Recessions are hard on everyone - aren't they? Actually, just as wars have their war babies (companies that perform well during war and suffer during peace), recessions have their tough offspring as well. In this article we'll take a look at the industries that flourish in the adversity of a recession and why they do so well when everyone else is struggling to make ends meet. (For related reading, see Recession: What Does It Mean To Investors? and War's Influence On Wall Street.) Read the whole article here: Industries That Thrive On Recession
DURHAM, N.C. -- Chief marketing officers in the United States are increasingly optimistic about the economy and their customers' purchasing activities, and are embracing the power of social media as they seek to promote their brands and attract new customers.
These are some of the results of the August 2009 CMO Survey, conducted by professor Christine Moorman of Duke University's Fuqua School of Business in conjunction with the American Marketing Association. The survey results reflect the responses of 511 top marketing executives of U.S. companies who were polled during the last two weeks of July.
Overall, 59 percent of marketers are more optimistic about the U.S. economy than they were just one quarter ago. They also report improved expectations for revenue growth, with 47 percent feeling more optimistic about prospects for revenue from end customers and 39 percent more optimistic about revenue from channel partners (who resell products to end customers) than they were just three months ago.
Marketers anticipate an acceleration in customer activity over the next year, with 48 percent expecting an increase in purchase volume, 44 percent looking forward to customers buying more related products and services and 35 percent predicting an increase in new customers entering the market.
The recessionary belt-tightening is not over, however. Price remains the most frequently reported top priority for customers, with 34 percent of top marketers ranking it as their customers' top priority, followed by trusting relationships with companies (20 percent) and superior product quality (19 percent).
"These results indicate that marketers believe the tide had begun to turn," Moorman said. "However, they are clearly aware that the recession has caused customers to become more price sensitive and companies are wisely keeping that in mind as they make product and marketing decisions."
Marketers continue to report a shift in spending away from traditional advertising (with a planned overall decrease of 8 percent) and toward Internet marketing, where they expect to increase investments by 10 percent. They report plans to increase spending on social media efforts by more than 300 percent in the next five years, increasing their marketing budget allocations for social media from 3.5 percent to 13.7 percent over the next five years. Social networking (65 percent), video and photosharing (52 percent) and blogging (50 percent) dominated firms' social media patterns. Survey respondents report the five most frequently reported uses for social media tactics are brand building, customer acquisition, new product introductions, customer retention and market research.
CMOs report plans to increase spending on marketing consulting services by 1 percent (compared to February 2009 plans to reduce consulting spending by 5 percent) and a slight uptick (from 2 percent to 3 percent) in planned spending on marketing research and intelligence. Marketing hiring is flat except in the Business-to-Business Services (+3.5 percent) and Business-to-Customer Product (+1.6 percent) sectors.
"When we last polled these companies in February, they were cutting back on all but the most critical functions," Moorman said. "The positive change in spending on market research and consulting services indicates that they are making preparations for future growth in the market."
The survey also asked top marketers to identify firms across all business sectors that they regarded as having exceptional marketing capabilities. The most frequently cited firms, which will receive the August 2009 "CMO Survey Award for Marketing Excellence," were Apple Inc. and The Procter & Gamble Company.
"These firms are consistently recognized by their peers for excellence in marketing," Moorman said. "Moreover, they have not sat still through this tough economic period. Instead, they have upped the ante on their value propositions by innovating and getting closer to their customers."
Other key findings of the CMO Survey include:
-- Russia and Eastern Europe are the regions where marketers expect the most future growth to occur, with significant decreases in opportunities in Canada, Mexico and Western Europe.
-- CMOs expect the majority of firm growth to occur internally, with 70 percent of growth spending allocated to internal growth strategies, 13 percent to partnerships, 10 percent to acquisitions and 7 percent to licensing. -- Despite economic pressures, there has been little turnover in CMO positions this year; top marketers report having been in their positions for an average of 4.3 years -- unchanged from February.
Detailed results, including tabular summaries of results and results by firm and industry characteristics, are available at: http://faculty.fuqua.duke.edu/cmosurvey/survey_results/. _ _ _ _
About the survey: The CMO Survey collects and disseminates the opinions of top marketers in order to predict the future of markets, track marketing excellence and improve the value of marketing in firms and in society. Founded in August 2008, the survey is administered twice each year, with questions repeated over time to discern trends. The next survey will be in February 2010 with a bonus section on Marketing and Return On Investment. The survey will be expanded to include European CMOs beginning in 2011 and Asian CMOs in 2012.
Outsource or hire staff to expand your business's areas of expertise. This will add depth to your company and can increase customer satisfaction. Build a team that includes an attorney, an accountant, a bookkeeper and administrative help, and, hire a web designer to keep your website content current and fresh.
