Market Adjust To Changes

Market systems are favored by Neoclassical economists for three primary reasons. First, agents only need information about their own objectives and alternatives. The markets provide information to agents that may be used to identify and evaluate alternative choices that might be used to achieve objectives. Second, each agent acting in a market has incentives to react to the information provided. Third, given the information and incentives, agents within markets can adjust to changes. The process of market adjustment can be visualized as changes in demand and/or supply.

Shifts or Changes in Demand

The demand function was defined from two perspectives:

A schedule of quantities that individuals were willing and able to buy at a schedule of prices during a given period, ceteris paribus.

The maximum prices that individuals are willing and able to pay for a schedule of quantities or a good during a given time period, ceteris paribus.

In both cases the demand function is perceived as a negative or inverse relationship between price and the quantity of a good that will be bought. The relationship between price and quantity is shaped by other factors or variables. Income, prices of substitutes, prices of compliments, preferences, number of buyers and expectations are among the many possible variables that influence the demand relationship. The demand function was expressed:

Qx = fx(Px, Pc, Ps, M, Preferences, #buyers, . . . )

Pc is the price of complimentary goods. Ps is the price of substitutes. M is income. Such proxies as gender, age, ethnicity, religion, etc represent preferences. Remember that a change in the price of the good (Px) is a change in quantity demanded or a movement along a demand function. A change in any other related variable will result in a shift of the demand function or a change in demand.

Shift of Supply

Remember that the supply function was expressed,

Qxs = fs (Px, Pinputs, Tech, regulations, # sellers, . . . #S)

A change in the price of the good changes the quantity supplied. A change in any of the other variables will shift the supply function. An increase in supply can be visualized as a shift to the right, at each price a larger quantity is produced and offered for sale. A decrease in supply is a shift to the left; at each possible price a smaller quantity is offered for sale. If the supply shifts and demand remains constant, the equilibrium price and quantity will be altered.

An increase in supply (while demand is constant) will cause the equilibrium price to decrease and the equilibrium quantity to increase. A decrease in supply will result in an increase is the equilibrium price and a decrease in equilibrium quantity.

Changes in both Supply and Demand

When supply and demand both change, the direction of the change of either equilibrium price or quantity can be known but the effect on the other is indeterminate. An increase in supply will push the market price down and quantity up while an increase in demand will push both market price and quantity up. The effect on quantity of an increase in both supply and demand will increase the equilibrium quantity while the effect on price is dependent on the magnitude of the shifts and relative structure (slopes) of supply and demand.

Should demand decrease and supply increase, both push the equilibrium price down. However, the decrease in demand reduces the equilibrium quantity while the increase in supply pushes the equilibrium quantity up. The price must fall, the quantity may rise, fall or remain the same. Again it depends on the relative magnitudes of the shifts in supply and demand and their slopes.

When supply and demand both shift, the direction of change in either equilibrium price or quantity can be known but direction of change in the value of the other is indeterminate.

Equilibrium and the Market

Whether equilibrium is a stable condition from which there "is no endogenous tendency to change," or and outcome which the economic process is tending toward," equilibrium represents a coordination of objectives among buyers and sellers. The demand function represents a set of equilibrium conditions of buyers given the incomes, relative prices and preferences. Each individual buyer acts to maximize his or her utility, ceteris paribus. The supply function represents a set of equilibrium conditions given the objectives of sellers, the prices of inputs, prices of outputs, technology, the production function and other factors.

The condition of equilibrium in a market, where supply and demand functions intersect ("quantity supplied is equal to the quantity demanded") implies equilibrium conditions for both buyers and sellers.

Crowdsourcing Innovation

Let me see if this situation sounds familiar: you’ve promised your boss that you’ll generate at least one percent growth over last year. You’ve been racking your brain with ideas about how to improve your product or develop a new offering or finding new efficiencies which will help your margins, but the few ideas that you’ve come up with haven’t had legs and pages keep coming off the calendar.

We realized that we need to find more ideas and they need to be able to deliver on those ideas quickly and we realized that crowdsourcing innovation actually gives us not only more ideas, but better ones, and it cuts the development lifecycle almost in half.

