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Customers often start a negotiation by emphasizing price and product features. These things always matter, of course. But buying decisions encompass many other considerations, such as reliability, service arrangements, certainty of delivery date, and the opinions of users inside the organization or expert analysts.

Cumulatively, these influences may account for 70% to 80% of the purchase decision. That’s why there is gold to be mined … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: John Hanson, Mike Sargent, Peter Frend | Source: Mercer Management Journal | Subjects: Management, Marketing / Sales

Several studies have shown that asking people questions about their intentions leads them to overstate the likelihood that they will engage in a certain behavior; more surprisingly, it appears that simply asking the questions can actually change people’s behavior.

This phenomenon, termed the “mere-measurement effect,” is explored by Patti Williams, the James G. Campbell, Jr. Memorial Term Assistant Professor of Marketing at the Wharton School, … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Gavan J. Fitzsimons, Lauren G. Block, Patti Williams | Subject: Market Research

Incentivecentral.org is a not-for-profit alliance of incentive product manufacturers and associations. The organization was created to provide “objective and thorough information on all aspects of incentive programs and to list all available resources without favoring one commercial entity over another.” A wonderful resource, the site has information on industry surveys, interviews with key executives, a library of white papers and extensive case studies and articles … [ Read more ]

Content: Online Resource | Source: Incentive Performance Center | Subject: Marketing / Sales

Many firms have shifted their brand-related spending to more easily measured areas such as direct marketing. As a result, the reservoir of brand equity gets low and important customer touchpoints are neglected. Here’s how rigorous customer science techniques can maximize returns in those soft areas.

Content: Article | Authors: Andrew Pierce, Simon Glynn, Stephen Brien | Source: Mercer Management Journal | Subject: Marketing / Sales

This series of articles from CMP’s Network Computing presents the results of an exhaustive effort to compare leading Web analytics packages head-to-head by running them through their paces on the CMP universe of websites. IBM, Intellitracker, Manticore Technology, NetIQ, NetRatings, Omniture, ThinkMetrics, Watchfire, WebAbacus and WebSideStory agreed to the challenge. The results are distilled in an 18-page report, which is must-reading for any Internet marketer, … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Bruce Boardman | Source: Network Computing | Subjects: IT / Technology / E-Business, Marketing / Sales

Traditional pricing and promotion strategies are coming up short against the growing pressures from value retailers such as Wal-Mart and Costco. How can retailers improve their tarnished price image and offer customers the deals they want without giving away the store?

This paper discusses A.T. Kearney’s approach to pricing and promotion. We offer a customer-focused strategy in which retailers identify and exploit the items most … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Source: Kearney | Subjects: Marketing / Sales, Pricing

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The University Of Strathclyde’s marketing resources portal proves that a web site doesn’t have to have bells and whistles to be useful. Five words say it all: ’95 categories and 1344 links’. Encompassing such areas as buyer behaviour, financial analysis, marketing management, relationship management and social marketing, these and many more categories are further sub-categorized into resource type, plus each web site is reviewed and … [ Read more ]

Content: Online Resource | Source: University of Strathclyde Marketing Department | Subject: Marketing / Sales

There’s no easy, “paint-by-numbers” way to create an effective marketing position. But there is a method to take you through the positioning process to the desired result. Throughout the process, success depends on gaining a thorough understanding of the three Cs-your Customer, your Competition, and your Channel. But what information do you need, and what’s the best way to find it? This series of articles … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Lawson Abinanti | Source: TechnologyEvaluation.com | Subject: Marketing / Sales

Important though it is, market research is often a misunderstood – and misused – discipline. Rather than enlightening, it sometimes confuses and misleads. It’s often hijacked by talented technicians who focus so much on the methods that they lose sight of the purpose.

Content: Article | Author: Alan Yu | Source: TheWorkingManager.com | Subject: Market Research

The doughnut or the celery stick … go to a party, or study for an exam…. take the apartment close to the office, or the one with the stunning view and accept the nightmare daily commute. It might seem a given that most of us base our consumer choices between more overtly pleasurable, hedonic options and more practical, utilitarian concerns. But most pioneering work in … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Klaus Wertenbroch | Source: INSEAD Knowledge | Subjects: Customer Related, Marketing / Sales

New product categories can subvert incumbent brands – or give them a new lease on life.

Content: Article | Author: David Aaker | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Innovation, Marketing / Sales

With wit and verve, Walter Friedman gives us a cast of memorable characters who turned salesmanship from ballyhoo to behaviorism, from silliness to science. Informed by prodigious research, Birth of a Salesman also clarifies the birth of modern marketing–from an angle that humanizes its subject through wry, ironic, but serious analysis. This is a pioneering work on a subject crucial to American social, cultural, and … [ Read more ]

Content: Book | Author: Walter A. Friedman | Subjects: History, Marketing / Sales

As the oil industry consolidated in the mid-1990s, Houston-based Conoco faced a major brand challenge. One of the world’s leading energy companies and a prominent petroleum retailer in U.S. markets, Conoco saw an opportunity to accelerate profit growth through the convenience store format. But in order to build a powerful convenience store brand, the company knew that it would have to break away from the … [ Read more ]

Content: Case Study | Authors: Kathryn H. Feakins, Michael Zea | Source: Mercer Management Journal | Subject: Marketing / Sales | Industry: Petro / Chemical | Company: Conoco

This marketing smorgasbord offers a feast to professional marketers. From the realms of advertising, market segmentation, analysis of industry verticals, sales and something the site refers to as ‘beyond marketing’ – that which deals with the technology, the law and privacy – visitors have free rein over some thought-provoking and up to the minute research and industry news. The material is gleaned from reputable industry … [ Read more ]

Content: Online Resource | Source: MarketingVOX News | Subject: Marketing / Sales

Most electronic forms of interactions do not delight customers, but they have a great potential to destroy brand equity if they fail. For example, after 20 years automated teller machines (ATMs) do not please us very much, but they irritate us when they are down for service. While Web sites may provide some delight today, they will probably be the same as ATMs in the … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Mercer Management Journal | Subjects: Brand, Customer Related

Migrating customers to a new channel can be a pain-for them, the company, and its channel partners. But the rewards can make the effort worthwhile.

Content: Article | Authors: Andrew D. Pickersgill, Evan S. Van Metre, Joseph B. Myers | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Marketing / Sales

Most market research, while useful in traditional marketing contexts, is inappropriate and misleading for strategy development; it is the wrong data collected for a different purpose and therefore answers the wrong questions. Traditional market research targets current customers with questions about marketing and tactical issues, usually with the goal of incremental improvements.

If customers could tell us what a strategy should be, there would be little … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Mercer Management Journal | Subjects: Customer Related, Market Research

At the core of marketing in the Age of Mass Markets is a four-factor classification of marketing decision variables that everyone learns in first-year marketing courses, the “four P’s.” These P’s are product, place, promotion, and price.

What’s missing? Profitability, which I call the “fifth P.”

The four-P mentality is responsible for the crazy-quilt pattern of profitability in every business today. It is simply assumed that if … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subject: Marketing / Sales