April 22, 2009 By Kim T. Gordon Read/Post Comments
WITH MARKETING DOLLARS so precious in this economy, business owners need to invest in the best tactics in order to produce sales. Several recent studies confirm that savings and safety--generally obtained by exploring many avenues before making the "right" purchase--factor into most buying decisions. And these studies point to several online tactics that are rated highly by consumers and can lead to online and offline sales.
We all know that the Philippine BPO sector is one of the key drivers of our economy in the recent years. Despite the global economic downturn, there is still evidence of growth in our local BPO industry. However, for this year of 2009, the construction of Business Process Outsouring office spaces have been trimmed down by half, according to a recent report from local stockbroker Citiseconline and Int’l Property Consultant Jones Lang Lasalle Leechiu.
According to Claro Cordero Jr., head of research at Jones Land Lasalle Leechiu, available Philippine BPO spaces have been sliced in half from 200,000 square meters to 100,000 square meters. This means that there is more chance of these spaces being taken up quickly. However, these figures may not represent the whole picture, as major developers Megaworld and Filinvest Land will be putting up 90,000 and 35,602 sqm of BPO space by this year as well. In addition, Colliers International has reported that more BPO spaces are planning to be rolled out by the next two years. In 2010, 132,279 square meters of space should be put up, while in 2011, 304,295 square meters should be additionally available.
What do all these figures mean? It still goes to show that the Philippine BPO sectorwill continue to experience growth and contribute greatly to our economy. Also, since there will be more spaces available, prices of these spaces will tend to go down due to more supply in the market. Let’s just hope that this trend continues in the long term so that more Filipinos can provide for their families.
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(08-12) 04:23 PDT -- A segment of the Asia-Pacific Cable Network 2 (APCN2) undersea cable network between China and Taiwan suffered a serious cable fault on Wednesday, causing Internet traffic to be rerouted onto other undersea cables and slowing Internet access for some users in Southeast Asia. At about 10:50 a.m. on Wednesday, local time, an alarm signaled a cable fault on Segment 7 of APCN2, which connects Hong Kong and Shantou, China. The disruption caused a temporary loss of service on the undersea link but all customers that use the cable were soon shifted to capacity on other cables, according to a source familiar with the situation. The APCN2 cable is owned by a consortium of 26 telecom operators from 14 different countries. The cable links Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Taiwan, China, South Korea and Japan. The exact cause of the APCN2 fault was not immediately known. The alarm indicated the disruption was caused by a "single point of failure," which suggests a variety of possibilities, including a technical failure or a cable cut, the source said. One cause can apparently be ruled out: Taiwan's Central Weather Bureau did not record signs of seismic activity around the time that the alarm was received. The incident was likely the main reason that Internet access appeared slower for some users in Singapore on Wednesday, the source said. Undersea cables are used to transport much of the world's Internet traffic and can be easily damaged by natural disasters or other causes. In 2006, a powerful earthquake off the southern coast of Taiwan damaged several cables and slowed Internet access to a crawl for users in Southeast Asia. Singapore Telecommunications (SingTel), which is an investor in APCN2, said its users may experience slower Internet access than normal to some U.S. Web sites, blaming the APCN2 fault on damage caused by Typhoon Morakot.
"The [APCN2] consortium members have started restoration works, and our engineers are in the process of diverting Internet traffic to other cable systems. We expect the situation to return to acceptable levels within the next 24 hours," SingTel spokesman Chia Boon Chong, said in an e-mail statement. A spokesman for Starhub, another Singapore ISP that holds a stake in the cable, did not return a phone call seeking comment. The fault that hit APCN2 on Wednesday follows two other service disruptions that recently hit the network. One disruption affected APCN2 Segment 7, between Hong Kong and Taiwan, and the other affected APCN2 Segment 1, which connects Singapore and Malaysia. However, both of these disruptions were deemed to be "relatively minor" compared to the disruption that took place Wednesday morning, the source said. The cause of the two earlier faults on APCN2 was not immediately clear. APCN2 isn't the only Asian undersea cable currently suffering from a service disruption. "The Cable & Wireless Real Time Operations Team have logged multiple cable breaks on APCN2, APCN, EAC and SMW3 in Asia Pacific -- specifically, near Taiwan. Network traffic flow has been adversely affected in and out of the region as a result," said Gavin Tait, director of Asia network planning and implementation at Cable & Wireless, in an e-mail statement provided by the company. None of Cable & Wireless? customers were affected by these failures, he said. Efforts are currently underway to repair the East Asia Crossing (EAC) undersea cable after it experienced "double faults" off the coast of Taiwan last weekend, according to Roland Lim, a spokesman for Pacnet, which owns EAC. The first sign of damage to the EAC cable off the coast of Taiwan came on Aug. 9 at 1:37 a.m., local time, when an alarm signalled that service on EAC Segment D, which links Taiwan and Hong Kong, had been disrupted, Pacnet said in an Aug. 10 Network Event Notification that was obtained by IDG News Service. At the time, traffic on Segment D was transferred to EAC Segment C. However, Segment C suffered a second disruption roughly twelve hours later. The cause of the faults that hit the EAC cable between Hong Kong and Taiwan is not yet known, but the damage happened at about the same time the southern part of the island and China's southern coast was being pummeled by one of the most powerful typhoons to strike in recent memory. There were no earthquakes recorded by Taiwan's Central Weather Bureau at the time when the disruptions took place.
