MARKETING COMMUNICATION DIGEST

Here is the concluding part of the article "Is PR preferable to Advertising when launching a product?" 4. Product Modification Feedback is an important element in a PR launch. By launching the PR program ahead of the actual product introduction, there is enough time to modify the product or its price before it goes on sale. Supermarkets and other distribution outlets like to participate in the brand-building process. They will often make many good suggestions you can use to modify the product, the packaging, the pricing and even the PR. Advertising is different . Once a big-bang advertising programme is launched, a company is committed. There is little feedback and no time to change the product or service before it's introduced to consumers. 5.  Message Modification Feedback from a PR programme also allows a company to modify the brand's message for greater consumer appeal. The media looks at your PR messages from the consumer's point of vi...

” The most powerful concept in marketing is owning a word in the prospect’s mind ”, said Al Ries and Jack Trout, authors of The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing . Law #5 is  The Law of Focus  whereby the authors propose you own a word in your prospect’s mind, as exemplified here with these brands: ·          Mercedes - engineering ·          BMW - driving ·          Volvo - safety ·          Domino’s - home delivery ·          Pepsi-Cola - youth While these brands may have evolved somewhat since this book was written in 1993, for the most part each company still owns these words in the minds of consumers, customers and subscribers. In other words, The Law of Focus stands the test of time. So, how can you apply the value of focus in your organization...

Is customer loyalty a thing of the past in the digital age? When I started Marketing, the pursuit of  loyalty  was everything. Loyal customers were the key to profitable business, with everyone taught at birth that the cost of acquiring a new customer was by some multiple considerably harder than keeping the ones you already have. Customer research often talked to “lapsed” purchasers in an often vain attempt to work out why they’d left. One magazine publisher would personally call anyone who cancelled their subscription to find out why. The feedback he got was better than any Focus Group’s. He'd usually follow up the call on whatever it was the lapsed purchaser had raised as issue. And more often than not, the customer renewed their subscription after taking his call. Al Ries, author of the 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing defined 'brand' as a “promise of consistency”, with the implicit guarantee that if marketing teams followed the rules of successful brand ...