As I mentioned previously, my father-in-law owns a pest control company and because one day we will be taking of the business, my wife and myself do what we can to help keep it successful and we also do what we can to learn how to perform the job and oversee how the process works with the service that is provided. The biggest challenge I see is finding and retaining new customers. I first went in thinking that this would be a fairly easy because when I was growing up our family has always had pest control services as well as some of my other family members, and I just figured majority of people out there wanted and felt the need for this business, I ,however, was wrong about assuming that. I go out occasionally and help recruit business and I notice that this type of service seems to actually have a certain target market, I would actually go out and look for what appeared to be the new couple and the first home buyers, but apparently those in this group seem to not really have a desire in this service and if they do want this type, they seem to only feel more comfortable with the larger/corporate level companies, so with this group I have to tell them about how we are different and what makes our service better than what they can offer just how to benchmark ourselves to this group such as how we do not require a contract for our service, it seems like most of this group do not like signing contracts or staying committed to a new service they have never used before, and have a level of uncertainty. I also would have assumed those with children (especially younger ones, would want this service) which this seems to be true, the number #1 issue with this group appears to be affordability, while we will work with a customer of how payments can be arranged (we do keep an accounts payable/receivable record for customers who don’t want to pay for 3 months in advance). Elderly customers seem to be our best target market in this area and its whom we generally seem to win over with our competitor and after talking with them they do like the idea of a small privately owned company doing this, I think its because they like to believe in the traditional small business owners staying successful as they have more than likely grew up experiencing this and seeing small businesses being dominated over by larger companies, also we don’t have “strict” policies that we uphold like a corporate level would and we can make our own decisions and work with them since a lot of these customers are retirees and have a fixed income, we even have been unofficially offering senior citizen discounts to some. Our largest market seems to be residents and the businesses that of small business owners, I know we easily win these over because they know what it’s like to own a small business and we all share that common interest with each other. While some customers are easy to recruit and retain, it seems that some a very difficult and a lot of it is based on the demographics of those customers, so my challenge is when we assume full possession of this business one day I need to figure out better strategies to help the business grow and be able to keep it successful. I know that after taking this course I have be exposed to more knowledge of how I can apply this to real situations and be able to keep the business growing more than what it already has. While we advertise and let customers find us, it is still important to find them first before our competition does.
Networking
On the topic of networking, I recall last year I had attended a luncheon with the Cullman Chamber of Commerce, and I was exposed first hand seeing businesses in the area get their word out. I was very impressed and actually I have then realized the importance of how just simply getting the word out to a few people can really impact a business. I noticed how some of the business owners got the interest of potential customers and literally watched them accept their services. Also those who didn’t require their services or didn’t have the need for it at least have the information to pass down to their peers, because I recall one of them declined the service because they didn’t have a need for it, but they had friends that apparently wold have been very interested (although I know i’ve used this line before to ward off salespeople whom I didn’t at the time have the interest in whatever it was being sold) but just gaining one lifetime customer and retaining them is worth the effort that was vested into that event and with networking if the word comes from a trusted source such as a friend or a colleague, then more than likely they will respond positively to this since most of my friends recommendations I always take into consideration more thoroughly before I study up on other forms of advertising.
PR
I never really knew much about public relations until this week and I’m very impressed by how big of a change this can have an impact on companies, government and how society views and consumes products and uses them and also how it effects the general public about how we should think and feel about it, not just because we need it, but because we want it, and it seems that people tend to buy more and advertise a product more based on a want, just so they can show everybody else they have it and how great it is, this in turn seems to influence others to buy the same thing or what is considered better. Today with social media and digital marketing the word about a product can reach more people than just local campaigning especially when you can see picture of others enjoying it and see the mass groups of people commenting about how they want one, this can psychologically make you desire that product even more. I would of course assume this can also go negative too, so with this way of marketing I would imagine a company would really be careful about bad publicity because of this. I hope to find out more about detailed information about how this works, so far this Is one of the most interesting subjects I have read about this semester.
