The Long-Term Effect of Marketing Strategy on Brand Sales, Essay Example

Question 5: Chapter 9

A blog is a discussion site, which is posted on various websites that consist of discrete entries displayed in reverse chronological order. It was predicted by e-marketer that by 2012, 43% 0f all the corporations blogs as a method of communication and advertising their products. E-marketer expressed that corporate blogs continue to increase rapidly though personal blogs are growing slowly. This is because the blogs are designed, and used frequently by corporations to advertise, or market their products. In addition, blogs are used since the technology is changing rapidly, and it has been transformed to the digital era. This is a situation whereby internet is used when performing each activity or transaction (Case & King 2011, p. 101).

When a company or corporation used blogs, it will have some benefits in its business activities. Blogging helps the business in developing credibility and expertise. The company will be charged as per their blogs in terms of credibility and expertise. This is whereby the employees will build a trusted blog after some time by being honest and open in their blogs. This is through sharing of ideas with other people having experience in blogs and acquiring new ideas in the process of interacting. The blog will make the business source of important information. The information includes comments or corrections posted by customers or any other person about the blogs. This information is important in that the company will use it in improving its product quality and quantity and even changing the tactic of posting their blogs on the internet. This information will make the business to be visible on the internet and offline.

Blogs provide a dialog between the companies and their customers. The companies will advertise their products through blogs by posting their products including their prices and importance. When the customer comes across the advertised products, they will choose to buy the products or not. The customers will leave a comment about the posted products on the blog for the company to improve or maintain the quality of products. Through blogs, new relationships are developed between the company, business partners and even the customers. They will be sharing information about the business products and new tactics on how to market using blogs. The visibility of the company brands is increased by the blogs. The blogs are ranked the best in search engines. This is because they can be easily accessed using the search engines since their contents are updated frequently making them to be recent.

Twitter has some advantages and disadvantages when used in the business. Marketers or any other company employee will not incorporate twitter on social media marketing without having a vast experience in using it (Cross 2011, p. 162). Twitter is important to the B2B marketers in that through twitter; they would market company’s products and communicate with customers and other stakeholders. B2B marketers will post the products, importance, and their uses on twitter. Many people will access this information because they are registered on twitter, and they will visit a social site frequently to communicate and get more updates. In addition, marketers will communicate with customers through twitter, and they will get more information about the products. Marketers will know what to improve on the products using the feedback from customers on the products posted. Marketers will advice the company on what to focused and improved on the products to make them popular and marketable.

B2B marketers and other employees will use twitter to improve and enhance the company’s reputation. This is because the marketers or employees will use the comments posted by the customers on the products advertised on twitter. If the customers are not happy about the quality or quantity of the products, they will post comments, and the company will improve on what is targeted by the comments to retain the customers. When the customers are retained, company’s sales will increase leading to higher profits. Through twitter, marketers can interact with other professionals and share information on how to increase company sales using twitter. This will improve the company’s reputation because the employees and marketers will acquire more skills from other professionals on twitter. Twitter is used as internal mode of communication between employees, management, and stakeholders. When management wants to pass information to all the employees in the company, they will not call the employees one by one but will post a message on twitter page that will be accessed by all the employees. This will reduce costs of calling to communicate within the company since the company is connected to the internet, which will be used for communication and other purposes. Twitter acts as an inbound signal to the company. This is because, when there is any problem about the products posted on the twitter page, the customers or other people will respond to it by posting comments. The company will access the comments and make corrections on the products.

Twitter and blogs should be used when marketing products. This is because they are the current methods to be used when marketing products and communication on the organizations in the digital era. Many people are using these social sites, and it will be easier for the companies advertising their products to reach a targeted audience at once. This is because the customers frequently visit the social sites, and they can be easily influenced to buy the products.

Question 3: Chapter 10

Sales lead is the process of identifying an entity or a person who has authority or interest to purchase a product or service. This is the initial point in the sales process, and it is referred to as lead generation. B2B marketers considered high quality and large volume of sales a challenge. This is because they are wasting more funds and there no enough marketers to present the high quality sales to the consumers. In addition, the company producing the high quality sales uses large amounts of expenditure, which the sales made, is not enough to cover these expenses. Many companies use high quality sales as an approach to identify and influence consumers to buy the products. It is a challenge in that after identification of consumers, the company might decide to reduce the quality of the sales. This will discourage the consumers and they will not be willing to buy the products since they are not of the same quality with the once used to identify them.

B2B marketers considered high quality sales lead a challenge because it is a long process, and more funds are spend (Darwin & Janssen 2013, p. 109). The process might take one year to close the process of identification, which is expensive. This is because the sales lead products used should be of high quality for the customers to be influenced to accept the offers. The marketers will be forced to organize trade fairs and sales exhibitions to present the offers to the audience such that they can identify the potential buyers. This is a costly process since the marketers will need to communicate with customers for quite long time when persuading the customer to buy the products. In the end, the customer might fail to buy the products yet many funds have been used in the process.

B2B marketers considered it a challenge because the professionals conducting the identification process are expensive since they are paid for the services for the period of identification of the buyers. The company will incur more expenses on marketers after producing high quality sales, which is also expensive. The customers might be willing to buy the products, but the company will incur many expenses. This is because if the process can take even one year, the company will only be spending, and there is no revenue received for the period of identification. After identification of the buyers, they might not remain relevant because the competitors might influence them yet the company has spent a lot of funds and time in the identification process. The company will need to conduct the process of identification in a wide area, which might be national, regionally, and even worldwide. This will be expensive and challenge to the company since it will have to pay for travel and personnel expenses in various locations (Ataman & Mela 2010, p. 870).

Sale lead generation and management is a tool for marketing and should be applied on high-ticket sales having long purchase circles. This tool should not be used on products, which are having shorter purchase circle because it will be expensive to the company conducting the process of identification. Sales leads should be applied on the products like cars and houses, which have longer purchase cycles. This is because the consumer will have to go through the entire purchase process before deciding to purchase the product. The consumer will have to select from alternatives, search for information about the product, and make a decision. The consumer should be identified at the initial stages of the purchase process. Communication should be managed closely as the process continues. The marketer should make an effort of closing the sale at an appropriate time such a lot of time and funds are not spent in a long process. Most of the processes are posted on the company’s websites where an email is required before accessing the process. This is because the email will be used to contact the consumer such that the company will not lose the contact of the consumer before making a decision.

Sales lead generation should be managed closely to avoid spending more resources and time. The first step is to determine whether the product fits sales lead generation to be used. This is done by considering the length of the purchase cycle of the product. The products with long purchase cycle are fit for the sales lead generation. Sales lead representatives should also be considered to make sure that they are not too expensive for the company.

References

Ataman, M. B. & Mela, C. F. (2010). The long-term effect of marketing strategy on brand sales. Journal of Marketing Research, 47(5), 866-882.

Case, C. J., & King, D. L. (2011). Twitter Usage in the Fortune 50: A Marketing Opportunity?. Journal of Marketing Development and Competitiveness, 5(3), 94-103.

Cross, M. (2011). Bloggerati, Twitterati: How Blogs and Twitter are Transforming Popular Culture: How Blogs and Twitter are Transforming Popular Culture. ABC-CLIO.

Darwin, D. P., & Janssen, D. J. (2013). U.S. Patent No. 8,412,582. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.