Open innovation dissolves the boundaries between you and your potential solutions. Now anyone from anywhere in a company (from anywhere in the world, for that matter) can help you meet that growth goal, whether it’s someone from your company’s leadership or someone from the maintenance team.

But even if you know that this is what you need to do, it’s not always clear what you need to know before you launch a crowdsourced innovation program. Here are the top four things that people have questions about before they begin:

How to Get Buy-In from Leadership:

There are lots of proven crowdsourcing use cases that show how groups of people have performed better even then the experts, but these stories aren’t always known. First, you have to become an expert and teach your leaders how to change the way that they approach ideation.

How to Define Objectives:

How do you know if you’ve succeeded? If you’re like the person I was talking about before, their objective might be 1% top-line growth, but how do they know what they’ll need to get there? It’s not just about gathering ideas. It’s about impacting your business.

How to Create a Process:

Every organization looks a little bit different, but ideas usually need to go through a refinement and approval process before they can go live. What sort of program would work best at your institution?

How to Create a Communications Plan:

If you’re going to collaborate with the crowd, then you need to know how to communicate with them. You need to add value to the conversation, communicate your incentives program, and make them understand why participating is meaningful to them.

Content Marketing in my eyeview

Rather than bore your customers with ads, inspire them with content.

People on the Web search for relevant information – content marketing provides it

In today’s digital world, people are inundated with advertisements. As a result, businesses struggle to get their corporate message noticed by consumers. In 2011, a study conducted by the Custom Content Council showed that more than 70 percent of users preferred to get their information from articles rather than from corporate advertisements. Now, to reach their target audience, an increasing number of businesses are relying on a promising new strategy: content marketing.

What is content marketing?

The purpose of online research is to find relevant information and high-quality content. That means that text, imagery and video content have to provide information that is relevant and interesting to people searching for information on the Internet. Content marketing is the practice of creating and distributing content that is entertaining, informative and helpful to potential customers. Good content then directs those customers back to your brand website, where you can capture leads and sell products. Successful content marketing creates positive associations to your brand – without the hassle of product marketing.

Good content endures

Having captured potential customers’ interest, your biggest priority is to continually reinforce the connection between them and your company. Content marketing has an especially long-lasting effect as high-quality content entices users to continue reading, clicking and exploring. A website that has been properly outfitted with good content can potentially generate traffic over the course of months or even years. In addition, Google rewards websites that feature good content with improved rankings in search results.

Content marketing in practice

Looking at this graph, it is clear that the popularity of the search term “content marketing” has risen steeply since 2011.

Because of this increase, many large companies, including giants such as Red Bull and IKEA, have placed their bets on marketing with content. According to a recent survey conducted by the renowned “Content Marketing Institute”, B2B companies in the United States invest, on average, about 30 percent of their marketing budget in content marketing. In addition, an increasing number of smaller and mid-sized companies are taking advantage of opportunities the Web provides for efficient content marketing. Communication channels today are more diverse than ever, meaning there are almost no limits to a publication’s potential reach. Also, it has never been cheaper for a business to publish its own content. For that reason, many companies maintain their own blogs; publish white papers, e-books and infographics; or produce videos to demonstrate their expertise.

The content generated by businesses is as diverse as the types of publication used to circulate it. Web shops offer professional product or purchase advice; members of upper management comment on current developments within the company on the corporate blog; and brand-name product manufacturers publish e-books providing tips on the best way to use the company’s products.

What can content marketing do?

Many marketing decision makers have come to recognize the benefits and efficiency of a good content marketing strategy. According to a study by PR agency Waggener Edstrom Communications, 61 percent of marketers polled noticed increased sales figures after implementing a content marketing strategy. Content marketing also helps businesses to achieve a number of other corporate objectives, including:

Lead generation: If customers are impressed by the content provided, there is a high probability that they will be willing to leave their contact details – whether out of an interest in the product or simply a desire to get to more content.

Increased reach and name recognition: Often, high-quality content that addresses current or controversial topics is disseminated via social networks. By taking advantage of this trend, a company can increase its prominence and reach.