These cookies are RICH in flavor
E-Marketing is a very good way to spread the word about your product, but there are good ways to attract customers and bad ways to turn away customers doing this, in my experiences I remember my first exposure to this during the earlier days of this was by receiving a lot of spam e-mail’s from companies, this turned me away so much, mostly because I was being forced to receive these and it was for products I had no interest in at all, and these companies did nothing creative all the did at the time was just send me 1,000’s of e-mails in hopes that I would click on it to go to their site just to increase their site hits and this annoyed me and blow up my inbox every day, sometimes I would be successful in having them remove my e-mail and other times they continued to the point that I would have to create a new user account for my e-mail. This is of course a horrible way to try to gain customers, in fact, it does the complete opposite, and to me it was a too aggressive form of advertising. E-mail Marketing can actually be a very successful way if done correctly though and especially today has improved very much, When I subscribe to certain offers or memberships online I actually receive the advertisement e-mails based on that and similar products, because now they monitor browser behavior and advertise products similar to ones that I search for based on search results, web pages I view, items purchased, and even my location (via IP addresses) and now those e-mails I receive or advertisements I see on the side of a webpage are more appealing to me and I actually have subscribed and purchased products through this new way of browser behavior marketing, this automatically identifies the target market, demographics and location as a few examples. I believe this is one of the most effective ways to e-marketing. I would assume that within the next 5 years this will be perfected and be the standard to e-marketing. I know some people do have preferences to how they receive e-marketing ads, but this is my personal preference and I just can’t see why it wouldn’t be with the majority out there. I know that just sending spam e-mails are low cost and higher customer volume, but I just don’t see the response rate being as high as browser behavior. Of course this all can be altered by browser type and cookie setting and so on so depending on type of browser and cookie settings, some people just haven’t really been exposed to this as much, also it is good to delete cookies every so often and keep the settings low to medium, but as I mentioned before, eventually this will improve and become the new standard for a while as I’m predicting.
Competitive Pricing Strategies
When I buy products of course I look at price as #1 like most people do. The business selling me the products can, however, set the price based on the competition, of course the competitors set prices, but the one who is in charge of setting their own prices for the businesses can look at a couple of ways to do this, one is to set the price above the competition, most people would be turned away by this unless they are offering a premium service, excellent payment terms and options as well as extra features over the competition. The other option is to set the prices below the competition price the business does risk taking a loss, of course the consumer will likely go to this option, and doing this the business can hope that the consumer will likely buy other products while they are there and in turn actually turning a higher profit overall. This is something to think about when setting pricing strategies on a business and of course the competition also sets prices with doing this, but it is always something to consider for your own business on which strategy to go with to stand out.
This cannot be a good sign…
not only is location important, but the way the business is advertised is also important and the first thing the majority of potential customers will notice is the sign that the business has and it is also used as a way to locate the business. I have noticed a tattoo place in the area I live in that has a more unique sign than the traditional ones, here is a picture of it:
Its a sign
As you can tell the sign is upside down, which some may think that the business owner was just too incompetent to set it up right the first time, or made a mistake doing this and was just too lazy to fix it. I know that this approach is used so that the customers will remember the business name more just because of it not being traditionally advertised upright like most other signs are. I have noticed this is a small growing trend with a few other businesses I have seen over the past several years, I have seen one in Huntsville and another one in Tennessee recently like this and all of these are displayed this way in heavy traffic areas, I suppose that you will not likely see a sign like this on a back road or small traffic area business. I don’t really know how I feel about these, I guess as long as only a few businesses do this and not 50% of all businesses do this it can make it easier for me to locate the business if I happen to be looking for it and I know beforehand that they have an upside down sign because this will make it easier for me to locate it if that is what I am looking for. I, however, do not like it if the sign is placed upside down and also has a lot words or small lettering, because it makes it harder for me to read it all while glancing at it in the car while driving. Selecting the sign and how to display it is very important for these reasons and those that are using this approach should only do it as the above picture is, with one simple word or maybe a couple and in big letters that everyone can instantly notice it, see its uniqueness and most importantly be able to read it within seconds. I have seen one upside down that had several words, and all different sizes of the words, one at the top was large, but the rest of them were smaller letters, the sign was also up too high to where you had to look up intentionally to read it and the color contrast was real bad because it was mostly bright colors with it. (I really wish I had a picture of it, but it was in another state.)