All companies have one purpose that is to maintain a progressive pattern of income. Regardless of size, industry, and target market companies must generate favorable amount of revenue. Your company might offer the best goods or services, have the best people working for you, and even a huge fund at your disposal, but your company wouldn’t realize its full potential if not for your customers. Generating new clients and improving your relationship with your existing clientele base is the aim of every business. Maximizing your revenue is not that hard to spell, in fact you only need two words: E-mail marketing.
In this day and age, everything is moving towards digitalization. Why not use the readily available technology to your company’s advantage? E-mail marketing is not new to the business world. It has existed for years and has brought companies to a new era.
An Extra Pair of Hands
B2B E-mail marketing can boost your relationship with your client as it allows them to get familiar with your company. This can build trust between you and your client base whether or not you have previously transacted with them. The more familiar they are with your company, the more they’ll remember you when say they need a product or service you happen to offer. Don’t limit yourself to landing immediate accounts; rather see it as an investment that might take time for you to reap. With keeping this in mind, you no longer create e-mails that seem to pressure them to sign-up immediately instead you create a bond which makes them look forward to your next e-mail.
Whether you’re exploring new potential markets or looking to strengthen your existing stream, e-mail marketing can benefit your company by miles. It is most beneficial for business to business (B2B) transactions to utilize email marketing simply because one response has the capacity to land you an account big enough to sustain your whole company. Imagine the costs and time you can save, not forgetting the income you may generate, just by a click of a button.
Different Types of B2B E-mail Marketing Campaigns
There are different types of B2B e-mail marketing that you can develop. Sending one type that aims to contain all will prove to be lengthy and even boring to your audience. Among the many types, here are four sorts of campaigns that you can develop to a greater extent to fit your e-mail strategies.
1) Quick Announcements
Perhaps the simplest style of B2B e-mail marketing is quick announcements. These are brief messages letting your audience know of special offers, and the like.
2) Email Newsletters
This is a good way to enhance your clientele relationship. Make your e-mails useful to your clients and relevant to their interests. An example would be to send them tips in improving their business or new ideas in your common field. Make e-mail newsletters friendly and avoid too formal content.
3) Catalog Emails
Catalog E-mails lets your client know of your products and services offered. You might feel the impulse to write everything there is to know about your products but instead you should provide them with brief descriptions and include links to your webpage where they can view the detailed products. This avoid taking too much of your audience’s e-mail space.
4) Press Releases
Sending your audiences press releases will let then know of your relevant milestones and accomplishment. This will inform your subscribers of the progress your company is making.
Perhaps you’re already using B2B e-mail marketing but you’re just not satisfied with its outcome. While this internet marketing strategy sounds easy enough to deploy, in several platforms your e-mail marketing strategies might be committing flaws that could drive away your potential clients.
While B2B e-mail marketing is accessible to everyone, there are several no-nos your company might not be aware off.
There are several easy ways to make sure that your B2B e-mail marketing works. It all amounts to internet marketing management. It might not seem productive for your company to assign a whole internet marketing management team to track your e-mails if your company is still small, but it is essential to make it a part of your management functions.
The internet marketing management’s responsibility is to make sure that each e-mail is a possible account closer. To help you further develop your internet marketing efforts here are 7 ways to assure you success in B2B e-mail marketing.
1) Generate valuable subscribers
Sending e-mails to companies you don’t know or have definitely no interest in knowing you might give you your fair share of irritated audience. This is known better as spam. Shooting blind e-mails to recipients without even the slightest potential of interest will land you in a dead end, not to mention you are repetitively wasting precious internet space.
2) Knowing your subscribers
Generating valuable subscribers doesn’t end in collecting a list of interested audience. It follows through with knowing who your subscribers are. By simply adding their names in your e-mails will show them that you are sincere with your mail, and that you know how you can be of help to their company.
3) Ask for their permission
It annoys you to receive unwanted e-mail as much as it does to the next person. Give your audience the benefit of opting out from your mailing list by putting a simple “not interested” option with your e-mails. This would cut-down your uninterested audience by a mile, and would still let you manage subscribers that are sincerely attracted to your company.
4) Always add a preview pane in your e-mails
While you may have great content in your e-mails chances are subscribers at decision making levels wouldn’t have second thoughts about reading your e-mail if they don’t find your preview pane eye-catching enough. Attach a simple summary of what you have in store for them in the preview to get them to read through.