Image development: Releasing high-quality publications on a regular basis allows businesses to establish themselves as thought leaders, which strengthens the corporate brand.

Customer development : Content that offers useful information connects the customer to the company for the long term. By consistently offering good content, companies generate interest in their website and entice users to return.

Checklist for successful Content Marketing:

Checklist for successful Content Marketing: What interests your target audience? From the perspective of content marketing, only content that is truly relevant to a given target audience can contribute to your company achieving its goals.

High-quality content: Well-written, appealing content demonstrates the business’s competence. And it should go without saying that the text be error-free, structured and reader-friendly.

Unique Content: Unique content improves search engine rankings. On the other hand, sites with copied content or content that is of no real use to users is relegated to the back pages.

SEO: Successful online content is not just unique, well-written and focused on a specific target group, it is also search engine optimized with keywords, headlines, clear structure and useful links.

Do you lack the resources to produce high-quality content at scale?

According to the Content Marketing Institute, the biggest challenges facing companies trying to break into content marketing are insufficient time and a lack of opportunities to produce enough content…high-quality, customized content – the foundation of every good content marketing strategy. 

Generate New Ideas Competitiveness

In a time when innovation and new product development are vital to remain competitive, large organizations are looking for ways to generate and execute new product ideas while mitigating risk. Increasingly, these companies seek to create a startup culture as a means to generate innovation.

While many potentially valid ideas are identified, few are pursued when a company lacks the strategy and infrastructure to bring these ideas to fruition. Many companies do not have the ability to produce ideas, even if only to develop prototypes and put them in users’ hands in a reasonable time frame.

Developing an efficient mechanism for getting products from the idea phase to initial prototype (and then to market) has significant benefits:

• Quicker idea validation. The product development cycle begins much sooner and the time to validation is shortened. This enables the company to arrive at a “go/no go” product decision within weeks rather than quarters.
• Cheaper and lower risk idea evaluation versus a full blown product launch .
• Management has the opportunity to be involved in product evaluation, rather than being removed from the product development and validation process.
• An increased sense of reward for the idea generator(s), fostering a culture of innovation for the company as a whole.

Identified below are several tools for getting products from the idea generation phase through initial prototype and then to market:

Rapid prototyping

One lower cost, lower risk method for testing product viability and bringing products and services to market is Rapid Prototyping. This involves instituting processes to quickly convert ideas, even if they are only 25-50% complete, into live products that can be placed the hands of potential users or testers. Zynga, the social gaming company, was a pioneer of releasing games that were less than 100% complete and leveraging user feedback for product enhancement. While Zynga’s overall business model has been tested over the past several years, their ability to rapidly develop, iterate and improve their games can be leveraged broadly in software and product development.

Rapid prototyping has several requirements and attributes, including:

• Robust and flexible product development expertise, as the ideas may be broad in nature.
• Expedited development capabilities, often executed without a complete set of user requirements.
• Internal rapid development capability or effective outsourcing via strong third party relationships. Both approaches typically require introducing external personnel and methodologies.

Leveraging internal resources for idea generation

Tapping into an organization’s typically underutilized internal resources can help generate solutions to customer pain points. In the process, however, the organization may produce an unmanageable number of ideas, many of which are not product-worthy or supported by a strong business model. While only one in 20 ideas may be worth exploring, several high impact products may result from internal idea generating efforts.

In order to properly generate and manage internally sourced ideas, companies should address the following:

• Create a repository of ideas, generated from across the organization, including problem addressed, features, use cases and authors.
• Develop a straightforward methodology to evaluate ideas.
• Rank ideas based on customer need and commercial success probability.
• Estimate resources required for initial prototyping and minimum viable product (MVP).
• Create a feedback loop for ideas that pass the initial screening. Keep the originator informed and provide him or her the opportunity to stay involved with the idea as it advances through the testing and development phases.

Corporate “Labs”

Some large, multinational organizations, such as MasterCard and Deutsche Telekom, have developed internal “labs” to generate new product ideas and bring these products to market. These labs have several objectives, including:

• Develop a platform and methodology for new idea generation.
• Create internal awareness of the company’s quest for new products.
• Establish a vehicle for internal product development and validation.
• Create a platform to interface with third party developers and partners.
• Signal to the market that the organization is interested in external partnering and collaboration.
• Identify potential partners and/or acquisition targets.

