End of the Phenom : Zidane took retirement from Real Madrid : Puts everyone is Deep Sorrow.

Zinedine Zidane, a 45 years old football Phenom, just took his retirement from Real Madrid Football Club. This news was a shocking element for the football fans and other teams. He put his resignation just after 5 days when his team won from Liverpool in Champions League final by saying that "it is good for the club that they now need a change". This news was shocking for Florentino Perez, the President of Real Madrid football club, as he stated that Zidane did not put me in confidence when he made up his mind. According to him, the legend will come back and join again. Zidane left his position in his prime and with grace. Zinedine Zidane reportedly said that I don’t want to leave this club as a failure I want to leave it as a memory where people can link me with the victory.

He was always famous for making the spontaneous decisions, as we had witnessed in 2006 world cup. Having a controversial world cup after a headbutt to Materazzi in 2006 and there he announced his professional national football retirement. His success is all around the world where he first won his world cup in his home country France as a team Captain. Zidane was also known as Zizou, was named the player of the year 3 times. He then grasps the opportunity by becoming the assistant manager of Real Madrid under Carlos Ancelotti. He was profound of his natural charisma and strategic planning in the pitch. He was the only coach in the Real Madrid history to win 3 Uefa Championships in a row.

His annual salary was 4.6 million euros which he took from Madrid He was the primary endorser of Adidas, Orange, Kanakia Group and earned almost 9.5 million euros each year.
He was just not a coach or a professional football player, he is a philanthropic worker as well. He worked and raised millions of dollars under the name of "Soccer Aid" and AID’s charities.

Zidane said that he will be taking a break from football and he puts his retirement from football forever. He said he wants to do some charity work all around the globe and portrays a good image regarding football all around the globe. He is an ambassador to UNDP programs in Africa.

Rumors are there that Antonio Conte will be taking over as a club manager from Chelsea Football club. He seems to be very passionate about carrying Zidane legacy and continue to win Champions league.

Don't invest until you see clarity : A delusional effect of a Cryptocurrency, Blockchain and the Dark Web Transactions.

What is a Cryptocurrency?

Cryptocurrency, a concept which was first invented by Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008 in his research publication, where his main purpose was to change the behavior of transaction people do all around the world. He imposes to have a digital currency where data (money) is transferred between peer to peer in an encrypted form. Till this date, there are almost 1600 cryptocurrencies which are working on different platforms like Litecoin, Ethereum, and Ripple. The most famous is Bitcoin which was launched in 2009 at a price of $0.08. In 2017, its price skyrocketed till $19000. Till this date, its price is closed at $7300. Nakamoto invented 21 million bitcoins in totality and only 4.2 million bitcoins are left to be mined.

What is the hype regarding the Blockchain technology?

This invention was very difficult for the people to understand, that how does cryptocurrency work?. The backbone of cryptocurrency is known as the Blockchain technology. Since in tradition transaction, we have a trustable entity known as the "Bank" between sender and the receiver, in cryptocurrency, there is no bank. People who are transacting with each other they have a digital ledger where they write each and every single transaction going on in that medium. For example, Alex sold 2 bitcoins to John, this information will be floated in cryptocurrency ecosystem where every single one will write 2 bitcoins are being transferred to John and they will maintain that ledger. Again, there is no Bank involved, so how to make sure there is no fake transaction.  Some people might write 3 BC or 1 BC, here comes the part of the blockchain technology. We will see the common transaction written in everyone’s ledger and through these common transactions, we will create a chain. The longer the chain the most trustable it is. This will tell newcomers or other investors that which one is the legitimate chain.  Everyone in the ecosystem has a wallet which contains two keys; a private key and a public key.

How does the blockchain technology work?

But creating blockchain is not an easy task. You need special expert people with the fastest computers to create a trustable chain. This concept is known as cryptocurrency mining. The blockchain is based on an algorithmic software known as SHA 256, where the miner will have to solve a query with a probability of 256 outcomes. The fastest your computer is, the easier for you to mine. But in return what will the miner get in return.? Once they have solved and build a trustable blockchain, some bitcoins or any other cryptocurrency will be created from nowhere and transfer it to their digital wallets. So miners are basically providing services to build the blockchain.

Usage of Cryptocurrency? 

Cryptocurrency was launched so that people can do illegal transaction off the radar from the federal government. People usually transact in dark webs where you want to hire an assassin or do drug dealing. From this concept, it has become a Fad (short trend) where people bought it for the sake of fashion and then it became a digital reality. The more people buy, the higher the price will go. Corrupt politicians and non-tax payers top management converted their black money into cryptocurrency. There is no money trail or tax to pay for it. No earning records so investigating authorities have no trail to follow.

Why you should not invest a dime in a Cryptocurrency?

Now some of the reasons why you should not invest in any cryptocurrency. The prices are not being regulated by any authorized entity, that means its prices are fluctuating without any reason. You might face a huge amount of risk associated with your investment. Cryptocurrency is neither a commodity or a currency, again, you cannot touch it or spend it anywhere in the real world. Some countries like Pakistan has started to ban this digital currency because of no money trail. Most people are investing in Bitcoin just out of fashion, they don’t understand the real deal in it and how does it work.

Tech war between Apple, Google and Samsung 2018, Samsung loses $539 million over Copyright Infringement

Copyrights and patents are the major issues in today’s technological era. There are two types of patents. The first one is utility patent (protection of machines and new upcoming innovation) and other is design patent which includes the curves and edges, the way the product will look and the way they perform. Since the level of innovation in Mobile technology is very thin so companies are mimicking their direct or indirect competitors.

The same case happened between two worlds biggest tech giants; Apple and Samsung. A case which was started in 2011, when Apple Inc. sued Samsung for illegally copying some of the feature and design from them. Initially, they demanded $2.5 billion, but the settlement reached at $539 million dollars by the court's jury of California. Samsung has illegally infringed 5 different types of designs which include “slide to unlock screen” which was invented and patent by Apple. Another infringement was an "auto-correction" and "background syncing" which was again a property of Apple. Six of the Samsung devices including their flagship products like Galaxy S2 and S3 were embedded with infringed technology. Apple’s major emphasis was on “915 patent” which is “Pinch to Zoom” and they said this feature was patent back in 2011, which Samsung used in their flagship products in 2012.

Samsung also put their lawsuit against Apple. As a South Korean company accused Apple of copying their face to face technology which Apple afterward named it "FaceTime" and other was "organizing folders". But their decision is pending to review. Samsung recently filed a “writ of certiorari” which means they want to move this case up to the supreme court. Samsung repeatedly said they did not infringe any technology, they adopted the accused feature from Google Android. At the moment, Google did not respond with any statement regarding their war, but some analysts are now pointing out that Apple.Inc might come after Google by infringing some parts of IOS to Android. By just highlighting Google in Apple and Samsung’s war, Google’s stock price took a nosedive up to 1.4%.

