It's A Promoter's World!

“Out of Sight is Out of Mind”

In this world of complete market orientation “jo dikhta hai, wo bikta hai”. And to accomplish this it becomes imperative that we understand how promotional techniques rule the market places today. Believing the business adage, "Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door," might lead to your ultimate failure. You may have the best product in on the market, but if no one knows about it, you will be doomed. Follow basic principles for promoting your product to improve your business' long-term success. Where classic movies like Raincoat  get a flop at hands, movies like jhoom barabar jhoom who cater to no strong story line hits the first day box office, all by the way of aggressive advertisement. Business branding and promotion has now entered the 21st century and what the 21st century market demands is often more than just free gifts, cut price costs and cheaper deals.

Marketing, in more the one way, is like juggling. This strange analogy will become crystal clear if we take a close look at it. Just like the juggler the marketer too has to do these things to thrive in his business: first, he has to hook his audience; gain their attention through several jazzy tricks; and then hold their attention by still more innovative juggling. All this he has to achieve without losing balance, focus or steadfastness in the art, the industry, in the marketer’s case. In short, marketing is all about alluring, attracting and holding a collection of customers for your Company’s welfare. To quote the American Marketing Association’s definition, it is "an organizational function and a set of processes for creating, communicating and delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in ways that benefit the organization and its stakeholders". If one dilutes all the verbosity and looks at it, marketing means "selling" a product. This is the prime purpose behind any kind of marketing. The "selling" is accelerated with the help of properly chalked out plans called marketing strategies.

Marketing is not just telling and selling the product anymore, but it is about satisfying the customers needs (Armstrong & Kotler, 2006). Marketing is the process of adding value to goods or services by progressively differentiating them within a system of price and markets (Penn Jr., W. 1962, April). First there is a series of operations performed that lead to the final goal of consumption. Secondly "progressive differentiating" refers to the competitive market which differentiates itself through price, product or place. Finally you must understand that there are limiting extremes within the differentiating process. One such example of a marketing turn around is the Intel Corporation. They took their eye off of marketing for some time and became stagnant. When they realized that they were losing sales due to lack of creativity and the complexity of their product they decided to revamp their marketing strategy. They hired a new marketing chief who came up with ideas to offer cash incentives to any employee who can come up with an excellent advertising idea. In addition to bringing more creative marketing ideas to the table, he also cut the budget of the marketing team saying that the marketing team needed to be "leaner and meaner".

When it comes to promotions, even students at IIPM have set new records for branding be it promotions through banners, pamphlets, online promotions or live performances. It has gone to every nook and corner and has always developed new skills for marketing of which-so-ever event it has ever been associated with, whether it is commercial or educational, having latest examples of IIPM’s fest "AMAZE" or the "NEP week" which might still just catch your eye, making “ IIPM” a brand which people now look up to.

Understanding today’s market is not just a practiced skill but an art, which less of the masses master! Its something we should understand, is not build overnight. A perfect marketing strategy can take up to years like how Microsoft, Nissan or Morphy Richards have build… and even days at times when it comes to brands like Micromax. It’s all upto an idea, an idea that can change your life! As in the end all you have to do is “Make, Believe”...