While an internal lab can be an effective vehicle for generating ideas and developing products, it can also create the perception internally that the group is merely a “skunk works” initiative and not core to the business. Management must be diligent in integrating the lab’s message, methodology, and personnel into the broader organization in order to facilitate effective company-wide collaboration.

Conclusion

Product innovation and getting new product to market quickly is increasingly important but often difficult to execute. Management can help by developing an environment that supports rapid prototyping, harvesting internal ideas, taking calculated risks, and eliminating friction in getting products developed and into the hands of potential users. Internally generated products often solve customer pain points, and with proper recognition, inspired employees may continue to produce innovative ideas for years to come.

Why different groceries sells at varying prices

Prices deviate between stores for countless reasons, and a higher price on the same item doesn’t mean that store is trying to get rich off of you.  Here are a few reasons you may find price differences as you shop around. It’s not all apples to apples or milk to milk.

1. Different Distributor Pricing

Supermarkets pay different prices for the same product through distributors. Some stores pay what’s listed in the distributor’s catalog, while others get a blanket discount off of all products, based on volume.

The more product collectively that a retailer purchases, the larger their discount. That organic soup your small co-op sells for thirty cents more than the large chain store down the street cost them considerably more. Cut them some slack, and save them a few bucks by bringing your own bag.

2. Difference in Quality

Assessing quality isn’t scientific, but in some cases looking at labels will reveal that not all is equal. Taste, ingredients and process may be vastly different.

Some produce is more expensive because someone's in the back room, sorting through the vegetables before putting them on the floor rather than cutting open a box, slapping a sale sign on it, and hoping for the best. Buy one super-cheap yet half rotted onion, and you'll know what I mean.

And take meat, for example. Does the price of chicken or sliced ham seem too good to be true? Take a look at the percentage of saline on the label. Fifteen percent of the weight of conventional poultry is a solution of water and salt.

Specialty producers (often with a higher per-pound price point) are selling 100% meat, which may just balance the pricing out.

So—as with most grocery purchases—read labels and ask questions.

3. Different Supplier Deals

Some retailers lose the middleman (the distributor) and secure lower pricing directly from the makers.

Some grocery stores skips distributors, doesn’t take on debt, and pays its producers on delivery (instead of 30 to 90 days later, after that toothpaste has sold). This promise of quick payments helps secure lower pricing from the companies that stock the grocer's shelf.

Some retailers works with brands that lower their own margins to sell products en masse directly to the warehouse club. Often, producers make grocer-specific items that can't be found anywhere else and therefore aren't available for comparable pricing.

The Takeaway: Shop Around and Consider All the Factors

If you're lucky enough to have wiggle room in your wallet, consider the non-tangibles you value from your shopping experience when making purchases. Convenience, customer service, values (saving the planet!) and selection are all ways retailers can compete beyond price. And if you're on a strict budget, don't forget to consider your own time (or gas money) when driving around time for the next best deal.

Do you have any insights into your own local grocery stores and how or why they differ in price? It also never hurts to ask if they can match prices from one store to another, so it pays to know the spread.

Visual Merchandise Strategy

Effective Merchandise Display Strategy

A Good merchandise display strategy will increase the customer's desire for the product on display. It is important that the need of the customer is the number one focus in the display strategy.

Every profitable retail store has the following three components: a well organized product display, a tidy store and professional and friendly store associates.

A good visual display strategy can result in increased customer flow which ultimately translates into increased sales.

The essence of an effective display strategy is to ensure that merchandise is prominently located on the shop floor to persuade potential customers to buy. One of the best strategies for implementing an effective display is the grouping of products. When products are grouped together, they make the buying decision and overall process easy for prospective customers.

When preparing a merchandise display it is imperative that products are displayed with minimal resources available. The essence of the exercise is not just about the allocation of resources, but the message that is being conveyed to prospective customers. It is therefore essential that the process starts and ends with focus on the target market.

What Are the Best Visual Merchandise Display Strategies?