Yet again, Samsung till this date loss this case and have to pay the infringement money to Apple. Due to which their brand image is in danger and their stock price plummet to 1.1% in wall street and 7.5% in South Korean stock exchange, which means around $12 billion loss in just one week.

Chapter 6 : Integrated Marketing Communications

This chapter talks about creating and using Integrated marketing communications. But first, we should know about marketing communication. The main purpose is to inform, persuade and give your customer a nudging reminder about your product and services.
IMC is basically a technique where you combine different tools of communication and find the optimal mix so that your desired message can easily reach to your target market. In the previous chapter, we had discussed digitalization, so mainstream marketing techniques are cliché and companies are using digital marketing as their primary source of communication.

The first and the most renowned tool of IMC is the advertisement. The vital element which differentiates advertising from the promotion is in advertisement sponsor is identified. The controversy and the limitation of advertisement is that its effects cannot be quantified. For example, I poured 100,000 rupees on one advert, I don’t know whether and when my investment on this ad will give me revenues. Normally people see the ad and do not buy the product.

For Ideal ad campaign, your ad should be displayed at the right time to the right audience. For example, food ads before lunch and dinner. While creating an ad, make sure your product is not undermined by any celebrity or an endorser. Your ad should be easy to interpret and the customer can actually understand the intended message in it. In the end, your ad should not be only for awareness but its goal should be to make a sale. The strategies of advertisement are ATL, BTL, and TTL.

Sales promotion is a short-term tool in IMC, where you go trail of your product outside malls and stadiums. Kanas, a brand of Tehzeeb foods, when it was launched they put sales promotions in Safa Mall, Chilman restaurant and every outlet of Tehzeeb bakery.  Sales promotion are of two types; Consumer promotion, the scenario mentioned above and Trade promotions its basically b2b.

Event marketing and sponsorship is basically where companies try to create a good image out of themselves. Pakistan Tobacco company is banned from doing advertisement, so they arrange Golf Tournaments to have a good exposure for their customers. Redbull arranges sporty events and tries to endorse their brand using sports activities and celebrities.

Public relations and publicity, a concept which is synonymous to a layman person, yet they are poles apart. Public relation, a concept where companies try to defend their image by showing the positive side only. Press conferences and press releases are few tactics of public relations.  On the other hand, publicity is dual in nature where it can be positive or negative. Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy recently put a publicity stunt to get on the trending list, same goes with Misha Shafi and Ali Zafar’s using #metoo as a publicity stunt.

Marketing communication guidelines are critically important for companies because it helps them to develop their optimal marketing communication strategy. We will start with, you have to be analytical and deeply understand the consumer behavior model. Since everyone is different from each other so your managerial decision should develop a well-executed and researched communication strategy.
Only one-time value is not enough for your customer, you need to be curious about their changing need and demands, keeping your strategy aligned with market trends and competitors.  You cannot reach and customize your ads to the whole population.
Be single-minded and focus on your actual target market rather than focusing the whole mass. You have to be integrative which means you have to be consistent and keep reinforcing your message to your target audience. Showing one-time ad is not enough you need to keep showing them again and again until it jumps to the recall point in your brain.
Break the clutter and be creative, because a creative ad can easily be remembered because it has the element of uniqueness in it.
Observe your competitors and see what they are doing, how customers are responding to their strategies. Keeping the budget in mind, be realistic about which tool should be used and when. Lastly, be patient and trust your communication strategies. Success won’t come overnight.

Chapter 5: Marketing programs: Types of Personalize Marketing.

Marketing paradigms and parameters have changed with the passage of time. Companies are changing their marketing tactics and strategies. Through the concept of digitalization and more connectivity, the world is now shrunk due to the internet and companies are doing businesses offshore. In Pakistan, some of the U.S based companies are working because of cheap labor and fewer taxes.
Digitalization has prevailed so much that companies are now interacting with the customer directly and excluding the middleman. For example, Bahria University wants to buy Hp laptops for the faculty, they will directly contact the manufacturer rather than involving vendors and distributors. But again re-intermediaries ensure trust. E-BAY, a customer to customer e-commerce portal included Paypal, a digital bank, which ensure trust between both customers. Through digitalization, two concepts also evolved customization (you can alter a product through some extent) and customerization (where the customer can modify the whole product to his limits, for example, tailor suits or customized cakes).

The market is cluttered with non-sense ideas and conservative techniques. Firms are using a lot of "out-of-box" techniques to capture the attention of their potential customer in a very unique way. The customer wants the ownership of the products.
Remember the Global campaign by Coca-Cola “share a coke” where different names were labeled in their packaging. This was the concept of mass customization and customer felt the ownership. Because that is how you create a relationship with your customer.

Experiential marketing, a concept with a boom in the industry, talks about create an ultimate experience for the customer that they will never ever forget about it. London Olympics 2012, Samsung installed their stalls outside the stadium and they displayed their latest mobile phones so that people can experience the product before their purchase.

One to one marketing is basically you engage the customer to create value for your product. You interact with them in an individual level and engage them. But for good engagement, you first need to identify your prospect customer and treat them individually. The second step is differentiating them by segmenting them in their belonging class. Interact with them in an efficient manner and try talking to them about their need and wants. Customize their need and behavior according to your firm’s requirement and try to create value. Lastly, build a strong and everlasting relationship with your customer and try to make him your brand evangelist.

Guerilla marketing, again a new way of marketing where you advertise your product in an unconventional way where normally people were not expecting it. Like Colgate partnerships with a local ice-cream manufacturer to have their sticks shaped like toothbrush so that children can remember they have to brush their teeth after having this ice-cream.

One of the most important technique is Permission marketing, a concept given by Seth Godin. He talks about not to irritate or invade customer’s privacy and stop doing interruptive marketing. His major focus was on to develop a deep and meaningful relationship with the customers. He said we need to engage and encourage the customer to participate in a long-term marketing campaign and the customer will be given some sort of reward for it. Reward or compensation is compulsory because it can enhance the level of concentration of your customers. Permission marketing revolves around to offer an incentive to your customer so that he can concentrate on your brand. Make him understand your product. Keep giving him incentive so that his concentration level is maintained. Lastly, once his concentration is permanent, change it into sales and earn profit through it.

Retailers are customers too. Since retailer is the middleman between company and customer. The cooperative advertisement is a partnership between retailers and the company. You have seen multiple time Coca-Cola fridge in a small retail store and with their main board (brand name) you can see Coca-Cola’s name with it.

Chapter 4 : Brand Element : Choose your brand elements wisely.

