Blog and consumer buying behaviour

Organisations use many mediums to reach their target audience. TV, Radio, Print and web are some of the popular mediums. In order to maximize their customer influence and actually change the way people perceive their products and services, organisation emphasizing more on their blog also. Numerous people, now days, are engaging with brands through blogs and taking their purchasing decisions.

Many people trust the information and advice they receive from blogs with which they are familiar. And they have even made a purchase based on the recommendation of a blog. The reason is that blog is not just a formal product description or review. So it should start with involving the consumers and lead towards a discussion.

The first step to start a blog and integrate it into your website. A blog should be easily accessible from the front page of a website. Blog updates should flash on the home screen to catch the eye of website visitors.

Remember, blog is not a company PR tool. A blog should be personal, engaging and interactive and bias free. So users can feel free to give comment/feedback /views to the posts. In this way blog can engage users and get more followers through RSS, mail subscription or any other means.

So start blogging today!

Entrepreneurship & Roadside fruit sellers – A Perceptible Selling Differentiation

I came across this wonderful article and found it interesting because it correlates the qualities of an entrepreneur with a roadside fruit seller. It tells us how a roadside fruit seller dons the different caps to become a real entrepreneur. How he entice the passer  by to make sales.  How he, as an entrepreneur, plays roles of controller of supply chain, salesman, finance planning, administration and public relations to negotiate the space with the police or city authorities and competitors. Which is very much true!

I also liked the concept of perceptible selling differentiation (PSD). Which basically revolves around the perspective of prospective buyers/ customers. It is focussed on the perception of buyer requirement is what the company needs to work on so as to provide it in the product.

It’s very innovative and interesting article on branding your product right.

You can read the complete article here

This image is from the Shining Consulting website.

Share your views on this.

The Art of Purposeful Storytelling – Video – Harvard Business Review

Peter Guber, chairman and CEO of the Mandalay Entertainment Group, explains how to establish an emotional connection with any audience.

Levi’s: rear view girls

So it turns out that Levis got these two beautiful New Zealanders Jessie and Reanin taking to the streets of Los Angeles and recording peoples expressions staring at their err… posteriors. Now the video came out good and youtube recorded some 7 mn hits before the video was pulled downm because the video featured expressions of many people, who can surely be identified!!.

It also turns out that Levi’s was behind this viral campaign. So girls, boys, ladies and almost everybody seems to have been caught offguard with this video. But then using this “fetish” as a strategy to catch them by the balls .. oops eye balls, is it worth for Levis?

Butt (no pun intended) with 7mn views, this is going to stay in for a while in peoples minds!

You can have a look at the video here

http://creativity-online.com/work/levis-rear-view-girls/22479

Evolving rules for branding online

Merely having a website, social media presence and spending some money on online marketing is no longer enough in order to address online presence of business. The rules to brand your business on the web are changing day by day. A good web branding strategy is less to do with presentation and a lot more to do with interaction.

Branding online is all about the conversation and building effective relationship. As we know social media and conversation complement each other very well. So social media is a great way for branding if used effectively. It’s not enough to have a Facebook page or a Twitter account, you must initiate and participate in the conversation. Need to make regular and relevant posts and replying to comment or direct messages of the customers. Need to address complains/suggestions very promptly posted on social media.

In order to find and target your niche, you need to be very persistent in the online competitive marketplace. How to stand out, how to look different and the be noticable should be the quest. A good and live example would be of Aircel . They started very good campaign ‘save tigers, only 1411 left’. They used the best brand ambassadors like Mahendra singh dhoni, good mix of tradional and online media and soon it became a national cause. But then they have not done much to keep the content alive, the last update on this was on october 2010. So it is important to make engaging content otherwise public memory is shortlived.

A recent study shows that ‘About us’ page is most visited in a website. People look for the quick info as what company is into. So that page should be designed and maintained efficiently. Do not write hefty content on this page. And whatever interesting info you give away through this page should cater the target audience correctly. I very much liked the About page of Quora. This page clearly defining why should people join. So the target audience can relate themselves with it. I also liked the team section of their website.

Adding Facebook/twitter buttons does not always does the trick. The idea is to have good shareable content which compels the user/fan to share it with their individual network. If the blog is there, then it has to be updated regularly, say weekly perhaps. This will help to increasing connectivity. Along with that also create a section in your site which is about the user experience/rewiews from existing customers about your product/services. It is important to telling a story that your clients really relate to. This can really drive some business relevance to prospective clients. Facebook page of Nokia is a very good example.

I personally believe whatever you do, keeping your customers at the core of your activity definitely helps.

Share your thoughts!!