The most effective visual merchandise displays are those that group products together in relation to their: color, size, class and price.

When products are displayed individually, effort must be made to enhance impact through the innovative use of lighting, mannequins and other display fixtures or props.

How to Implement a Good Merchandise Display Strategy:

Follow the steps below to implement an effective good display strategy

Step One - When allocating display space and resources it is imperative to take into account the target market.

Step Two - Ensure the display is neat and well organised. A well organised display will attract and entice customers to purchase.

Step Three - Do not over-complicate the display however ensure it conveys a clear and unambiguous message about your brand to prospects.

Step Four - Create a contextual display by merging similar products together. This makes buying decisions easier for customers.

Step Five - Display small items prominently with the effective use of lighting to make them easily visible and accessible to customers.

Step Six - Ensure display fixtures, color, background and size complements each other. The theme of the display must be expressed through the use of the most appropriate color combination, fixtures and background.

Step Seven- Enhance certain products by suspending them from either the ceiling or floor using hooks, hangers, or pedestals.

Back to School Shopping

We hate to say it, but many start back at school in a few weeks. The question is, have you started your back to school shopping? We’re not just referring to school supplies, but also apparel, shoes, bags and new gadgets. We’re here to recommend some items that you must buy, to really feel like it’s the start of a new school year!

A Pair of Shoes

Nothing says “I’m ready” like buying and wearing a new pair of shoes. If you’re going back to school, then a nice pair of lifestyle shoes is probably what you’re looking for. Nike, Adidas, Jordan and Converse are all known for their lifestyle shoes and you’ll have a sweet pair of shoes to sport.  If you’re the one teaching and going back to work, then splurge on a pair of comfortable, dressy shoes.

Backpack/ Book bag

For some it will be a heavy duty knapsack and for others, a shoulder bag (if you’re a teacher, usually). 

New Laptop

Windows or Mac? Well, what are you interested in? What are you going to school for? What sort of work will need to be done on your laptop? Those are all questions to take into consideration, but you know that! 

Exploiting New Markets in the Growing Economies

Blueprint a new business model, focusing particularly on the customer value proposition

A business model consists of four components, key resources (brand and people, for example), key processes (R&D, for example), a profit formula, and the customer value proposition (CVP).

Within these four, there are a range of levers, including distribution chain, revenue model, which can be one where the customer pays one time up front (purchase model) or month by month (leasing model).

Successful entrepreneurs have long found success when developing new products by conceiving of offerings that are somehow more convenient, affordable, accessible, or simpler than anything that currently exists. In developing markets, we’ve found that affordability is key, of course, but equally critical is improving access.

Take ChotuKool’s potential customers. Their low incomes and living circumstances—for example, they changed residences frequently—meant that affordability and access were important barriers to consumption. In blueprinting its new business model for ChotuKool, Godrej started with price first, as the key that would unlock the access issue, and then worked toward the cost structure, and finally the processes and resources required to develop and distribute the product.

Where the growth lies

It’s no secret that most companies are looking to emerging markets for future growth. According to the Economist, Western multinationals expect to find 70% of their future growth there—40% of it in China and India alone. But there’s no longer a simple entity called ‘emerging market’. Markets are changing and a key to growth is learning how to create opportunity from those changes.

In trying to transplant their domestic business models, companies end up slashing margins or confining themselves to the higher-income segments, which aren’t big enough to generate sufficient returns.

One often overlooked opportunity is targeting a certain group in the huge middle market of consumers. These consumers are stuck in the limbo that our colleague Clayton Christensen calls “nonconsumption”; many of their basic needs are being met very poorly by existing low-end solutions and they cannot afford even the cheapest of the high-end alternatives.

The story of a little red refrigerator called ChotuKool shows the powerful opportunities for companies when they target this frustrated segment of the middle market. Chotukool was developed by Indian multinational Godrej & Boyce, with our help at Innosight.

Godrej is a diversified manufacturer of everything from safes to hair dye to refrigerators and washing machines and was faced with a pressing growth dilemma: traditional compressor-driven refrigerators had penetrated only 18% of the Indian market because of the high cost to buy and maintain them. But rather than developing a stripped-down version of a standard refrigerator—offering “less for less”—the company ended up creating a category-defining product by fundamentally reconceiving its business model.