In this chapter we will be discussing about brand element and the criteria of selecting brand elements. The worth of apple logo is  $39.9 billion, this worth is not created overnight. A team of well-established logo architects and designers put their mind in the creation of this logo. But again logo is a brand element, but to select this brand element we need to see the criteria’s as well. Keller defines criteria of selecting brand elements as the selective filter which is applied on each brand element. He categorized these criteria under 6 filter.

1) Memorability (Your brand element should be attention grasping and can be easily identified, for example, Mcdonalds, A big yellow “M” can be spotted miles before and can easily trigger recall and recognition.
2) Meaningfulness (brand element should be meaningful in terms of detail description of your product and benefits. Like Fair and lovely, they describe their product as a whitening cream and they put challenge in their advertisement that in just 10 days you will have fairer skin.
3) Likeability (Your brand should be aesthetically sound and appealing. Color combination used in the creation of any elements creates a big difference. See which color and design have associated feelings with your brand.
4) Transferability (You cannot stick with your brand with only one product, for more profits companies diversify their portfolio. Your brand name, logo and other elements should be made in a way that they can be easily transfer to other products in your portfolio.
5) Adaptability (Again very important because you need to adapt and adopt your brand elements with the taste and culture of your target market and continuously try to improve your brand elements by keeping in mind the element of technology.
6) Protectability (Select the brand elements which can be protected internationally in terms of copyrights and trademarks. In Pakistan, we register our company and brand under the umbrella of SECP (security exchange commission of Pakistan).

Moving towards the tactics of brand elements. These tactics are made and developed by the above-mentioned criteria’s.
The first tactic is selecting the Brand name. Since it is not easy to select a brand name. There are certain criteria’s which needs to be fulfilled like it should define your objectives, through these objectives, generate a list of brand names, screen them out on the bases of favorability and then research the final candidate nationally and internationally as well. 
Second is URL (uniform resource locator) a web name for your digital campaigns like Daraz.pk, where Daraz means closet. People normally put logo and symbol under one category, but yet they are poles apart.
A logo is a term derived from logotype which is the written part and symbol is graphics part, for example, Starbucks (the written part is the logo and the naked siren is the symbol).
Characters are the symbolic and rememberable personalities associated with a brand for e.g. Colonel Sanders of KFC, Reynold McDonalds of McDonald's.
Packaging is an important brand element because it can influence the taste (orange juice), it can change the buying behavior (orange juice as a normal drink).  And Lastly, Slogan and Taglines, the difference between both of them is slogan is for a short marketing campaign and tagline is for the company and it remains constant forever.

Save the world, Save a life : Innovations from Apple, Amazon and Tata Group.

Competition in electric cars domain is increasing day by day. The world is moving towards the concept of "save the world and save the lives". Apple incorporation has announced that their upcoming project will be totally different from their current portfolio. Rumors are there that Apple is currently working on a project known as “Titan” an Electric car. Some of the internal employees stated that a heavy force of technical employees are working on this project. Apple had identified the current market niche and do not want Tesla Motors and Tata motors to enjoy their full share in the electric cars category. They want to be the first mover in the electric car market of a self-driven car. Since the majority of the countries are now focusing on the removal of petrol and diesel cars. Scandinavian countries are putting emphasis that no car will be operated on Gas until 2030. Indian technological giant Tata group announced that they will be launching their electric car named as "E-Vission".

Amazon is world’s biggest giant in terms of e-commerce and cloud computing. Jeff Bezos was named as one of the most influencing and richest CEO. Rumors are there that Amazon by the end of 2018 will be entering into the pharmaceutical business. Their main aim is to reduce the element of intermediaries. They want to eliminate pharmacist between the doctors and the pharmacy. They want to do innovation through putting a QR (quick response) code on doctor's given prescription and you just need to scan that code through your mobile phone, money will be deducted through your linked bank account and medicines will be delivered to your address.

Another important innovation which is just around the corner for commercialization is Alexa of Amazon. Alexa is a digital voice search engine and a voice-powered digital assistance. Since you have seen Google has recently launched its Artificial intelligence voice-operated assistant. It can help you set appointments and plan your day. They will call on your behalf and set appointments for you. Again innovation is the key to success, Amazon and Google keep on innovating themselves on different platforms.

Furthermore, Amazon is now expanding and continuously improving their domain of grocery. They have this digital card, from which you don’t need to check out, you just need to pass through a scanner and money will be deducted from that Amazon card.

Why positioning is vital for companies : a case of TATA Nano.

This chapter talks about how and why positioning of a certain brand is critically important. Normally, we define positioning as the placement of a brand in consumer's mind. But it is not an easy task to do so.
Let's discuss a case about TATA Nano, a revolutionary car which was launched by TATA group in mid-2000's in India. The car was a small compressed hatchback with a 624 cc engine in it and it was priced just above iPhone. By the looks of it, it was a good value for money but yet, it was a failed product. The reason behind its failure was its positioning statement. They advertised their car with a statement “worlds cheapest car”, the word “cheapest” was its demise. People usually see this word as a negative connotation. That was the main reason behind its downfall. Customers will position negatively if there is a negative feeling in your statement.

For this, companies need to develop a competitive frame of reference. A framework which is renowned among all the marketers. For this, you need to identify your potential target market, whether you will be targeting the niche or going for undifferentiated selection of people.
Secondly, you need to focus on who are your direct and indirect competitors.  For example, if you are in a clothing business, so your direct competitors will be Khaadi or Sana Safinaz but your indirect competitors will be Hyperstar as well because they also sell clothes.
Thirdly, you have to focus on Point of parities (similarities) like to be in a category you need to have some sort of similarities among your competitors but at the same time, you also need to have differences (USP).

Brand mantra, a strategy made by companies to identify what a customer should feel about their brand. It is the mixture of both heart and soul. The sole purpose of this strategy is to have a good positioning in a consumers mind. There are three considerations regarding brand mantra: Communicate, simplify, and inspire. The three criteria or domains of this theory are Emotional modifier (feelings), Descriptive modifier (who is our target market) and lastly, Brand function (Nature of your product). For example, Nike brand mantra is (EM is Authentic), (DM is Athletic) and (BF is Performance).

A Brand audit is a phenomenon which tells us about the health of a brand. It consists of two parts, brand inventory, and brand exploratory. In the brand inventory, we discuss how to position our brand. The tools which are required in brand inventory are, creating a good brand element for e.g. Logo, slogan, taglines, jingles. Secondly, Create a good strategy for your IMC. Develop your direct competitor’s profiles and see how they are developing and using their business model. And lastly, focus on the creation of innovative brand mantra. Brand exploratory tells us how to develop your CBBE model and how the consumer will perceive your brand on the basis of brand awareness, favorability, and Unique associations.