Pricing
As a consumer, I would say price is one of the biggest things I look at as well as with most people, especially when disposable income is generally lower. I have to look at the brand and price together, I also consider the other brands and competitors. When a business starts their price off too high it can turn me away as well as when they drastically fluctuate prices from high to low and back up to high again. I don’t necessarily believe in the low prices that are ” too good to be true” because some companies may be selling these that low to liquidate inventory out and push a certain product to the point they may just be selling them at the minimum price to have a new inventory of items, but initial pricing that is so low may have me questioning the quality. Owning a business that sells goods or services should use pricing strategy such as using a cost plus pricing to find the optimal price to cover operating expenses, paying yourself, and having a profit, of course depending on volume of sales can affect this also. The entire pricing strategy can strongly have a negative or positive effect on a business. Staying competitive with pricing can help set the foundation of a pricing strategy rather than just trying to undercut other businesses, the pricing may be low and you may gain more consumers doing this, but at the same not the profits may be entirely too low that you cannot cover expenses, same goes with being much higher than competition because this will not attract customers unless you have a buyer benefit strategy associated with this to be above competition. These are just a few things I notice and consider as a buyer.
Branding
Branding is a very effective way to get a product sold, as I watched in a video it was stated that you don’t buy a brand that you don’t know about, this is true in a way because I don’t usually buy or try new things as often unless I hear about it or I am familiar with. Branding also identifies the sellers products to its customers and how it separates itself from their competition. Branding also has the bigger goal of making customers seeing them as the “only brand” out there. This is very true, because when I buy goods or services I typically only think of the bigger brands over the off brands when I buy goods and search for them, this is because those brands have used the marketing strategies and invested the money to tell me that they promise to me that they are the solution to those problems. This is how I feel about recognized brands at least when it comes to products that I buy.
Is a Product Being Ahead of it’s time mean it can’t be re-invented?
Back to talking about Market Research and Bad Products. I have noticed that there are several products out there that nobody really wants or has a need for based on consumer reports, but why do these companies still continue to make these products over night and release them for sale. I would imagine that this could actually damage a company’s reputation, even though they general make a good product, they will continue to come up with unpopular products. A lot of times I believe this happens becomes these companies are thinking ahead instead of thinking of everyday people. Coming up with product concepts that are ahead of the time isn’t necessarily a bad idea, it just makes the statement that people aren’t ready for it yet. I have seen products come out a long time ago with a good concept, but too far ahead of the time, and years later be re-released under a different name with changes made that are more practical for the second time around (Apple IPad for example as I seen in a video a few weeks ago.) I also notice and look around that this happens with very simple products over the past decade and is this where focus groups and more market research should be invested to see how this would really do with the consumers? Or are these flawed products actually a good thing to make, because it appears they are re designed and set aside for a different time and once this happens everybody approves of it. Look at some other products for example that were ahead of their time: The Microwave oven, Hybrid Cars, Picture Phones (the old bulky T.V. looking phones, (similar to face timing now, not a camera phone) and the Telcan (old version of a VCR that was too expensive and didn’t work like it should have). Notice, however, that all of these products that were ahead of their time were released at a later date, and now considered very popular. If coming up with a product that’s too ahead of its time, I wouldn’t consider it a failure, I would just set it away for a while, look at what can be improved with it and then re-release it when the time is right.
Marketing Segment Group I belong in.
Marketing Segmentation is broken down into other subgroups, but the one that I actually seem to really notice between me and others is the behavioral segmentation and targeting. Like myself and other consumers when I purchase products, I typically go with the same brand, I always buy within the same price range and these companies know my behaviors and patters of use. This method also applies to online shopping, whenever I purchase any products, the data that is recorded for my purchase is then used to always suggest and advertise products similar, or from the same manufacture of the products that I purchased online and various times when I’m on a website such as eBay, Amazon or even just on certain web pages, I will see an advertisement displayed about a product based on my buying behavior and which item it will advertise also factors in my usage rate of those type of products or brands that I buy as well as the type of product and this way makes it easier to gain the attention of the user because of our behavioral buying.
beznyanthony 