The process they followed consists of three basic steps: identify an important unmet job a target customer needs done; blueprint a model that can accomplish that job profitably for a price the customer is willing to pay; and carefully implement and evolve the model by testing essential assumptions and adjusting as you learn.

Identifying the “job to be done”

A small team at Godrej & Boyce was assembled and assigned to conduct detailed observations and open-ended interviews to help identify the job to be done for that untapped market. The semi-urban and rural people the team observed typically earned 5,000 to 8,000 rupees (about $125 to $200) a month, lived in single-room dwellings with four or five family members, and changed residences frequently. Unable to afford conventional refrigerators in their own homes, they were making do with communal, usually secondhand ones.

The shared fridges weren’t meeting these people’s needs very well, but not for the reasons one might expect. The observers found that they almost invariably contained only a few items. Their users tended to shop daily and buy small quantities of vegetables and milk. Electricity was unreliable, putting even the little food they did want to preserve at risk. What’s more, although they wanted to cool their drinking water, making ice wasn’t a job for which these people would “hire” a refrigerator.

So why would this group of consumers “hire” a refrigerator? The team concluded that what this group needed above all else was to stretch one meal into two by preserving leftovers and to keep drinks cooler than room temperature. Clearly, there was no reason to spend a month’s salary on a conventional refrigerator and pay steep electricity prices to get the simpler job done. Nor was the solution a cheaper conventional fridge. The unmet job would require an entirely new product, supported by a new business model.

Strategy of the Pricing Puzzle

In tough economic times, it’s natural to wonder if you should cut prices. But what if we told you that if you were to increase your pricing by 1%, your profitability would skyrocket. Just 1%!

Of course, before you even think about raising prices, you need to think sales. Do you have a sales force that can sell a 1% increase? What differentiates you from your competition? Does your shop sell on price? Do you do know how to cross sell?

1% reduction in fixed costs improves profitability by 2.3%
BUT
1% increase in pricing can boost profitability 11%

How have you determined your pricing strategy? Can you define it? Or is it like looking into a crystal ball hoping the answer will become clear?

Developing your product or service offering requires detailed thought and planning. A critical piece of that planning is deciding how you should price your products and services. The pricing strategy you choose can dramatically impact the profit margins of your business. What equipment do you have, what are your capabilities, what do you pay for the equipment and what do you pay your employees. Are you too high, too low, what does the competition look like? Have all the hundreds of variables been accounted for?

Pricing is the only part of the marketing mix that is revenue generating. What’s the right approach for your product?

Here are six different pricing strategies. Does your company embrace one of these or multiple? Oftentimes, the product or service you’re offering will determine which strategy you use.

The six strategies for pricing

1.   Competition Based

2.   Loss Leader

3.   Penetration Strategy

4.   Premium/High End

5.   Cost-plus

6.   Predatory

This can be a slippery slope in our business. It is challenging to for a small business to maintain because it provides very narrow profit margins that make it hard for the business to achieve enough momentum to grow. Think of this strategy as rock-bottom pricing.

Competition Based

Striving to meet and or beat the prices your competitor is charging.

A competition based pricing strategy focuses solely on what the competition is charging. 

It is:

•challenging for a small business to maintain

•provides very narrow profit margins.

Think of this strategy as rock-bottom pricing.

Loss Leader

Give it away to get more in the future

Historically, printers have done “pro-bono work” to win customers. Make sure you look at the entire picture, before aligning yourself with a freebie client. Remember all of your competition has been asked to do the work for free also.

Penetration Strategy

Increasing the value to your customers, build loyalty and enter the market.

What else can you offer your customer? Value-added services can help secure the relationship and build your brand loyalty – think storefronts, fulfillment, promotional premiums and database management.

Unless you are “blood brothers” with your customers, loyalty in the business is a very difficult thing capture.

Offering value-added services can help secure the relationship and build your brand loyalty – storefronts, fulfillment, promotional premiums or database management.