Brand Management : Consumer based brand equity : Chapter 2

Consumer-based brand equity, a concept which is undermined by many researchers and academicians. Normally companies focus is to create brand equity to get maximum profits and gain sustainable future revenues. Kavin lane Keller, put emphasis that equity is derived from the customer and it is for the customers. He defined Consumer-based brand equity as a differential effect, it can be a USP for the customers or a unique way to showcased your brand, that a brand knowledge has on consumer response.

The consumer should be treated like your wife. You have to take care of them whether you like it or not. Brand knowledge is a concept where a consumer thinks or feels about a particular brand. They are the brand nodes which are linked to your brain. It has two components, firstly, brand awareness and brand image. Lastly, consumer response is how often a consumer can recall your brand when it is needed in a particular situation.

The concept of brand equity as a bridge basically shows that your past investment in a brand was not your expenses. Because revenues won’t come overnight and you need to have the stamina to bear losses for sometimes. So when you invest in something wait a while so that it can bring some profits in future.

He further put emphasis on how to create a strong brand. Firstly, you need to create a good positioning out of your brand so that consumer can easily recall good points. Secondly, A good brand meaning mean how much are you creating a value for the customers. Furthermore, through your positioning and brand meaning, drive a good consumer response and lastly convert that response into a set of good loyalty and strengthen your relationship with them.

Moving towards the most important part of this chapter which consumer-based brand equity model. The anatomy of this model is in a pyramid shape which shows that if the first level is not cleared, you can’t jump up to next stage.
The first part is a salience which tells the basic things about the brand. The two components of salience are depth (ease of recall and recognition) and breath (how and when you purchase) of a brand. In short, salience tells us about the category identification of brand. Moving up the ladder we see imagery and performance.
Imagery talks about the heritage of a brand, the experiences which are associated with a brand. And what is the purchase and usage situation of a brand.
Adjacent to it is the performance which includes features and primary characteristics of a brand. It talks about how durable and authentic a brand is.
Climbing up we can further see two adjacently marked domains. First is Feeling, which is right above the imagery part, shows that what kind of feeling a customer had when they buy your brand. Adjacent to it is Judgment part, which elaborates the quality and superiority of brand. And at the top of this, we can see the brand resonance part or the loyalty part.
This model is dissected from the middle in a way that imagery and feeling are on the right side and performance and judgment are on the left side. So that right side is the emotional part and the left side is the rational part of this model. When we combine both emotional and rational part of our body, we get loyalty.

Lastly, we will be focusing on brand building implications where will discuss what should brand do to have an optimal positioning. Firstly, consumers buy brands, not products. So they practically own the brand. Don’t ever take shortcuts with your brand, because your ultimate goal should be on the creation of loyalty and it won’t come overnight. Brand should provide value and should have a part of augmentation in it as well. It should have duality means, a brand should trigger your mind as well as your heart

2018 Top Strategies for SEO. Bring instant traffic to your website.

The first technique is to do your in-depth content research. Select the right keyword and use them in a very subtle way so that you can avoid the Blackhat SEO. Your Parent topic should have the right keywords because it has the highest volume of search. Just make sure you select the right keywords or long-tail keywords because these keywords can make or break your website. 

Getting massive traffic on your website should not be your goal, but your target should be bringing right traffic to your blog. The reason I am saying that is because your right audience will increase your session duration in Google Analytics. Getting into bids is not an easy task sometimes it can become an expensive and time-consuming task. Use bucket bridges words to increase the attention of your reader for example “look” or “you need this” or “how to solve your problem”.

Re-writing your content and publishing it again is a good strategy as well. Since you are not sitting on a content goldmine where you can create a unique content every single time. So re-share your most important and highly readable content. Once it is done you can run a content audit which tells you the health of your article whether to remove or merge with other content.

Search analytics tells us to see your users search patterns. Backlinking is critical for your website health because it shows if you have good content and how many people are syndicating your website. This is shown in the link to your site section. Internal links show the pattern of your navigation on your website.

You can identify your user experience through heat maps and what areas you can improve to engage more users. Heat maps shows the way a user clicks and navigate towards your website and scroll map shows about the length of the page you scroll down. This can be done on Crazyeggs.

Short-term strategy for your website to get massive traffic, get it pinged. About 200 different websites help you to index and share your website URL. Link your website to other social media platform, and start social sharing. 

Brand Management : Chapter 1

This chapter talks about what is brand management and what is branding. The historical story tells us about branding is that there were multiple farms located in one facility and when all the owners open their herds of cattle, when they come back they couldn't recognize which one was theirs. They got an idea where they make a symbol at the end of an iron rod and burnt stabbed them at their back. This can easily tell which animal was theirs. From this concept, the world picks out the concept of branding. So what is branding?, It can be a term (name), symbol, sign, color, or anything else which separates your product/service from your competitor's product or service.

So ultimately, companies should focus on creating a sold brand equity by giving them value. Aaker defined brand equity as a some of assets and liabilities associated with a current brand.

Theodore Levitt talks about the intensity of the competition. He said the real competition is not what the companies are creating in their factories but the competition lies in the augmentation in terms of packaging, add extra service and creating a mix to create a decent amount of value for the customer. The other theory which he put emphasis was on Market Myopia. A concept, where companies become profit centric and forget about their customer's actual needs and want. They don't innovate themselves and lack behind in the fierce competition. This is what happened to Nokia and Kodak.

Another famous example regarding branding is given by John Stuart, a former CEO of Quaker Oats. He said to take whatever you want from my company, my assets, my team, my resources, but I would not give you my brand name. To create a solid brand name you need to put every single smidge of your blood to make that brand popular and recognizable. But one silly mistake can ruin your brand name as well.

Importance of brand to Customers is very important because brand name gives the source of the product and can enhance trust. Ultimately, it reduces the risk for e.g. would you ever buy a bottle of water with no label, no name, no description and no brand sticker. Probably, the answer would be no because you can't risk your life with no authentication from the product.
Importance of brands to the firm talks about the legal property, influence consumers to buy your products and lastly, the most important factor is future sustainable revenues. One thing should be very understandable is that companies always think of themselves. They don't think about customers, they have to create value so that they can sustain in a market and consumer can buy their product. So all they think of is the profits.

The source of the brand strength lies in two phenomena, vision, and will. Some people have the vision that they can make a change in the world and they can do that and this, but they lack Will. Contrary people have the will to make a change but they don't have the vision to accomplish that thing. So both phenomena should be working with each other so that success can be achieved.

"Will the Royal Wedding breaks the internet or not"?

The question arises, will this Royal wedding break the internet or not ????

Brands and Marketers are going insane over Prince Harry and Ms. Megan Markle "The Royal Wedding". The Ceremony will take place at St George Chapel at noon. The estimated budget for magazine advertisements crossed $31 million dollars. The magazine  'US Weekly' which are covering this royal wedding step by step almost sold 100,000 copies in a day. Companies are endorsing and selling different products with the Royals brand. Approximately $67 million worth of products are sold in just one week. People all around the world are traveling towards Windsor Castle to see the new Royal couple get married.

