Marketing Bones

Ideas & Answers on all things Marketing

Archive for the ‘Marketing’ category

When NOT to increase market share

March 30th, 2010

This is an idea that intrigued me. Why would someone not try to increase their market share? The reasons to do so are overwhelming. All modern and traditional learning stresses that we strive to increase market share as much as possible. The upside is manifold. Increase share equals increased revenue which in turn means happy stockholders.

But, sometimes, it does make sense to hold back and actually not increase your market share. Here are the reasons why… » Read more: When NOT to increase market share

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Posted in Marketing Concepts, Marketing Strategy

Tags: Marketing Strategy

Market Share – How to Calculate it

March 27th, 2010

Rarely, do I come across someone who tends to leave a lasting impression on me because of their logical thinking and incisive writing.

Estelle Metayer is one of these people. Her insights and advanced thinking into marketing and competitor intelligence are very potent. But, her ability to translate these concepts into day-to-day actionable changes is what makes her such a powerful communicator. Gosh, maybe I’m in love!

In any case, here’s a two part adaptation of her article on how to calculate market share. To say that, this helped me immensely is an understatement. » Read more: Market Share – How to Calculate it

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Posted in Marketing Concepts

Tags: Marketing Strategy marketing tactics

How PapaJohns.com makes online ordering so easy

March 8th, 2010

Not much to pen today. I’ve been assimilating the wealth of information that SEOMoz provides to all its readers extolling them to understand thoroughly the virtues of good SEO, and with that understanding strive to build sustainable websites.

One of the blog entries on SEOMoz caught my attention and I was impressed by the way it was penned and arranged. The entry was about how PapaJohns, the pizza company has managed to build an online presence and how sales from their online channel has increased immensely.

Read the article here

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Posted in Marketing

Tags: online marketing

Revisiting Jack Trout’s Positioning

March 6th, 2010

This seminal piece of work is worth a revisit again and again for the curious marketer. The basic tenant of this book is clear: To be noticed in today’s over-marketed society, a brand must firmly hold a place (position) in a consumer’s mind. Sure, that is relatively easy if you’re the market leader. But, if you’re not there first, look for a `hole’ or a ‘gap’, which is a niche not exploited by the market leader.

In marketing strategy, it is easier to attack a market leader indirectly rather than head on. Dell in its early days focused on a unique delivery mechanism and used the same to dominate the B2B market. Rather than fight HP and Compaq for shelf space in big box electronic retailers, it concentrated on direct sales. That part worked then. » Read more: Revisiting Jack Trout’s Positioning

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Posted in Marketing Concepts

Tags: Positioning

Why Tactics and Execution goals matter

February 27th, 2010

Scenario : You have a good business growth plan – heck, you have a GREAT business growth idea. You’ve just delivered your elevator speech to the CEO and he tells you to pitch your idea to the executive team. You walk into the room and begin. First, the idea, the strategy, the market, the competitive landscape and the financial/operational goals.

Then, the CEO asks you. “How are you going to implement this?” Either you have a series of next-level tactics on hand or you fumble about how different members of your team will keep working hard to make this happen.

The meeting ends with no financing approved. What went wrong? » Read more: Why Tactics and Execution goals matter

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Posted in Marketing, Marketing Strategy

Tags: Marketing Strategy marketing tactics

What! Google actually uses Direct Mail to advertise?

January 8th, 2010

I answered a question on Linkedin some time back about what Google might be spending on its direct mail efforts to small businesses. This was a challenging one and I had to rack my brains to estimate the numbers. Thanks to Jevon Cole on Linkedin for steering me towards the right pricing for this.

According to the IAB, the US advertising spend was $300 billion in 2008 with 25% of that expenditure going into direct mail. Let me try to figure out Google’s spend:

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Posted in Marketing

Tags: marketing tactics

Retromarketing – Tormenting Customers and how they’ll love it

December 11th, 2009

It was a few years ago when I first read this HBR article on Retromarketing by Stephen Brown which was quite eye-opening.

The premise of this article was based on the fact that marketing folks always keep telling us to mollycoddle our customers and do things like customer care, customer delight, customer is king etc. etc. I agree with Mr. Brown to an extent; Some customers are uninformed and only focus on one attribute on a product, which is mostly price. » Read more: Retromarketing – Tormenting Customers and how they’ll love it

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Posted in Marketing, Marketing Concepts

Tags: Marketing Strategy marketing tactics

10 Tips on B2B selling in China

November 9th, 2009

I came across this article recently and was impressed by the common-sense tips on how to approach and engage other businesses in China as part of your Asian B2B selling strategy.

Tips that stand out include :

- Ensuring that you have a strategy in mind. Are you in China for the long-haul or is this a tread-softly approach where you want to understand the viability of setting up business in China or are you just in this for the short-term? Each objective requires a different approach. » Read more: 10 Tips on B2B selling in China