Premium – High End

Having buyers know that your expensive product or service warrants the additional cost associated can be accomplished, but takes time and lots of marketing.

Exceptional reputation, quality, and distinction. In order for you to implement this type of pricing strategy, you must have built your brand recognition to a high end, premium level.

“Cost plus” strategy:  Full cost and Direct cost

Two types of “cost plus” pricing:

Full cost pricing includes both variable and fixed costs and adds a % markup.

Direct cost pricing uses the variable costs plus a % markup. Usually only used when competition is high as it usually leads to a loss over time.

The “cost plus” pricing strategy basically takes your costs and adds an amount of markup to it. There are two types of “cost plus” pricing:  full cost pricing and direct cost pricing.

Predatory

A carnivorous cousin, Deinonychus, about the size of a man, leaped on its prey, wrapped its long arms and three-fingered hands around it, and kicked it to the death with sickle-shaped toenails.

When tailoring the strategy you choose, keep in mind all of these the influences that will affect your bottom line and pricing strategy. A lot of these circles can influence both each other as well as pricing.

A puzzle is not complete without all the parts. Be systematic and strategic in your decisions.

Do not set the pricing and then just forget it. All pricing strategies can make sense one time or another (except predatory!), but none alone are always sufficient.

Your goal must be to stay one step ahead of your competition.

Your pricing decision doesn’t have to be all of one type, none of the others. And, it should change and evolve over time, as your competition and market conditions change. The pricing of your products should be something you continually evaluate and regularly address.

Importance of SEO, Content Marketing and Social Media Advertising

SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION

These days, search-engine optimization (SEO) covers a lot. It’s also integrated with many other marketing disciplines. It’s a part of content marketing, as well as branding and visibility. Showing up in Google (let alone dominating the rankings) is sometimes half the battle.

SEO is about getting a grip on the following : Site speed, Redirecting URLs in a redesign, Information architecture, XML sitemaps, Clean code review, Panda/Penguin cleanup.

LOCAL SEO

We are all assuming that SEO is of intended in targeting a broad range of audience, however, rarely do we realize that 22% of all searches are location-based, and most B2C purchases happen within 20 miles of an individual’s home. Local rankings lead to foot traffic, phone calls and purchases. Start by completing your Google Business Page, and go next-level with things like schema and “rich snippets.” Know also that one-third of mobile searches have local intent.

CONTENT MARKETING

If we take Google’s word for it, so much of SEO boils down to the creation of invaluable content and great user experiences. When this content and these experiences are naturally talked about and shared, Google gets signals that your website is a destination worthy of being featured prominently in its results. As a result, better content and a more usable website (i.e., the outcome of content marketing) should translate to rankings.

Another way to look at content in the context of SEO is to apply the principles of content strategy to ensure creative assets are useful, usable and desirable. Content that rewards users is also content that search engines should love.

Content marketing is best described as a philosophy.

Every conscientious marketer knows content creation is a powerful tool to strengthen bonds with customers and meet business goals in a buyer-first world. Devout content marketing disciples already know and practice the principles of delighting their audiences with invaluable content. They know that providing invaluable content translates to loyalty.

FORM VS. FUNCTION

The first rule of content marketing is that it’s not about the form! Substance first, structure second. Blog posts, case studies, white papers, guides, infographics, contests, social media campaigns, videos, webinars, podcasts … it doesn’t matter.

What matters is that you’re giving customers something they value.

Rather than thinking about media, channels or any specific tactics, start by viewing content marketing as a set of principles in which building trust, not twisting arms (i.e, the hard sell), is the goal. Your world-class content is what comes first, the vehicle for distribution is second.

TANGIBLE BENEFITS

In addition to the brand credibility and customer satisfaction that you will gain from premium content being central to your marketing strategy, you will benefit from:

Organic search-engine rankings, especially for timeliness or social influence.

Greater audience engagement: Social shares, ‘likes’, repeat visits, avg. time on page/site.

Opportunities for external links (and qualified traffic) back to your site.