Megan Markle will be wearing Givenchy worth $136,000 and the wedding itself will cost around $34 million and counting.

 Moving towards the Digital media, surprisingly almost 70% of the US citizen tweet and shared the post related to the ceremony on Twitter and Facebook, contrary to the fact, less than 30% of the Brits shared and tweet regarding this Royal wedding. So Americans are taking more interest than the Brits. British Broadcasting Channel (BBC) and Cable News Networks (CNN) are the official partners on TV broadcasting. CNN started a trend #CNNtv, where people all around the world can log in and see live feeds of the wedding. Big news channels like ABC is planning to put a massive bid to get on the top results when people search ‘The Royal Wedding”, now you can imagine how much money will Google make. Furthermore, they invested a good amount of money on getting a 5hrs morning platform on the Facebook official page of the Royal Monarchs.

In terms of Youtube, the most watched website is estimating 450 Million users and Youtubers to see the Royal Wedding Online. According to the stats, approximately 3 Billion users will be watching this majestic event all across the globe. Almost every hotel is booked in the 4 Mile radius with double amount of prices by travelers and Royal enthusiast.

Purple PR, a company which is doing official Public Relation, publicity and newsletter for the Royal Wedding. Approximate, 300 million pounds is the expected profit earned through this event. Brands which Megan wear during these days have skyrocketed their sales and fellowship on the social media especially Instagram have increased. They are planning to earn around 160 million pounds. Never the less, around 50 million pounds of estimated sales are expected by selling stamps, mugs and royal coins.

Kentucky Fried Chicken and Burger King are making Royal burgers in the name of Prince Harry and Ms. Markle to get a joy and increase their sales.

All of the endorsements and marketing will increase Britain economy by  £1.04 Billion. 

E-Commerce: Traffic Building, SEO and SERP

Traffic building is the ultimate goal for every website or social media page. But traffic won’t come easily on your webpage. You need to develop some sort of objectives and goals through which you can trigger that target market to land on your website and increase your session duration. You need to focus on both the techniques; Digital as well as Traditional marketing. For example, Daraz.pk, they do massive engagement on social media, website and below the line (billboards and events).
Timing is critically important because you should know when is your target audience is online. For example, in Social Media Marketing, brands normally boost their post at 3 pm and 9 pm (weekdays) and on weekends they normally post 6 pm and 10 pm. You need to constantly check your brand health. The reason behind that is normally people create synonymous URL’s regarding it and can fish hook your potential target audience, for example, www.cases-in-marketing.blogspot.com can be synonymously used as www.casesinmarketing.blgospot.com.

Normally people bid on keywords and phrases which are supposed to be used on search engines. For that, you need to sign-up for Google Keyword tool which can show you the top listing keywords in your domain. For this, you need to keep a bird’s eye on the trending words and bid on it through Google AdWords. Once you got the right words and phrases, it’s time to focus on the performance of your traffic. It can be done through Google Analytics and your own website dashboard. The vital thing which needs to be on your radar is the Bounce rate. Normally a good bounce rate is below 40% but with a good session duration.

Search Engine Optimization, a process through which your uniform resource locator (website) can be showed on the first page of any search engine or SERP (Search engine ranking pages). There are two ways to get on the SERP.

First is the through Pay per click, in which you pay a certain amount to the search engine and they can get you on the first page on the temporary basis where ads are displayed.
Second option to get organically listed there. Since the shortcut is at option number 1, so the majority of the brands opt for it. Organic listing is difficult and time-consuming but its impact is long-lasting.

 A web crawler or spider is a bot which roams around your website and index it to Google. It is basically a monitoring tool of search engines through which they can keep an eye on the websites and their authenticity. For the spider, the most important thing is the URL, Title tags, and the Content. But some people are very smart, they opt another way which is known as Black Hat SEO. In which you violate the rules and regulation of a search engine and exploit them to get yourself on the top ranking. The common technique is by using key-phrases again and again and they won’t make any sense.

Tactics and tricks to get organically listed are, 1) Get the right Domain name. A good domain name is a traffic magnet. Normally people buy domains which have a strong keyword in it so that they can easily be listed. Backlinking strategies are the most important strategy to get listed. It is like having an outbound and inbound links to your website. Content syndication is very important as well as reciprocity. It will help you to get indexed in any search engine. Some of the websites include pictures and graphics. It is very important to have a frame on your pictures because search engines give zero marks to the images if they lack frames and ALT tags. Do not put any Portable documented format files (PDF) and Flash images on your websites. And Lastly, your website should have a sitemap which is supposed to be submitted to your search engine so that crawler (spider) can easily reach your pages.

#SEO

E-commerce : Social Media Marketing : Strategies and Tactics

Social media marketing, a trend everyone is following these days. But creating a strategy, content, and engagement is not easy in social media. Since Social media is made up 60 different types of networking sites, yet we only use the big 7 i.e. Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Snapchat and LinkedIn, YouTube and Twitter. One thing which is common in every Social Networking site is User-generated content. These above-mentioned networking sites do not create their own content, yet it is a billion-dollar industry. Facebook owns Instagram and WhatsApp, which is totally based on consumer sharing and active participation by the user. So they earn by the data which is made by general users. 

But for the user, they can’t earn money from any social networking sites because they do not provide any dashboarding and monetizing elements. So rest assure, social media is just for the sake of awareness. 

Moving towards the best strategies and tactics which should be used in Social Media Marketing (SMM). The First strategy is Listen before you speak. Normally companies who are using SMM as a sole business platform, they don’t listen to their customers and do not tap into communities. Secondly, Focus, you cannot use every SMM site to advertise your product. Focus on the limited sites which have contains your target consumers. Quality is always better than quantity. Produce good quality content and infographics to increase your engagement on the networking sites. Patience is the key to success, success won’t come overnight. Create an engaging content and wait for the users to take action upon it. Compounding is a phenomenon where you share your content all across the networking sites. But one thing should be in mind, every content should be same across all mediums. For example, your Facebook page, you are putting an infographic with 40% discount, and on your actual website, the infographic says 50% discount. Alignment is necessary in compounding. To boost your trust on your user, find the best opinion leaders regarding your content and business. Since opinion leaders are influencers too, they can divert a lot of traffic to your website. Value is very important since users have full liberty to write anything on social media and you cannot stop it. So if you are aggressive, you might lose a whole chunk of consumers. Don’t show any kind of attitude towards the user, acknowledge them if they comment or share. Coke Studio 10 used this strategy where they individually Acknowledged those users who were commenting on their social media pages. Accessibility, another important tool, don’t just publish and run away. You should be present 24/7 while answering their queries. Lastly, reciprocity, an element where you share other people content so that they can share yours. 

