World Internet Users Statistics Usage and World Population Stats. Is the Customer Really King? The marketing world, much like the financial world, has been in considerable flux. But one thing seems fairly clear, and it has to do with the shifting balance of power between the companies that produce the goods, the retailers that stock and distribute them, and the consumers who are counted on to buy what's provided. We're told that we're in an entirely new age. Today, the story goes, the customer finally runs the show. For a good many years, the world largely belonged to the manufacturing and marketing powerhouses that dominated consumer demand through the twin powers of promotion and product development: They sold, you bought. But a few decades ago, there was a sea change in which power transitioned to the retailers. But now we're told that we're in an entirely new age -- the "new normal" -- when neither the manufacturer nor the retailer is in charge.
There's a good deal of evidence in support of this. All hail the king Enticing, perhaps. Treat me right. Surprise Is Still the Most Powerful Marketing Tool - Scott Redick. By Scott Redick | 11:00 AM May 10, 2013 Life has never been more predictable. Yelp provides an early-warning system for dining out, by helping us avoid bad restaurants and alerting us to must-try items at good ones. Facebook lets us investigate a potential romantic interest before the first date. Turn-by-turn instructions from Google Maps prevent us from ever getting lost. The same thing is happening in marketing organizations. All this is good — mostly. Pursuing innovations in “big data” is essential, but that doesn’t mean we should ignore the element of surprise, because surprise is still probably the most powerful marketing tool of all.
Surprise is addictive. Surprise is cheap. Surprise turbocharges emotions. Surprise fuels passionate relationships. As CMOs push their staffs and agencies to be faster, cheaper and more accountable, they also need to push the brand organization to be more surprising. Customer Service | Service Companies | brandchannel.com. Practical methods to address this situation successfully have been known for a long time. Whether TQM, Six Sigma, ISO 9000, or Baldrige Criteria, they are all largely based on the same time-tested principles that put processes, measurable results and the customer at the core of an organization. However, many service companies have shied away from them on the ground that those management techniques "do not apply to us. " In search of a solution, some thought that CRM would deliver miracles in spite of -- or perhaps because of -- its doubtful claims of financial reward. As it emerged, CRM mirrors a corporate culture without changing it.
If the culture is self-centered, the technology in itself cannot change it. CRMs are fascinating information systems, but even when they work, they are not meant to turn every customer into a king. At best, the technology helps manage data and distance in a way that humans cannot possibly do. "Employees joked cynically and resisted change" Marketing Open Textbook. The Evolution of Marketing | D. Steven White. Marketing is commonly believed to have progressed through five distinct phases of evolution since the beginning of time: the simple trade era, the production era, the sales era, the marketing department era and the marketing company era. This is the classical progression taught in business schools today to tomorrow’s marketing leaders. But is it an accurate and complete representation of the different eras of marketing? In my opinion, the answer is no.
The premise of this blog is that since post-World War II, marketing is evolving in twenty year cycles, more or less. Thus, while the classical five era progression is taught in business schools, seven distinct eras are apparent. Why is this important to marketers? The first is known as the simple trade era, where everything available was made or harvested by hand and available in limited supply. The sales era (1920’s – 1940’s) followed the production era once pent-up consumer demand became saturated. But is it? Kotler Marketing Group, Inc. Questions: Answers: 1. Which megatrends do we have to consider for the future? The economic landscape has been fundamentally altered by technology and globalization. Companies anywhere can now compete anywhere, thanks to the Internet and more free trade.
The major economic force is hyper-competition, namely companies are able to produce more goods than can be sold, putting a lot of pressure on price. Companies must pay attention to the fact that customers are getting more educated and have better tools such as the Internet at their disposal to buy with more discrimination. 2. All three forces act to increase downward pressure on prices. At the same time, various world regions are becoming more integrated and more protective. 3. Marketing is the science and art of exploring, creating, and delivering value to satisfy the needs of a target market at a profit. Marketing is often performed by a department within the organization. 4. Marketing is too often confused with selling. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. Engaged Communities Drive Business Growth - Six Success Factors | Vala Afshar. Consumers who are passionate about a product, service or brand are online and looking for information to support their needs and interests.
With so many places available for consumers to come together and interact, communities play an essential role in collecting that information. According to Wendy Lea, CEO of Get Satisfaction (or as we like to call her the Queen of Community), communities should not be overlooked by marketer's today. A list of top 7 online marketing trends that will dominate 2014 led with content marketing as priority-one. Communities will guide companies as to what content matters to the market, adding the level of contextual intelligence that marketers need to successfully drive sales. Wendy S Lea Get Satisfaction can be thought of as a customer engagement platform; it's an application that allows companies of all sizes and sectors to embrace customers wherever they are online by bringing conversations together so customers can talk to each another.
20 predictions for the contact centre of the future. We have crowd-sourced 20 fascinating predictions for what the contact centre could look like in ten years’ time. First, we asked two experts in the field for their predictions. 1. Easy is the new loyalty In the last three years, we have witnessed a decline in customer loyalty, with 50% of UK residents now claiming that loyalty is a thing of the past. However, 74% of people say they will do repeat business with a company if the experience is easy. In reaction to this, the NetEasy Score has been developed.