5) Add links to your e-mails
This is a tricky part. Some B2B e-mail marketing campaigns tend to overload each e-mail with links that may overwhelm the reader. Be sparing with your links but at the same time consistent. Add appropriate links only if it is called for. Instead of making each line of the e-mail a link just add a quick link list at the bottom of the e-mail.
6) Let your ISP know about your e-mail marketing campaign
As expressed, B2B e-mail marketing can be confused as spamming if you’re not being careful. With your internet marketing management sending rhythmic e-mails to several clients, your internet service provider may take you as spam and eventually cut you off. To avoid this make sure that your ISP is well aware of your B2B e-mail campaign and that it is legitimate.
7) Write relevant e-mails
Your subscription list maybe composed of interested companies but not to every good or service you’re offering. Review your content and match them with your respective recipients. This simple trick will let you keep track of your subscriber’s interest as well as build a good market.
For some of us who have made it a company-wide initiative to use various social media platforms in its day-to-day agenda, tweetering is not always sweet.
It's interesting how platforms as powerful as Twitter (Google it just a little bit to find out that indeed, most online marketers consider Twitter powerful enough to spread word around like wildfire) --can go down because it has gone over its capacity...
I can't imagine the 'ching'ing sound of a cash register (if you had an online store) suddenly says the transaction can't be completed because there's just plenty of activity and the servers cannot handle the traffic... hmmm... perhaps that's why Twitter is free--and the public can't complain...
I've been on Twitter for barely two weeks... so what, right? and who cares that I want to keep in touch with all 91 followers i have to-date? I don't think I've hit the jackpot yet by establishing a 'trending topic' but the exchanges I've had so far have been either useful, productive or inspiring and to me, that's what's important...
My tweets can wait, sure... it's just addictive! arrggghhh!
Every successful business reaches a point where they can no longer handle all of their customer requests or calls on their own.
There are many reasons for the same. Some of them are: 1. Too many customers calling at the same time. 2. Customers calling at non-operational hours. 3. You are in an important business meeting.
Now what are the options that you have as a business owner? 1. Have an answering machine or voice mail to greet your customers. 2. Hire more people in your office to attend inbound calls. 3. Outsource your requirement to an inbound call center.
Answering machine would be a cost effective option. So would you prefer answering machine over an inbound call center?
Let us imagine, today is the final game of NBA, which you absolutely don’t want to miss. All of a sudden your cable transmission is interrupted. You pick the phone, call your cable company and you get a sweet voice mail. “We are not available right now, please call us Monday thru Friday 8:00 AM to 6:00 PM Eastern Time.” How would you feel?
Do you want your customers to feel the same about your services? Or would you like to make their experience better, so that they keep their loyalty towards your product? Statistics show the percentage of hang-ups on answering machines is significantly greater than a live answering service. And 70% of customers switch service providers because of the unsatisfactory support they get from their existing service provider. Do you want your customers to switch services for the same reason? Hiring more people in your office to attend inbound calls might not be a bad idea; provided, you have the required infrastructure, resources and knowledge accomplish the same।
You will need more office space, new workstations, chairs, phone lines, phone instruments, computers, etc. You would also need to spend sometime monitoring your employees, or hire a manager to monitor them. I think you get the point, it might not be cost-effective.
You need a solution that is cost effective and customer friendly. Here is the answer: Outsource your inbound calls to an Inbound call center. An inbound call center is often made up of a group of individuals who answer phone calls on behalf of you. Your customers call your company’s 800 number and an expert call center representative attends the call.
How does it benefit you? 1. An inbound call center would utilize manpower depending on your call flow. If you have 10 people calling at the same time, the inbound call center would be equipped to handle all these calls, without missing a single call. 2. An inbound call center can be used every hour of the day depending on your business requirements. 3. You can now invest your time expanding your business rather than handling queries of existing customer. 4. You do not have to invest on infrastructural costs. The call centers are already well equipped with state of the art infrastructure to support your business requirements. 5. You don’t have to spend your time managing additional employees. 6. Not to forget, you don’t have to pay extra hour pay, perks and other employee benefits. Basically if your business receives phone calls on a daily basis then an inbound call center would be beneficial to you.
How can an Inbound call center enhance your Business?
Let us take an example: If you have a website which has your phone number listed on it, every missed call can be a missed opportunity. An opportunity lost to convert that phone call into a sale. Whether you need to answer 10 inbound calls in a day, or 1000, you will find an inbound call center to be a professional and cost effective extension of your business. Invest your time training the call center representatives and delegate your work to them efficiently. Let them convert all these inbound calls into sales and you can focus on adding new products and services for your customers.
Global Hotline Philippines (GHP) is an experienced provider of outsourcing services to businesses and organizations operating in English-speaking business environments and markets around the world.