Upon all the strategies, our primary strategy should be content syndication. Where you spread and publish your website, content or blog to others websites so that your web presence can enhance and ultimately you can climb up the ladder of Search Engine Optimization. 

But before that, we need to focus on identifying the right kind of user and convert them into your loyal customers. So the strategy through which you can easily put a limelight on your potential user is known as the Social Technographic Ladder. This ladder shows that majority of the users are Spectators and not Creators. The most important Key performance indicator is sharing in the social ecosystem. People read it and don’t share. They read the online forums but hesitant to share their own experience. This is the gap in the market. 

Digital firms should create a content which is minimal in design and carry a strong message across every channel on social media.  If your content is strong then it will become king and users across social media will become Queen. So boosting is not the best option in any social media. Normally if you boost a picture of a donkey, trust me, it will get 1000+ likes, but again they won't be organic likes. Your main focus should be to create an engaging content and put some viral element in it. Viral part is important because you need to ignite a match before starting a fire. 

E-commerce : Chapter 4 : E-customers

Since the medium of transaction and online revenue models are changed, customers are changed too. Companies are putting a microscope on each and every customer in a detailed form. Customers are available all around the world. Like in Pakistan, we can buy products from Alibaba.com. The difference lies in the behavior of online and offline behavior. Normally we seek and spread information through the process of Word of mouth but in social media and digital marketing, we call it a word of mouse. The most important part of the digital ecosystem is the trust and privacy element. People are hesitant to share their personal information with other customers and companies. Most of the credit card fraud is the best example of it.

 You can always analyze the general lifestyle of online consumers, where they have money and less time. Almost all the e-commerce stores are into web rings and alliances where they partner with one another if they lack some products or not available.

Humans are a social animal, we have the tendency to follow others. Normally when we make an offline purchase, we keep it to ourselves. But in digital media, we shout out by sharing and putting up a status. We follow trends and gossips all around the world and share it with others. This concept is taken from the Mexican waves where we follow what others are doing.

Motivation is critically important to understand because you need to understand customers buying behavior and issues regarding online buying. To overcome that we will be focusing on 6 C’s of marketing. Content is the king in the digital ecosystem. Majority of your target audience will come after your content. People spread and share good content. Customization, where you create and deliver highly personalized content and media strategies for your customers. As in digital media, people create communities and share and gossip about latest trends and products. The only perk a digital buying and offline buying is the convenience part, as you can buy anything at any time from any part of the world. You have multiple choices among different part of the world to buy your products. Lastly, cost reduction because the supply chain is narrowly downed, fewer players in the supply chain, less costing and finally cost reduction to customers.

Fogg's model talks about how to change customers online behavior and what can be done to make them more loyal. He talks on three parameters 1). Trigger (call to action) where you can easily access things which you want to. For example, a photo of yours is tagged by your friend, you will receive an email regarding it, you will try to open it. 2) Motivation (if you tag a smoker to a cancerous lung picture, he will not watch it, because there is no motivation for him because of his belief system. The content should be aligned what he really wants to read. 3) Ability is how easily you can navigate through the system if the photo is not opened in just one click, your ability of opening that picture will be very low.

Ultimately, your job is to create a system beyond loyalty. Your task is to give them the quality support system, so that if anything bad happens your support system can help your customer. Make sure what you promise, you deliver. A product presentation is very important because the first impression is almost last impression in digital marketing. Trust and privacy control system should be there. And lastly creating your USP by giving right products available all the time in your web portal.

E-commerce : Chapter 3 : E-Models

This chapter talks about the concept of model development in digital marketing. A model is very important to understand because it tells us the flow of information. So due to the advancement of technology, the consumer is seeking products which are always present in the digital eco-system and can be bought anytime and anywhere. Consumers are not just consumers, they are contributors now. They help the brand to create new ideas, promotions, and products.

Since the buying patterns are changed, so firms are also changing their online revenue models. For example, companies buy slots on the most engaging websites, like a collaborative work done by HSBC (bank) and Orange mobile service provider, where HSBC bought a slot on the orange website, where people can transact easily if they want to buy mobile phones or upgrade their package. Like the revenue model of Facebook and Whatsapp, companies are earning ample amount of money by selling customers data to other entities. Some firms buy data from the research companies like AC Neilson to get to the actual target market. Lastly, Freemium model, where you have to pay a certain amount to get other advantages. The best example is Candy Crush, when you lose your every life, whether you have to wait or pay $1 to them to get five lives. Different between freemium and a Trail version is that freemium is not time bound.

Click ecosystem elaborates the concept of the actual behavior or a customer when they actually reach or land the desired website. Since most of the people entered through search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo) then they stream themselves to different websites and finally landed on the actual site. To discuss that we need to have a model through which we can easily identify our customer's behavior. This model is known as the Intermediary model in e-commerce. 

This model is divided into 4 parts 1) Consumer segments (To identify your customer, their lifestyle, age, gender, interest, in short profile them. 2) Search Intermediary (mostly include a search engine, from where did the customer entered in the eco-system). The intermediary site (other niche or open portals, like when you are especially looking for B2B websites, you can find it here). Destination sites (since you will land on that site which is giving you more online value proposition, it can be discounts, coupons, well-designed site architecture, easy to navigate).

Attribution model in e-commerce talks about how much attribute should be given to that website from whom my traffic is coming. For example, a person sees a dress on Facebook and then landed on your website but changed her mind. No conversion took place. But next day, she Googled it and landed on the same website and bought that dress. In that class, Facebook won’t be attributed, Google will.

Communication model talks about building a trust between sender and the customer. To catalyst this trust, companies include Opinion leaders (massive following and technical expertise) to talk about their brand.

Hofacker's model talk about how to increases the effectiveness of your website. Since Exposure is very important because your website is live 24/7 and people need to see your most important post or product on the top. Attention comes when you have a good site with complementary colors scheme. Comprehension tells about how your customer is interpreting your intended message. Yeilding talks about is the information is accepted by the consumer. Lastly, retention, where you can access whether the customer will come back again for purchase or not.

Lastly, we are going to discuss Neilson 90-9-1 rule, where he talks about Only 1 percent of the people in the whole ecosystem are heavy contributors, 9 percent are small contributors and actually spread the content and remaining 90 percent are those which only read and don’t spread the content.

E-commerce : Chapter 2 : Marketing Mix

This chapter is about creating your digital marketing mix. Normally marketing mix was first crafted by McCarthy (1960) which was product-oriented, then the industry was evolved with the passage of time and they have to modify it because of the evolution of Service industry. Then afterward technology prevailed in the market and they have to add one more ‘P’ which is known as 'Partnership'. Since the partnership is very important in digital marketing because the whole Affiliate program runs on it.