NetEasy data is gathered by asking customers to rate the ease of their experience on a scale of 1-7. In the contact centre environment, it is important that you make your processes as simple as possible to minimise customer effort. 2. The use of traditional channels, such as phone and email, will decrease, with email being commonly thought of as a slow-moving (and largely inefficient) game of tennis. 3.
Dr. In addition, 88% of advisors rate webchat as good or very good. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. Promoted tweet used to complain about British Airways. 3 September 2013Last updated at 07:18 ET By Jane Wakefield Technology reporter Lost luggage is a common problem for airline customers In a modern spin on the tale of David and Goliath, a disgruntled customer has found a new way to use social media to take on a big corporation. Fed up with the way British Airways was handling the issue of his father's lost luggage, businessman Hasan Syed decided to complain about it.
But rather than just put out a normal tweet, he paid to have one promoted. Using promoted tweets in this way could represent a new trend, experts believe. Long delay The promoted tweet bought by Mr Syed reads: "Don't fly @BritishAirways. Promoted tweets are generally bought by advertisers who want to reach a wider audience.
Mr Syed purchased his paid-for tweet via Twitter's self-service ad platform for an undisclosed sum. Six hours after the tweet went live, and was picked up by news website Mashable, it had been read by thousands of Twitter users, retweeted and commented on. Public Sector. Marketing and Public Sector Management. [Jump to content] Your account: Welcome: Guest Browse Emerald Insight: Resource areas: Home > European Journal of Marketing > Volume 28 issue 3 > Marketing and Public Sector Management European Journal of Marketing Online from: 1967 Subject Area: Marketing Content: Latest Issue | Latest Issue RSS | Previous Issues Options: To add Favourites and Table of Contents Alerts please take a Emerald profile Marketing and Public Sector Management Fulltext Options: Login Existing customers: loginto access this document Help Purchase Downloadable; Printable; OwnedHTML, PDF (39kb) Rent Recommend to your librarian Complete and print this form to request this document from your librarian Marked list Bookmark & share Reprints & permissions Request About Emerald Policies & Information Emerald Websites © Emerald Group Publishing Limited .
Managing Service Quality | E-government: the realities of using IT to transform the public sector. [Jump to content] Your account: Welcome: Guest Browse Emerald Insight: Resource areas: Home > Managing Service Quality > Volume 13 issue 6 > E-government: the realities of using IT to transform the public sector Managing Service Quality Online from: 1991 Subject Area: Managing Quality Content: Latest Issue | Latest Issue RSS | Previous Issues Options: To add Favourites and Table of Contents Alerts please take a Emerald profile E-government: the realities of using IT to transform the public sector Fulltext Options: Login Existing customers: loginto access this document Help Purchase Downloadable; Printable; OwnedHTML, PDF (82kb) Rent Recommend to your librarian Complete and print this form to request this document from your librarian Marked list Bookmark & share Reprints & permissions Request About Emerald Policies & Information Emerald Websites © Emerald Group Publishing Limited ..
Ashesi School Information System. WhitePaperAutomating. Reputation and relationship: rethinking approaches to public sector marketing | Unions. Published on Friday, 17 February 2012 14:10 Written by Mark Blayney Stuart Since the 2010 Spending Review placed a freeze on government marketing, few public awareness campaigns have been getting the go ahead. In December last year, Conservative health minister Simon Burns noted that the government spent £60.3m on health advertising campaigns in 2009/10, compared to just £4.2m in 2010/11 Furthermore, a number of campaigns have had their funding cut completely: Flu vaccination, sexual health and teenage pregnancy, drugs and alcohol misuse campaigns all suffered substantial budget reductions in the coalition government's first year in office(1).
Cuts to public sector marketing budgets are mirrored by much-maligned cuts to public services themselves. It’s easy to forget the power of marketing to develop the reputation of a public sector body but, now more than ever, it’s important to position local authorities, health trusts and other public organisations as human and approachable. Explosion of digital strategies in public sector risks alienating customer - Customer Experience Management Blog. This time last year Francis Maude, the Cabinet Minister said: “Britain is in a global race and that’s why we need to have modern, efficient, digital-by-default public services that are fit for the 21st century”. However, I believe in the rush for a digital-by-default strategy many have created a digital-only strategy, and the public sector now runs the risk of losing its human face.
Organisations implementing digital strategies risk rendering themselves as impersonal. A successful strategy depends on the right combination of personal service and digital channels. Most consumers are now using seven or more digital channels to communicate. Rushing to the polar extreme and digitizing all services creates an equivalent risk of customer alienation, therefore synthesis of the human and the digital is required.
The core risk is that public sector bodies will assume that digitizing interaction decreases the need for human intervention, thereby alienating consumers. The CRM journey in the Public Sector | Bluefin Solutions.