Speak Life

          I watched all the interview videos, and it is obvious that the most used, and often times the most effective form of advertising for small businesses is word of mouth. In these small towns, people talk. What the locals say about a business is usually the word. A single bad experience is all it takes to totally destroy the reputation of a small business. It can not even be the businesses fault that the experience was bad. Maybe the customer in question may be having a bad day, and every experience they have is going to be bad that day. The customer perception makes all the difference in the world. Like the Bible says, Life and death is in the power of the tongue. The same is true in the life of a business.

What Makes You Different?

           When it comes to the business world, it makes a difference if you're different. There are only so many businesses, markets, and products out there. There will always be competition. Someone will inevitably have a better product, a better price, a better deal, or a better pitch. It is up to you to make yourself stand out from the crowd. What is it that is going to make a customer pick you over all of your competitors? It really depends on the customer. Every person is different, but there may be something that appeals to a specific group of people. your job, as far as marketing yourself goes, is to find out what that is, and use it to your advantage.  Let's say that you want to open a fast food restaurant, but you want to attract the kind of people that wouldn't usually go for fast food. You would find some way to appeal to a group of people that normally wouldn't look twice in your direction. Maybe you could offer a vegetarian option, or a healthy alternative to the classic cheeseburger. Maybe you use an oil that has less fat, maybe you have even found a potato that is digested differently so it doesn't count as carbs. Whatever it is, scream it from the rooftops, and let those healthy people kn0ow that you can eat here. Different can definitely be a good thing.

Mmm Mmm Good

         There are a million ads all over the place that we see every day. Many of them have something to do with food. There are ads on food, for food, and all around food. There are games made up to sell more food. There are coupons in the ads for food. It's everywhere you look. You can play Monopoly while you eat a cheeseburger, or play scrabble while you have your french fries. It seems like the most appealing thing that there is to this particular nation as a whole is the idea of a good meal. So, businesses have caught this, and decided that this is a good way to reach people.
        What better way to sell a good knife than to put it in a picture with a big juicy steak? What better way to get someone to buy a new set of cookware than to show it cooking something delicious? Is there any better way to get someone to buy a new dinning room set than to show a family eating an amazing meal on it? Food is the way to go when it comes to the U.S. You want to reach the general public? Put your message on a cheeseburger.

Words in The Web

            With the boom in technology in recent years, e-marketing has become a businesses advertising dream. There are hundreds of ways that a company can get themselves seen in the digital world. Whether you are starting out, or if you're a large company that has a massive marketing budget, there is an online option for you. Most new businesses these days are taking advantage of sites like Facebook and Instagram, where they have the ability to make customized pages that they can use to solicit likes and notices from consumers. These pages are usually free with very low costs for promotion of your business or your page. Many larger corporations make their own websites and partner with search engines like Google, Bing, or Yahoo to have their sites be featured on their pages when a consumer searches for a certain product. Most big companies offer the customer the convenience to shop online and have their purchase delivered to the closest store for the customer to pick up at no charge to them for shipping. These companies often have their ads emailed to their loyal customers. This allows company information to be at the consumers finger tips, and offers more market penetration for the company that utilizes the services. As time goes on, more and more companies are developing apps that customers may use to buy, order, keep track, and shop from a smart phone or tablet. Sam's Club, Target, Best Buy, and Wal-Mart are just a few. These are aside from strictly online retailers like Overstock.com and Amazon. Needless to say, the internet has become a huge marketing tool for all businesses big and small. As the country moves more toward everything being digital, the internet will become more and more important, and the definition of traditional marketing will change.

Penetration.

     

       

        Market penetration is defined as the act of  increasing the market share of a product, or promoting a new product through different strategies such bundling, advertising, lower prices, and volume discounts. The second definition is the measure of the extent of a products sales volume relative to the total sales volume of all competing products. This may sound like a bunch of gibberish, but it really can make sense. 
        All this refers to is the amount of space that a particular product takes up in a particular market. For instance, McDonald's is all over the place. There are billboards, commercials, toys, clothes, cartoons, movies, you name it, they have it. More children in the world can identify Ronald McDonald than can identify the president of the United States. This company has some of the best market penetration in the food industry. The more places you see a logo/sign, the greater the penetration. 

Business Plans Are Hard

       One of the hardest things about marketing is writing a marketing plan. To do this correctly, the process is long and detailed. It takes time, dedication, and concentration to get all that is needed into a plan. The marketing plan is the part of an overall business plan that includes a market analysis, the demographics, psycographics, and geographics of your target market, location, distribution, market research, sales forecasting, and what makes you different. All of these things come together to let the reader know what kind of market you're trying to get into, how you're going to get into it, and what you're going to do when you get there. One has to be able to almost look into the future to make these kinds of decisions and discoveries. I have learned that if you cannot get through the process of writing a business or marketing plan, then there is no way that you are going to able to run a business. So think long and hard before you decide to open your own business. Be sure to write a business and marketing plan first.

It's All In Your Mind

          There are many things that go into setting an appealing price for things. There are psychological rules that many companies follow that make people believe that they are getting a better deal than they really are. These rules aren't known by most people, and most consumers don't realize that their minds are being tricked. 
         One of the most common rules that is implemented is that by leaving the comma out of  a large number, like $1000, it makes the number appear smaller at first glance. Take a look... $1000 vs. $1,000. When you first look, which number looks smaller to you? Another one of these pricing tricks is that when an item costs a dollar or less, it more appealing for the price to end in a 9, like .99 or .89. When an item is priced over a dollar, it is more appealing to have the price end in a 9 or go in increments of .50, like 9.99 or 9.50. When an item is priced over $100, it is best to keep the decimal out all together, and keep things to round numbers, like $115 instead of $115.00. All of these things make the customer believe they are getting a deal regardless of whether they actually are or not. So,next time you go shopping, pay attention to the price tag. It is saying more than you might think.