Social Media Marketing are becoming a crucial tool in CRM and B2B

Research conducted by Forrester found that marketers will lean on social marketing tactics (blogs, podcasts, online communities etc.) to build relationships with existing clients.

B2B marketers commonly accept that it costs much more to acquire a new customer than it does to keep an existing one. In some cases, it can cost five to ten times more to generate new demand or acquire qualified prospects. But do your marketing spending and tactics reflect this overlooked opportunity? Do your marketing programs specifically target your installed base of customers in an effort to build your brand, engender loyalty, and uncover upsell or cross-sell opportunities?

Forrester recently set out to research B2B marketers' behavior and attitudes around marketing to their existing customers. We believe that top marketers will lean on Web 2.0/social media tactics (like blogs, online video, podcasts, and online communities) to build enriched and sticky relationships with existing customers.

Our recent survey of 189 B2B marketing professionals helps to show that marketers who focus online and Web 2.0 media activity on their installed base not only uncover hidden cross-sell and upsell opportunities, but also build engaged communities that turn loyal customers into advocates.

Researcher- Laura Ramos: Vice President, Principal Analyst Forrester Research, Inc. http://www.forrester.com/Teleconference/Overview/1,5158,2269,00.html

Food, petrol prices fuel inflation

The SA Reserve Bank's quarterly bulletin, released on Wednesday, highlights the increases in the prices of food and petroleum as important drivers of inflation. "The bank has already tightened the monetary policy stance and will remain vigilant with respect to the possible second-round inflationary effects which the price impulses originating from these drivers may initiate," the SARB's governor, Tito Mboweni, said at the release of the bulletin.

The resolve of the bank to bring inflation back within target over time should not be underestimated, he said.

Following considerable progress made with the containment of price inflation between 2002 and 2004, annual CPIX inflation accelerated from 3.9 percent in 2005 to 4.6 percent in 2006 and 6.5 percent in 2007, while headline inflation picked up from 1.4 percent in 2004 to 7.1 percent in 2007.

After forty-three months in the inflation target range, year-on-year CPIX inflation breached the upper band of the inflation target range in April 2007, amounting to 6.3 percent. Subsequently, CPIX inflation accelerated noticeably to a year-on-year rate of 8.8 percent in January 2008.

"This acceleration in inflation resulted primarily from higher food prices and intermittent steep increases in the international price of crude oil, leading to substantially higher domestic fuel prices.

"Various capacity constraints within a buoyant economy probably also imparted some momentum to the inflation process, the bulletin said.

Wine labels with animals: Why they work

Recent studies indicated that animal figures on wine labels are effective differentiation tools. South African wine marketers can take note. In order to differentiate more creative and unique strategies are needed. The following study was conducted by AC Nielson

Traditional brand research argues that logos should be highly relevant to the product they represent in order to be successful. However, marketers have recently begun using unusual visual identifiers that have little, if anything, to do with the product. For example, market research firm ACNielsen reports that nearly one in five of the table-wine brands introduced in the last three years features an animal on the label. A forthcoming study in the April 2008 issue of the Journal of Consumer Research reveals why this tactic is works. “To our knowledge, this is the first experimental demonstration of the beneficial effects of unique visual identifiers that are not meaningfully related to the nature of the product,” write Aparna A. Labroo (University of Chicago), Ravi Dhar (Yale University), and Norbert Schwarz (University of Michigan).

Building on psychological research about processing fluency, the researchers find that consumers have an easier time processing images when they are already “primed” – that is, if they have already thought about the image earlier in an unrelated context or if they already associate the logo with something in their personal lives.

In one experiment, participants first had to do a word jumble, either searching for words related to dogs or words related to cats. They then participated in an ostensibly unrelated study and were asked to rate a series of products, including batteries and dog shampoo. Those who had done the word jumble relating to dogs rated the dog shampoo higher, on average, than those who had done the cat-related jumble.

The influence of priming, the researchers found, was most pronounced when exposure to the product before evaluation was limited to 16 milliseconds, a period of time shown in psychological experiments to be pre-cognitive. When more time was added to allow for cognitive elaboration, the results were less pronounced.

