For over a decade American business has been focused on customer satisfaction as a way to become customer-focused and improve customer loyalty and thus profitability.
The measurement and management of brand equity has become a major issue for marketers and marketing researchers over the last several years. The concept of brand equity goes well beyond the legal concept of a trademark or the accounting concept of goodwill.
When distributors and suppliers are courting one another, several priorities emerge: greater sales, better profit margins, enhanced market share, expanded geographic coverage, and more. The often tedious and boring details of a distribution agreement capture the attention of neither distributor nor supplier.
Content marketing is an emerging term for a new approach to marketing that emphasizes using content to explain, engage with, and persuade customers-usually using search and social media as its means of attracting attention.
Throughout history, a manufacturer was a self-contained entity. A company would design, develop, manufacture, and market a product in a single facility.
Leaders in companies operating only in the American market or in a limited number of global markets understandably worry about entering a new foreign market. Risks are many. The opportunity for problems is enormous.
In segmenting markets most researchers use a single set of basis variables that have ranged from demographics to psychographics to product category related attitudes to product related behaviors to derived importances from conjoint exercises to latent structures, depending on the era and the proclivities of the researcher.
Suppliers and manufacturers' representatives often seek to gain advantage over their partners by incorporating a bias into the representative agreement favoring the author, placing the other party at a disadvantage. This technique rarely enjoys the benefits intended.
For most business firms, locating and effectively targeting unique market segments is both a reality and a necessity in today's competitive market place. Creative market segmentation strategies usually afford the business organization a strategic advantage over their competition and provide marketing efficiencies that greatly improve customer retention and profitability.
Economic uncertainty in America and around the world has heightened awareness that there is risk associated with expanding into foreign markets. A supplier thinking about launching a sales and marketing presence in the global marketplace must exercise caution. How can a supplier wishing to generate sales from beyond its home market proceed while simultaneously minimizing its risks and maintaining control over costs?
