Consumer Behaviour Basics: The Antecedent State

Consumers are more likely to buy something when they are in the mood to do so – that is obvious to everyone involved in marketing. Sometimes environmental factors work in your favour and sometimes they do not. Imagine having a fast food concession stall outside of a cinema or some other place of entertainment: if the film, the play or the match has been enjoyable, then people are more likely to be in a good mood and hence more likely to buy what you are offering; but if it has been no good, then customers may just wish to get out of there as soon as possible.

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Consumer Behaviour Basics: Colours

It is no surprise that Chinese restaurants are nearly always decorated in shades of red, one way or another. Red, after all, is considered a particularly auspicious colour in Chinese culture and is the colour of celebration: Chinese brides wear red dresses, for example, while party-goers will find some item of clothing with at least a splash of red on it.

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Marketing: The Trust Issue

To a certain extent, the trust issue on business is reminiscent of Groucho Marx’s comments on sincerity. He said (and I am paraphrasing a little): “The most important thing in business is sincerity; once you can fake that, you’ve got it made.”

Read the full article here (http://bizcovering.com/business/marketing-the-trust-issue/).

Marketing: Packaging Issues

Of all the 8Ps of the marketing mix, the variable that is given less thought than any other is packaging – this is perhaps understandable because there are so many firms for which the packaging issue is simply not relevant. Yet for those firms which do have packaging issues to consider, the way the decision is made can offer the potential for a real and sustainable competitive advantage.

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Marketing: When to Invest in People

The first addition to the original 4Ps of the marketing mix (product, price, place, promotion) was people. In a competitive environment, customers will frequently choose a product based on the quality of a personal relationship. That relationship might occur at any stage of the distribution chain: customers for example might choose a bank, restaurant or other retail service based on the interaction with the sales assistants or tellers or waiting staff when the core product itself is of secondary importance.

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Marketing: The Physical Traces

In consumer goods markets, goods are increasingly marketed like services and services are increasingly marketed like goods. It is the combination of the best attributes of both goods and services that attracts customers in a world in which supply exceeds demand in most consumer goods sectors.

Read the full article here (http://bizcovering.com/marketing-and-advertising/marketing-the-physical-traces/).

Marketing: What to Promote

Promotion involves a wide range of activities to encourage stakeholders to think more favourably of a product, a brand or a company. It includes personal selling, advertising, public relations and some corporate social responsibility activities. In general terms, employees promote a product, managers promote a company and entrepreneurs promote themselves.

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Marketing: Getting the Processes Right

Processes are the points of transition through which customers (and sometimes the people accompanying them) pass during an experience of consumption. Since businesspeople commonly focus primarily on the product and the experience of and relationship with the customer, it is quite possible for other processes to escape attention.

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Marketing: Considering the Price

There are only two basic business strategies: be better or be cheaper. It is not necessary to be both – indeed, they should never appear together (unless it is to destroy a rival and create a monopoly or some other disreputable activity). All things being equal, it is preferable to be better than to be cheap. People are not inspired to be cheap.

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Marketing: Improving the Product

product is any good or service offered commercially to customers. In the modern world, most products have come to be seen as combinations of attributes and features and to be partly good and partly service at the same time. Apple equipment, for example, offers not just the technology of the physical item but also membership of a community, the opportunity to upgrade the initial product, the cachet associated with the image and so forth.

Read the full article here (http://bizcovering.com/small-business/marketing-improving-the-product). No, WordPress is not working properly.