“Whereas common branding wisdom suggests that identifiers should be strongly associated with the product category, our findings suggest that it may be beneficial to choose visual identifiers that consumers strongly associate with themselves,” write Labroo, Dhar, and Schwarz.

The researchers also point out another important advantage non sequitur logos have over identifiers that are meaningfully related to the product (e.g. a picture of a winery or a bunch of grapes on a wine label). They are not shared by competitors – at least not yet.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-03/uocp-wlw031708.php

South African wines are becoming more authentic and less pretentious. How must wine brand managers act on this?

South African wines are becoming more authentic and less pretentious. This is the opinion of Lisa Griggs of the little Wine Shop in Kalkbaai. She was the guest speaker at the University of Stellenbosch Business School’s wine auction.

Lisa further stated that in the next ten years wine will become the symbol of people who knows how to enjoy life. The South African wine industry is in essence a recreation of French wine styles in the South African climate and context. She used examples of icon wines like Meerlust Rubicon and Kanonkop Paul Sauer which is Bordeaux style blends.

Other excellent wines in this Bordeaux wine style includes the Stellenrust Timeless 2004 and Rustenberg John X Merriman 2005 and the Simonsig Tiara 2005.

Griggs concluded that South African producers are becoming more authentic and less pretentious. Producers are moving away from purely award driven wine styles and they are more philosophical and individualistic about there styles.

These new trends will make South African wine brands more interesting and the consumer’s individual feel, experience and taste will eventually replace awards as the prevailing factor for wine brand preferences

South African wine marketers must embrace these new branding trends. In the past some wine marketers were guilty of strategies that did not effectively differentiate their brand. Some SA wine brand managers are currently looking at new brand communications angles and the pioneers in these alternative branding approaches will reap the bottom line rewards. http://www.cheers.amagama.com

Why must South African wine marketers and brand managers embrace Social media Marketing?

Rhea Drysdale wrote that social networks' market share continues to climb. She also states that Google have taken steps to embrace SMM with major updates।

What exactly is social media marketing?

Content or a marketing strategy that is submitted to social sites like social bookmark sites (del.icio.us), social networks (MySpace and LinkedIn), blogs, etc. It's important to note that viral marketing can be a component of SMM, but they are not one and the same।

Why should you care about social media?

Well, for starters both Google and Ask have taken steps to embrace it with major updates. Secondly, social sites don't appear to be a passing fad as the social networks' market share continues to climb.

That means there is still incredible potential for traffic, backlinks and brand awareness, social media it is not going away anytime soon, so marketers need to adapt!

Rhea Drysdale 's Social Media Marketing in 60 seconds: - Social media is here to stay

- Google and Ask recently embraced social sites with massive updates.

- If you want to dominate the SERPs, you should find an edge with social media whether it's through how-to videos, brand evangelist blogs or custom communities. Or all of the above!

- When you submit your site, brand or products, understand that just submitting content won't always translate to success. You need to work at building a relationship with relevant communities and understand the rules for each.

-Techniques vary depending on the size of your company. Big companies get away with more "spam" methods of SMO because the intent is blurred with marketing fluff.

- Have a strategy in place before you start submitting random articles to social networks.

- Not everything is worthy of buzz, so control your message

- Track your buzz!

The full article can be found at

http://www.searchenginejournal.com/seo-meet-smm-session-at-smx-advanced/5053

Marketers must be aware of this new marketing field and embrace the opportunities it brings.

Web content is the backbone of a company's online brand presence

Web content is the backbone of a company's online brand presence. This statement is made by Ron Rogowski of Forrester Research. He further adds that many firms struggle to provide useful, relevant content that allows users to accomplish their goals and supports the company's brand positioning. In order to hit the sweet-spot where useful, usable content makes a lasting brand impression, firms should use personas to focus the design effort on target users and checklist all content before it goes live to ensure that it reinforces brand attributes. To read this article, follow this link http://www.forrester.com/Research/Document/Excerpt/0,7211,45213,00.html