Paragon Media One Blog » Marketing

Should Companies Market to Children?

nicole — Thu, 20 May 2010 13:34:02 +0000

As an employee for a company who’s very involved in marketing, and a mother, I came across a lot of forums complaining about how kids are being marketed to for certain sugary cereals, expensive toys, and elaborate games. At first, I too thought, wow, who would even be marketing to kids? They don’t even understand. After thinking about it for a second, I nearly slapped myself in the forehead because I’d completely forgotten about commercials (my daughter is still too young to be asking me for the toys on TV). I quickly thought, well, from the marketing perspective, yes, that’s a great idea! Of course, I completely disagree with making smoking look cool (which I think hated this at one point, and is why they are no longer allowed to advertise smoking on TV), and I also disagree with advertising unhealthy cereal to kids, especially with the obesity rate so high. However, what’s wrong with marketing to children if the product being promoted is completely harmless? Everyone who markets a product or service has to find a certain demographic to market to. It wouldn’t make sense to advertise a bubble blower or an activity table to a 40 year old CEO. Some argue that advertising is more or less instilling materialistic values into children at an early age. While I can definitely understand that opinion, it prompts me to ask, isn’t that what children have parents for? I think that as parents, we have a duty to teach our children not to be materialistic. There’s nothing wrong with a child asking for a toy on television. However, the parent can either run out to the store and purchase the toy, or the parent can tell their child they must work for it through good behavior and chores. So, on the subject of marketing to children, and the question of whether or not it’s ethical, I say, take a look at the ethics of the entire situation and all of its tangents. Where do you stand?

The Elements of a Marketing Campaign

nicole — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 15:05:53 +0000

Starting a marketing campaign can be simple – if you’ve got a campaign set up before you jump into it. One of the first things you need to do is decide whom you want business from. Are you looking for smaller companies, larger companies, or are you going to be advertising on a more personal level? Once you’ve decided this, you’ll need to figure out what type of advertising you’re going to do. Whatever method you decide, always have something web related, and something tangible. Next, you’ll need to figure out a schedule, and decide when you will send out these promotions, or when you will start your campaign. See, we told you it would be easy! Just make sure you remember the steps, and you’ll have your campaign in no time!

Social Marketing vs. Traditional Marketing

nicole — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 15:59:56 +0000

Thinking about marketing your site, but not quite sure how to go about it? Today, we’re going to talk about the two major types of marketing. Social Media Marketing, which is an engagement with online communities to generate exposure, opportunity, and sales… and Traditional Marketing which deals with the regular promotion of the distribution of goods and services through things like ads, sales, and other promotions. Both types of marketing are designed to draw attention from potential customers. The difference between the two is mainly the fact that social media marketing gives the readers a voice. Traditional marketing can be done anywhere, online, in print, through word of mouth, but social marketing is strictly online. Social marketing allows comments, questions, concerns, and gets a quick answer, not only from the original person or company who posted, but from others who have experience and can easily answer questions.

Ensuring a Customer-Centric Site

admin — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 19:58:13 +0000

There are a lot of easy solutions for ensuring a customer-centric site. No worries… we’ll help to provide some of those solutions right here. Once you’re ready to evaluate the company site, you can keep this checklist in mind. First, make sure that while on your site, it’s very easy for the customer to get what they want. If it’s going to take too long to load, to order a product, if you have to download instructions, you may as well post a page that says “Go Away!”, because that’s exactly what the customer wants to do. Your site should also have an efficient way for previous and current customers to give feedback about products and services. Another thing you need to remember when building a customer-centric site is contact information. You or your company will need an easy way to be reached, whether it be for support, questions, feedback, anything! Keep in mind – It will only frustrate a customer if they have to search for a way to contact you.

Is Your Website Customer Centric?

nicole — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 15:26:57 +0000

Evaluating your site regularly is one of the most important things you can do to maintain it. One of the things you need to ask yourself during the site evaluation is if the site is customer-centric. What does this mean? A customer-centric website is centered completely around the potential customer’s wants and needs. This means the site needs to have a certain level of focus on customer benefits and overall experience while visiting the site. This can be obtained with different sales drivers such as customer loyalty programs, word-of-mouth advertising, and testimonials. After all, your sites visitors are potential clients, don’t you think they’re going to want to see some credentials before they sign the dotted line? Of course they are.

The Bottom Line: What Works and What Doesn’t

admin — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 15:15:52 +0000

A lot of companies are trying to cut marketing efforts, in an attempt to save money. Let us be the first to tell you, you can’t cut your way to a profit. Cutting expenses in a bad economy makes about as much sense as taking an aspirin to cure cancer. It makes no sense at all. Like we said before, don’t cut your budget, change it to become more effective.

Let’s take a look at companies who are doing what we approve of; smart marketing. A recession will accelerate the decline of interruption based mass advertising that simply shouts your message to the customer. So, on the contrary, with companies who know what they’re doing, we’ll see an increase in measurable, dependable, relationship-based strategies such as search engine marketing, e-mail marketing, lead nurturing, and online communities. These are all great marketing techniques whether in a recession or not, but they work best in times of an economic decline because of the persona of the marketing effort. Rather than intimidating and scaring away the potential and existing clients, you’re making them feel comfortable, and you know how we feel about making clients feel comfortable. Companies who make an effort to keep spending money on marketing will always stay on top. If a company keeps its name out there even during recession, not only will it boost business during the recession, but after the storm has passed, your name will be the name that’s remembered.

Another good tactic we see companies using is using lead management to maximize the value of each lead. This means companies really take a look at which leads will, well, lead them to good fortune, and which won’t help no matter what. This enables the company to place a value on a service or solution, which enables the customer to see what he’s actually getting. This is extremely crucial during these times, because buyers are already cautious, but they become extremely skittish in economic decline, taking them even more time to make decisions. We hope this helps! Until next time, Paragon Media One checks out.

Instant Gratification

admin — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 15:28:00 +0000

Right now, people want to save money, and they want to save it fast. To tailor your company to fit this immediate change of mindset, you need to showcase ways that you can directly help the client, right now. Explain to them how much money you can save them, today. No one cares about the long run when they’re currently in an economical rut. When people are deciding where there last dollar is going to be spent, chances are they aren’t going to invest it in something that will help them next week. You need to make sure your company gets that last dollar, so to speak. Remember that sense of urgency we talked about? Here’s where it really comes into play. Let them know about your services and how they can provide them with a quick turnaround, not the ones where they won’t see results for over a month. Right now, many business’s are in a financial state of emergency. People all over the world are running around thinking the sky is falling, so be the one to help them through it, right now.