Digital Advertising:

Pay-Per-Click (PPC), Display, Social

Google AdWords account management (aka SEM / search-engine marketing, PPC / pay-per-click)

Microsoft AdCenter account management (aka SEM / search-engine-marketing, PPC / pay-per-click)

Social advertising (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter)

Display & retargeting / remarketing

Image / video ad creation

SOCIAL MEDIA ADVERTISING

Social media offer another channel for your messages. Potential places to advertise are as vast as the Internet itself. Whether sponsoring videos on YouTube or Snapchat or paying for placement on Twitter via Vine, you can creatively reach audiences wherever they are. Sorting through the biggest players can sometimes be confusing, but here’s an easy way to differentiate:

Facebook

Primarily for business-to-consumer products/services

Increases awareness, fans and acquisitions

Retargeting to custom audiences by email addresses

LinkedIn

Primarily for business-to-business products/services

Currently the only place to target individuals by job title, industry and company

Converts leads 4x better than those from other social media advertising outlets (Facebook, Twitter)

Twitter

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Why we need to discard using disposable plastic and paper bags

I am fond of buying those eco-bags in the groceries especially if they have sturdy material or have attractive designs.  Since I have been blogging about retailing and groceries, market planning and the likes, I want to delve on writing something different that will make every environmentalists smile by pointing out the negative use of plastics and paper bags in grocery shopping. 

Disposable shopping bags are everywhere. From department stores to gas stations, they are the way we tote our purchases. These lightweight containers were introduced in the 1970s as a means of making shopping easier for consumers. So what’s the big deal? We’ve compiled 10 facts about plastic bags and paper bags that we think are good reasons for you to pick up a reusable bag and make the next bag you throw out your last.

1.       How long does it take for plastic bags to decompose? A plastic bag can take from 15 to 1,000 years to break down, depending on environment. In a landfill, kept away from the environment that would help them biodegrade more easily, paper bags don’t do much better.

2.       Plastic bags don’t biodegrade, but they can break down through photo degradation. When photo degradation, decomposition through exposure to light, happens, the bag breaks down into small, toxic particles.

3.       An estimated one million birds, 100,000 turtles, and countless other sea animals die each year from ingesting plastic. The animals confuse floating bags and plastic particles for edible sea life such as jellyfish and plankton. Once ingested, the plastic blocks the digestive tract and the animals starve to death. Other animals drown after becoming entangled in plastic waste.

4.       The cost to recycle plastic bags outweighs their value, so most recycling facilities will not take them. Instead of being recycled, they are thrown out with the rest of the trash.

5.       According to the Environmental Protection Agency, which has been collecting plastic bag statistics for more than a decade, roughly 2% of plastic bags are recycled in the United States. The rest are left to live on indefinitely in landfills or decompose in our oceans, where they leech toxins into the water and soil.

6.       Thanks to their light weight, plastic bags in landfills don’t always stay there. They are likely to fly away and can settle in trees, block storm drains, and clutter beaches.

7.       Plastic bags make up more than 10% of washed-up debris that pollutes any countries coastline.

8.       Plastic bags are made from petroleum products and natural gas, both non-renewable resources, and their manufacture helps to drive up gas prices.

9.       Think paper bags are better? Think again. We cut down 14 million trees a year to supply the raw material to make paper shopping bags.

10.   Paper bag production involves the use of chemicals and high temperatures, and it releases toxins into the atmosphere at nearly the same rate as plastic bag production.

More than a dozen nations have banned or taxed disposable bags in the past five years.

Reusable bags come in a wide variety of stylish shapes and prints, making shopping a bit less routine and more fun.

Some grocery stores offer discounts to customers who bring reusable bags: Now that’s an incentive!

The average reusable bag has a lifespan equal to that of more than 700 disposable plastic bags.

One person using reusable bags over their lifetime would remove more than 22,000 plastic bags from the environment. Isn’t that an even better incentive?

There are thousands of other facts about plastic bags and how they impact our planet. But despite the damage they do to the environment, some people still haven’t given up their plastic bags, facts or no facts.

So my advice, always make use of your eco-bags, they are highly stylish rather than the usual plastics or paper bags.  Let us take care of our mother earth by being ecologically conscious of our moral and civil duties of causing less harm to our environment, one shopping and grocery at a time.