Product in the digital world is basically how can you create value by giving them an excellent product and fast delivery. The main concern is the trust issues where people can only see the product and cannot touch or feel it. Most of the people, research online and buy offline (ROPO). Choosing new design online and then they buy offline through the traditional store. Since the value of the product is created through extended product or augmentation, giving them free returns and warranties, basically to remove all the ambiguities of customers from online shopping.

Price is totally different from the offline medium. In traditional, we have multiple buyers and few sellers, here we have one buyer and many sellers all around the world. This process is known as Reverse Auctioning. Since the middle-man is removed in digital marketing, so the price is charged low as compare to the traditional business. You cannot be the jack of all trades in digital, you need to select a selective domain and have expertise in it. Lastly, we have price comparison websites like Skyscanner for airline ticketing and hotels.
'New approaches of Pricing' consist of Subscription model (you pay for a time period for e.g. 3 months or 6 months) best example is Netflix. Pay per view is you have to pay for every time you have to watch or read anything e.g. you have to pay every time to watch UFC fights. Bundling technique is basically you buy in a bundle for e.g. Videos and news content from the same website, they will charge you lower than the individual. Lastly, Ad support content includes CPM (Cost per mille (thousand), where the advertiser has to pay to the publisher once the ad is seen by 1000 people. This technique is basically when your objective is awareness). PPC (Pay per click, the advertiser only pays to the publisher when the ad is clicked. It is for highly targeted ads.). Difference between impression and page view is, the impression is, for example, a page has 4 ads so every time a person visits your website you have 4 impressions but the pageview will be only 1.

In digital marketing, the Place is how your product is distributed. Disintermediation is a concept where you remove the middleman between the company and the customers. For example, Bahria University wants to buy 1000 laptops, they will order it from HP website rather than giving their order to the middleman. Re-intermediation is including the middleman to increase the element of trust for e.g. Ebay introduces Paypal to increase the trust between both parties.

Promotion is, what kind of advertisement you will be using banner ads, display ads or a skyscraper ads. Selling includes virtual selling. Public relations is about publishing newsletters or news releases to your loyal customers and personalize their email according to them.

People are basically who are running operations both front and back. Since in digital, customers query and their requirements are very diversified. It’s the people who are working to put a smile on their customer. Happy staff means happy customers and happy profits.

Physical evidence and Process are basically how smooth is your website and how friendly your site architecture is.  The website should not be heavy to load, that will increase your bounce rate. As in Daraz.pk, only in 3 clicks, you can buy your product.

E-Commerce (Digital Marketing) : Chapter 1 : Introduction to E-Marketing

The first chapter is about the Introduction to E-Marketing where our main focus is on digital marketing and its components. Digital marketing (data-driven marketing) is the means of doing business and market your brand or products in a digital way. The main component of digital marketing is content. The better and optimized content you have, the more traffic will come to read it. So the main purpose is to create market demand for your website or blog.

"How social media supports SEO"#DigitalMarketing #Business #InboundMarketing #SEOtips #GrowthHacking #Marketing #SocialMedia
#OnlineMarketing #EmailMarketing #SEO #SMM #webdesign #website #Internet #InternetMarketing #SEO #SMM #ecommerce pic.twitter.com/CelujYlOMI

— Akshay Soygaonkar (@akshaysoygavkar) May 9, 2018

The strategy which can help you to optimize your content and brand is known as "Integrated digital brands and content optimization". In this model, we will be using different techniques like On-page SEO, Off-page SEO, Site architecture, Social media marketing etc. The main purpose is to spread your content in a very diversified way so that different people across different channel can read it.
Next, we will be discussing Value proposition where companies see how can we provide benefits to our customers keeping cost in mind. So in online medium brands can create value through free and easy return policy, cash on delivery, having your brand’s mobile application. In short, the lazier you can make the customer the more value you are creating. In Pakistani context, we can see how Daraz.pk have created value and supersede Homeshopping.pk.

Moving towards the main strategy or e-marketing strategy known as SOSTAC model. This model is the ultimate bible for creating your online masterplan.
Situational Analysis (Here you will be identifying the current market situation both internal and external. You need to question yourself, where are we now? You need to analyze how digital platforms are changing and how you can invest or cope up with it. Like Facebook.com recently launched a dating app where 1 out 3 people are getting married through the platform of Facebook. So you need to continuously innovate yourself.
Objectives, where a company divide its objectives into five different domains.
1) Sell (develop a strategy where you can acquire a new customer and retain the old one as well. In your website, always put those products in the front display which are new and ready to sell).
2) Speak (Develop a trialogue between yourself and your customers, always tell them about your new products and keep them updated. You can allow them to RSS (Really simple syndication) your website).
3) Serve (Since in digital platform your campaigns and products are available 24/7, you need to answer queries all the time. Serve is basically how quickly you solve your customer’s problem and give them value).
4) Save (how can you save cost since you need to increase your profits and at the same time you have to create value them).
5) Sizzle (the most important part of objectives, how sizzling is your content, post, and graphics to increase your site stickiness. Your main objective is to reduce your bounce rate and increase the conversion rate).
The Strategy part is to identify your target audience and segment them into the cluster so that you can easily target them. The best tool for identifying your audience is Google Analytics. Your strategy should be, credibility before visibility.
Tactics would be which medium should be used to display our brands and products. Your focus should be on digital marketing mix and schedule your content post accordingly.
Action in e-marketing plan would be assigning roles and responsibility to your team force. Since going digital is not an easy task, you need to have some content writers, site manager and researcher in your team.
Lastly, Control part tells us that what Key performance indicators we have set and are we achieving them or not. Mystery shopping on your website to see the performance and see your website is not giving errors.

Principles of Marketing: Chapter 15 , Advertisement and Public Relation

This chapter is all about sub-types of Integrated marketing communication channels. The most important types are Advertisement and Public relations.

An advertisement is a form of paid promotion which you do to communicate your target audience. The three strategies of Advertisement are above the line, below the line and through the line. In Above the line we normally take advertisement because of its higher reach as well as cost. Below the line, we take newspaper, radio, which have limited reach and low cost. Lastly, with the evolution of technology, we included Through the line where digital marketing is used. This means cost and reach are variable in nature, you incur more cost you will get more reach and if you incur less cost you will get less reach. There are four types of advertisement.

