New Commercial Tool

People watch TV using Tivo to skip TV commercials. More and more people spend longer hours on using the Internet than on watching TV. How do we get consumers watch TV commercials? I found a new website where you’ll get some points every time you watch TV commercials to the end and you can exchange those points with Wii, Nintendo DS, iPod nano and so on. The CMSite provides not only commercials but also movie, animation and music contents to amuse the users. The registration fee is free.

TV watchers are passive. They tune in to watch the program, not to watch commercials. On the contrary, the CMSite users are active. They put themselves in front of the website to click and watch commercials. This is very interesting as well as very new consumer behaviour. It is expected that the number of young people watching TV commercials would keep decreasing. The CMSite successfully found the new tool to invite the target consumers into their territory.

Avoid Dispalying Any Sign on the Front Door

I went to Subway along 10th ave. in Vancouver last week and found a sign displayed on the door when pushing it. It was about the store staff, introducing a name and a comment. The sign itself is very good idea to get customer familiarized with the store and increase the loyalty. The problem is the place they posted it up. Do you stop and read something on the front door when entering the store? Probably, "No." As Paco Underhill mentions in his book, Why We Buy, "There's only one time when anyone pauses to study what's written there: when the store is closed." Then, where should it be posted? Given the high rate of to-go-customers, the best place would be around the register where they wait for getting the sandwich wrapped up and paying process. They are too busy to notice such kind of signs when making an order: choosing a bun and letting them know which salad should not be taken. Only at the last moment when they have finished ordering, they may finally have a chance to notice a sign unrelated to the sandwiches.

I sometimes find the store having an elaborated sign on the front door. It's really waste of money. Shoppers only care about the sign of whether to pull or push. If you want to appeal something to a potential customer who is interested in your store but unable to make a decision to step in. The window is the best place to display information such as service and price. Shoppers won't stop at the front door in where another customer might come out from inside. An automatic door which moves from right to left is, of course, out of the question.

Where do shoppers slow down their processes? (Absolutely it's not at the entrance.) It is the answer to choose the best place to display your sign for the target customers.

Marketing Plan

Perfume is one of the most difficult presents to be the right one for your girlfriend. Unlike clothes and accessories, she cannot easily take her scent off after wearing it. If she finds the earrings do not go with today's her outfit, she will just take them off. Since a woman knows fragrance stays with her for all day long and the scent remains in the place for a while where she has been. So, women carefully choose their fragrance. Women may keep trying one fragrance after another at department store until they find the right one. If you do not know what your girlfriend's favorite fragrance brand is, just simply you should avoid a perfume for her present. The chance that your choice will be wrong is 99.9%.

Even for whom you know well, it is difficult to choose the right present. How the right product to target the majority people in the market is chosen? Marketing mix is probably the most basic planning strategy. Its elements are price, place, product and promotion. It is also known as 4P's. Each element is decided as follows;

Product:
brand name, design, functionality, quality, packaging, warranty, after-service...

Price:
standard price, discount rate, allowance, bundling, price discrimination, price flexibility...

Place:
distribution channel, inventory management, transportation, logistic, order processing...

Promotion:
sales promotion, advertising, sales force, public relations, direct marketing, Internet marketing...


Marketing mix (4Ps) is from the viewpoint of sellers. If a market plan is made just based on the above mentioned four elements, the plan will not successfully get the target customers. To make that end, customer's point of view needs to be included. Before you decide 4Ps, you should consider 4Cs, which is from the viewpoint of consumers. Its elements are customer value, customer cost, convenience, communication. 4Ps and 4Cs are corresponded each other;

Product <----> Customer Value
Price <----> Customer Cost
Promotion <----> Communication
Place <----> Convenience

Marketing starts from choosing the target marketing and understanding the target customers. What kind of benefits should add the newly developed product? What price is the best? Which channel should be used? What kind of promotion should be implemented? Those 4Ps' elements need to be considered after deciding the target market and the target customers. The viewpoint of customer is indispensable for an appropriate marketing mix.

Don't choose a present from your viewpoint. Even if you like the scent, there's no 100% guarantee she will like the perfume you choose as well.

What do you grab at the register?

Shoppers always forget something to buy unless they have the impeccable shopping list in their hands. The cashier area is the last chance for them to grab something. You may have an experience to say, "Yes, we are running out of it" when you found a fine array of batteries in front of the register. Most of the stores purposely place snacks, stationery and batteries which cost around $2 so that customers can quickly decide to purchase it. If the price exceeds $5 at a grocery store in where shoppers are sensitive to a few dollars difference, they cannot make up their mind to buy it while they make a line to wait for the cashier. The goods should have the price which allows for them to grab it easily like "Why not? Just $1.50."



I did Christmas shopping at Best Buy a few days ago. There was a longer line than usual in the cashier area. Normally people find newly released DVDs, electronic toothbrushes and batteries, something like $10 or so, along the line section. But I found the big boxes of Xbox 360 consoles along the line for cashier. "Wow, who can decide to purchase such a thing with the price as high as $199.99 while making a line?" I thought that way first. But, think about the behaviour of Christmas shoppers, it actually gets the point. Many parents wonder whether or not, it is the right choice to buy such an expensive game console for their young boys. Most of them may give up and choose something else like i-Pod or a toy electronic guitar. This cashier area is the last chance for parents to grab Xbox 360 for a Christmas present. During the Christmas shopping period, the cashier area is not only for quick decision makers - "Why not? Let's give it a try" or "Oh, I forgot to buy this!" but also for very thoughtful shoppers - "Okay, then let's get this." Best Buy knew this consumer behavior very well and placed the boxes of Xbox 360 console. Very smart.

Simple is The Best

As a holiday season approaches, people start looking for the destination to get out of the reality and enjoy vacations. If he has yet to decide where to go, he may type "travel" to google. Then he may find Google AdWords ads on the right-hand side. As you know well, Google AdWords ad has the title, two-line content and URL. Among those four lines, the title is the key. The following are among the ads that appear on the right-hand side as a result of the key word of "travel" at Google Canada.












For majority of people, the cheaper the better. Given that, which will be the winner, "Cheap Airline Ticket" or "Cheapest Flights Online"? The answer is too easy. People do not spend more than 0.1 second to click. Your ad must be attractive enough to make them decide to click on the spot. Only few people read the content before click, so the title is almost everything to get an attention.

"Cheap Vacation Deal." What kind of deal? There is an old saying in online marketing; "Customers don't like to be sold." The title's message needs to be easily understood and get people comfortably click it. You have to stick to the plain description. The content continues "packages from $297 CAD," but where? This could be expensive for domestic travel and could be cheap for overseas.

If he just seeks for the cheap air ticket, he may type "cheap air ticket" to google. Then he will find the following Google AdWords ads.

Which will be more attractive for the person looking for a cheap air ticket, "Air Canada's Lowest Fares" or "Cheapest Air Ticket"? The title of "Cheapest Air Ticket" has the word of cheapest in the first, but on the other hand, the title of "Air Canada's Lowest Fares" has the word of lowest, which they want users to notice, in the third. Again, users don't spend time to decide which title they click. The title has to get an attention in 0.1 second. If he looks for Air Canada, the winner would be, of course, "Air Canada's Lowest Fares" but in that case he should go to the website of Air Canada from the first place. Google AdWords ads should be attractive for people looking for the best option what they want. Easy and simple word always boosts CTR (click through rate).