite did many experiments in doing things like this; they made a few ads that left a smile on people’s faces and things that were unexpected.
The same thing happened with the ad of Royal Stag -Men will be Men, Airtel followed the suit.

Tip #4: Call for Action with a Jingle

Jingles are the most powerful way to make your brand viral. It catches the attention of the audience. It gets absorbed in the minds of people effortlessly.

This is because the human brain registers the jingles and music easily as compared to other things.

As soon as viewers watch such ads, they start singing or humming the jingles unconsciously. 

Jingles have hidden commands for viewers. As they keep humming them, when they go to a shop, they purchase the same product.

For Example:

The jingles of Uncle Chips, Vicks, Mango-Frooti, Bajaj advertisements are so popular that it has increased the sales of these products drastically.

Tip #5: Exaggerate the Insecurities and Fear
 

As a tool of organic branding, over the last few decades, many brands have exaggerated the insecurities and fears in the mind of common people.

They keep on glorifying and amplifying it throughout the ad to convince the viewer that if they won’t take their product or service, they will be at a loss. 

They generate a sense of compulsion and a sense of urgency among the audience.

For Example:

In the ad of hair oil, they show hair fall problem or dandruff issues.
In the ad of LIC policy, they show that an untimely death can happen to anyone and many more things like this.

Even Baba Ramdev, who runs an ad of hair oil where he shows that the other companies are using components that can cause cancer.

Given the 5 steps as above will help you understand how to make your brand go viral without increasing cost on branding and promotion.