1)Informative advertisement (when you introduce some new brand or positioned a new brand, you need to inform the customer about its features and benefits regarding it for e.g. Haleeb foods introduced Chaunsa Chaunsa (juice) they have used Asim Azhar as a celebrity to inform people about a new category extension of Haleeb food.
2)The comparative advertisement is basically when you subliminally or deliberately try to compare your product with competitor’s product. Surf Excel (Detergent) deliberately blurs Ariel (Detergent) in their advertisement to show their product is way better than Ariel's.
3)The persuasive advertisement is a type where you try to persuade your target audience by giving them facts and figure. Like Toyota Corolla launched their new corolla 1.6 Altis and they highlighted what is new in it and try to persuade their customers by using a tagline “book your Altis today”.
Lastly, we are going to focus on Reminder advertisement where you keep on reminding the customers about your brand but it can also be used in Public service messages like Polio vaccinations for children are very important.

Developing advertisement strategy is critically vital for companies to focus on. This means your message should have a strong piece of information through which customer can easily understand it and decode it as well. Dove creates very creative ads like “Everyone is beautiful” campaign. Similarly, when we see Pakistani ads, where we won’t find a strong advertisement message and less creativity as well. So for that firm, they should have a big idea and then carefully use the appeal and then smart fully execute it. "Slice of life" is an appeal where you show daily life problems like use Mortein spray to repel dengue from your house. The tone of the message is very important for the advertisement relating to Walls Icecream they will use positive tone and happiness but regarding cigarettes or Polio, they will use negative appeal to tell the customer it is wrong to consume these products.

Selecting advertisement media is a part where you focus on reach, frequency, and impact of your intended message. Reach, in a given amount of time how many people are exposed with your advertisement for e.g. your ad is about toothpaste and you show your ad on national television at 8:59 pm till 9:00 pm and approximately 6000 people were exposed to your ad.This mean your reach is 6000. Frequency is how many repetitively an average person is exposed to your ad. Using the above-mentioned scenario, if a person is exposed 20 times in 10 minutes, the frequency will be 20. Lastly, Impact is interviewing different random people about your ad and asking whether they want to purchase their product or not.?

Public relation is basically maintaining and sustaining good public. Basically, every company has their public relations department where their main task is to answer and control rumors or any bad word of mouth regarding their brand or company. For example, when lays (chips) were accused of using pig fat in the process of making chips. There P.R department came into action and used Junaid Jamshed (r.i.p) (A religious scholar) to endorse it and remove the rumors regarding it. It can be done through Newspapers, Social media, press conference or some sort of public service message.

Principles of Marketing: Chapter 14 : Engaging Customer, and Communication.

This chapter is all about engaging customers to create value by using IMC tools. Promotional mix is using a set of promotional tools to communicate the brand. Since in marketing mix, Promotion is the only tool which is the voice of the brand.

The first tool of the promotional mix is the Advertisement. Normally a layman would have categorized advertisement and promotion in the same category. Since in advertisement is a promotional tool where it is compulsory for the sponsor to identify himself. For e.g. Oye Hoye (chips), a product of United Snacks or Faiza beauty cream a product of Poonia Brothers. There are three strategies of advertisement vis-e-vis ATL (Above the line), BTL (Below the line) and TTL (Through the line).

A short-term incentive to promote your brand is called Sales Promotions. The best example is the discounts, clearance sales, buy 1 get 1 free. Since these are short-term company can afford to give these amount of discounts to the customers.
Personal selling where company’s sales force is given targets to achieve. It is basically DTDS (Door to door selling), most common example is selling insurance or credit cards to people. Digital Marketing is evolving day by day.
The part (TTL) is basically Digital Marketing where the world commerce is shifting. People are doing business from their home through Google AdSense and making money. Another important aspect of digital marketing is social media marketing. Companies are not doing OOH (Out of home advertisement) but they are investing more towards building social media pages and sponsor their pages in their desired target market and demographics.

As the advancement of technology and customers are becoming more tech savvy or geek, companies are changing their marketing strategies because the customer is changing. They solved this problem by using the technique called IMC (Integrated Marketing Communication) where they use different tools of marketing to reach out customers in a unique way. Since integration means combining different promotional mix and find the optimal mix between them.

IMC is made up different steps: 1) Identification of target market (means on the basis of target market strategies and ask yourself what, how, when and where you will engage them). 2) Communication objective (AIDA model). 3) Designing an intended message (For example see the new paper ad section and see how ads are constructed and how they are giving an intended message to you). 4) Choosing the right media and channel for telling your customers about your brand. 5) Lastly, the Message source that who will endorse your product, you can do it through Celebrity or any sports personality and through them you collect a feedback from them about how was your communication strategy.

How much company should allocate their promotional budget? The method is known as the Affordable method where you keep or sets a budget according to the company’s range. Percentage of sale process is basically setting a percentage of the budget on the basis of how many per unit items were sold. Looking at the competitive strategy and mimicking what they are doing. Like how much amount of money they are spending on one tool and why? And lastly, You develop a budget on the basis of certain objectives and task in hand. For example, you want to do market penetration strategy for your product. This is the objective, and you need to set the budget accordingly.

Principles of Marketing : Chapter 13 : Retailers and Wholesaler

This chapter is all about retailing and wholesaling. A retailer is an entity which provides goods and services to the end consumer for the consumption. In the service industry, there are three types of it.

Self-service is the one where the customer doesn't interact with any person and self-serviced himself. Like the vending machines and Kiosk. Limited service where it is limited interaction between companies employee and the customer like in fast-food industry. Lastly, full service is where there is ample amount of interaction between both of them like in Restaurants.
The second part is the product line, where the first one is specialty stores (a store selling specific things like office supplies or clothes). Departmental stores, where you can get a variety of things under one umbrella. Like D. Watson or Shaheen. Convenience store, where you can get things on the basis of convenience, a store near you. Superstore, a store bigger than departmental store and have more product varieties in them. Like Hyperstar or Al-Fateh. Lastly, Category killer where you give massive discounts from the other competitor like Wal-mart.

Corporate chain, are big outlets which are commonly owned and is controlled by one company. Like in the UK, Marks & Spenser they own retail stores as well as food outlets. Voluntary Chain is where you operate in bulk buying and operate in different parts of the world like Western Autos. The franchise is subletting your outlets to someone on the common Standard operating procedures.

Wholesaling is an entity involves in selling goods and services to those entities who further sells the products to someone else who can sell the product to the consumers. They can also act as a promoter of a product and help the manufactures to sell their product to the consumer. Categorizing product and items so that they can reduce the hassle for the customers. Their major role is the EOS (Economies of scale) where wholesaler buys products in larger quantity through which per unit cost is reduced. They also have different warehouses to hold and stock inventory. They also transport the end products to the market for the consumption. Since wholesalers are big entities they can give products to the retailers in credits as well.

There are three types of wholesalers 1) Merchandiser ( they provide all the above-mentioned service to the market). 2)  Broker and agents are intermediary which assist the relationship between buyers and sellers and they take commission from both of them. Manufacturers and retailers buy products for themselves for further production and developing the end product for the customers.