Marketing vs selling

Many people confuse marketing with selling even though there is a major difference.. The confusion arises because both have to deal with the market.. The main difference is that marketing people let others know WHAT WE HAVE TO OFFER after doing market research. Suppose there is a need for self cleaning diapers. Marketing specialist should come up with an idea of introducing such product to the market after analyzing the demand. A salesman's job is to SELL the product.. The marketing guy has come up with an idea now its up to the sales man to try sell the idea.. Most local companies consider marketing to be selling thats why you see many job ads for marketing executives here whose work is that of selling.. Its like asking a dentist to perform a hernia operation.

Marketing by the ordinary folk

Some person thought of it fun to break the windshield of my parked car so i had to come by public transport to the office today. Setting aside the suffocation and constant smell of sweat a Pakistani bus ride can be really a good experience. From marketing point of view I simply love it.. There are people who climb on a moving bus carrying a bag full of goods (I bet a Hollywood stuntman could not perform this feat), selling their goods at a relatively cheaper price from the market.. There was this one person who tried to sell a liquid which was the cure of all diseases.. Move aside cancer and HIV.. we have a magic medicine available on our buses.. no need to spend millions of dollars in research.. The way he tried to sell it, it would put a educated salesman to shame.. It was personal selling at its best.. I wondered if they had quality education just what they might have achieved.. Then there is a cheap source of text marketing.. Behind every bus seats are loads of numbers written.. "Call 0300112233 and all your problems are gone".. "call akmal the great magician and your life will change".. Buses bring out the best of marketing abilities in people it seems.. On my way back I think I should write a small detail of all the the business softwares my company makes.. Maybe i just might make a sale..

The power of jingles

It once occurred to me that what makes a cheap marketing ad click is a jingle. If you don't have super special effects or a celebrity in your ad the chances are the viewers will forget the ad no sooner they see it. So how do you make an ad that would stick in ones mind like glue. What is the secret formula that some people remember some ads till they are lying down on their death beds while some ads are forgotten no sooner they are viewed.. The answer are jingles.. I might have seen a thousand ads with special effects and celebrities but the ones that stick to my mind are the ones that have jingles.. I recall one very lame ad of a telephone dancing.. very poor graphics I might add.. but what made the ad make a permanent residence in my mind like a unwanted mother in law who just wouldn't go away is the jingle it had.. It had such a catchy tune of a certain numbers that I, like many people just tried it out to see what it actually was.. Then there was the milk wars in Pakistani ad community.. Not as epic as the Cola wars but cut throat none the less.. One ad had basically all the current crop of models drinking their brand of milk.. While the other ad was good but not so special.. What made it special was the jingle it had.. The jingle became so popular that every kid had remembered that tune.. Even when I go to buy milk I some how start humming that tune.. Anyways along with the jingle the ad has to make sense.. A few months back I saw an ad on cartoon network.. It was of a very famous chocolate in which every body was made up of chocolates.. It ended up with people eating every thing.. their gear knobs, taking a bite out of each other, in short cannibalism.. Horrifying ad.. The jingle gives me nightmares of man eating chocolates..

In my next blog i will discuss how we can exploit this jingle phenomenon in the internet.. Good bye

Naming a business

Today I and one of the software engineers in my company Usman (who posts at the tmmsoftware.blogspot, some serious technical stuff there, a must read for techies) went to a restaurant and passed a small book stall by the name of "goli kitab" ( bullet book). Seriously there are no two different things then a book and a bullet.. i could not see any connection.. It was the same as naming a baby "man eater" or "blood sucker". when i asked the owner of the stall of all names why did he name his book stall "goli" he gave me a long reply which included alot of mumbling but finally he stated that it seemed cool. This may sound layman but please when opening a new business dont keep names that have nothing to do with your business.. bullets and books just dont go together unless you only deal with books relating to bullets which is highly unlikely.. naming your business is a very essential step in setting up a successful business.. the name must emphasize some point.. it must have some meaning.. "Student Biryani" (biryani is a rice dish by the way very famous in sub continent) no doubt has tasty food but it also has a name which entices customers to come have food that would be relatively easy on the pockets because students are basically always broke..had they named their restaurant "bullet restaurant" i doubt many people would have gone there for the fear of getting served bullets.. The right name can make your company the talk of the town; the wrong one can send it to the gallows.. Remeber if the name communicates with the customer it makes your job easy because you wont have to explain yourself.

An example of excellent online marketing

The other day i read an article about Mozilla firefox. Their marketing campaign was just excellent. The reason I am writing about this is that every one can do what they did. The firefox people decided to put on their thinking caps and asked all their users to send a testimonial as to why they like their browser. Now who wouldn't want to be in a ad? they got 10000 of responses of which the their judges picked the best of the lot. Now this campaign was not very expensive. Every Tom Dick and Harry can do it. It also doesn't require lots of work. You are getting some one else to do it all for you. All you do is judge the videos. It may not have to be videos, it can also be text, depending on what you want for your website. Any ways its no wonder they were voted among the top brand names a a couple of years ago ( don't know the recent results). Kudos to them.
On a serious note testimonials can do wonders but try not to over do it. Don't blame me if you make a fluke Bill Gates testimonial about your tissue brand saying that they are best to wipe your tears. Do be a bit realistic.
Will post again soon if i come across something interesting. bye all