Marketing Plans, Marketing Strategies and Marketing Tips

Giving out before you get is a long lost termed talked by experts, organizers, event managers, public speakers in varied promotional events, when we are talking about products, their marketing strategies, marketing plans there are so many things you have to take care of before splurging out all your money on marketing. You must have heard these terms very often like adding value for your audience and also building the trusts amongst your prospective buyers or customers.

You must have noticed this many a times that lots of marketing people, the leaders of marketing as we call them have spoken about this topics, its all so monotonous, so many times we keep hearing the same things again and again and the wonder in this is every time we hear it we find it new because many a times people just don’t get it right the first time, the main underlying principle to succeed in online marketing, or networking or selling is the art which is to give before you try getting it meaning that before you head out to get something from someone try giving it with pure heart without any expectations.

If you understood just what I said you will see, that it really makes a sense to do this, offer and see for yourself the different it will make to your brand value, obviously no one would like to be scammed out by their money so everybody is cautious while buying things online. People would not like to waste their hard earned money on just any product they need to have taste of it before they start buying your product so obviously they will do some online research about the product, the company, its reputation in the market, etc.

Customers would not like to be lied from sellers, so they become a bit hesitant in understanding or believing you of what you are claiming of the product, no one would like to have their feelings exploited so the customers become a bit wary of accepting things and trusting you, it is natural for them to behave that way because they might have been fooled in the past and are being cautious this time so that they are not fooled this time around.

We know that life is not easy as it seems to be, it’s a defense mechanism which is meant for self preservation with the life which is so brutal and short. People are just fed up with sledge hammer pitches and hard selling everywhere, they are just fed up of their routine glitches on a day to day basis, as they face the hard shelled life outside they only go on to become more stronger and the plaster of bad experiences cover them up. There is one way out which people can lower their defenses and commit themselves to you by keeping your best impressions in front of them. Just stop thinking of what they will be thinking of you, you are sure that you are not spamming and so you go ahead in marketing your product that is going to fulfill their needs. You are just here to achieve your goals and that you are not going to take people into any sorts of spasm, make a good image for yourself, your company and the product if need be reframe or replan your marketing strategies.

The marketing concepts are very simple to apply practically when you are not spamming you are obviously doing your best to give the best services to your clients. Its about adding up the value and building the trust of your clients, letting go of these old concepts go in for a single latest concept relating to marketing that says “Give before you get”.

Give your client a free advise and free content which they can use for their future referrals, if possible try to give them freebies which will make them more interested in your product. You can even point some of the things or tools which they should know, you can also advice some concepts regarding the business and also answer their queries, make use of the marketing tips they can use in their business or lives, try to give your clients surprises with new presentations and new products. Interact to the maximum extent you can so that you will know their choices and make promises that you will fulfill, do something that will make a history and make your name famous as a giver of things.

People should know you as giver; the person should speak gaga of you showering you with compliments like the “that person gave me an awesome gift”, “he is truly a gem person”, “he values his clients”, etc. you should make such a first time impression that a person should trust you of your words and believe you blindly next time while buying any types of products from you but make sure you don’t fool them of their hard earned money. Promise the things which you can fulfill for them. Always give people a good experience so that they keep coming back to you.

The above mentioned things are some of the thoughts that people have to be thinking of you when you are doing business with them. This is all inner heartfelt wishes they should be having for you, mention the maximum details about yourself and your business that will give them the detailed knowledge of your company and the products that you are selling. This is the best way you can be rest assured that your prospective buyers will buy from only you and not your competitors.

Make sure you have a good layout of the site and people don’t run away after looking the design and color of your site, your site should be very soothing to the eyes and pleasantly spoken about different types of products in the site. Keep minimum links of your site on the web, don’t think that putting larger number of links will make you more popular. Try to manage what people might think of you or may feel about you this will let you know what they want exactly.

Innovation is the main key to survive in the market today, there is no point in keeping the same business strategies, and you have to innovate and evolve to survive through the competition. Creative artists are spread across everywhere; they have this innate power to create ads that will attract your buyers. you might have studied the case of jack, Lou and Marla in my previous articles, do you see a difference or take a different outlook towards life’s responsibilities and the power and qualities you are born with? You might have seen how they made fortunes of millions of dollars by sheer devotion and dedication towards the things they liked to do like painting, drawing, arts, etc.

There was a time when Lou, an MBA by profession was the hot favorite in industrial circles mainly because of his fine tuned productive system. During that time creative artists like Jack and Marla were not taken seriously of having those qualities, it was just one step back from Lou’s end and people are turning their heads to Marla and Jack to do business with. There might be something that is attracting people towards Jack and Marla, even Lou might be or is not aware of. The word creativity and individuality were very far from business world and why suddenly there is great demand in corporate world today, may be that those serious individuals holding high posts in office might have realized that there is something else in the world of business other than capitalist business and that there is even more than chasing dollars and there can be minds which can be curved artistically and there exists talent with innate creative minds. There is more to the mind than what our eyes see; somewhere inner in our heart we lounge for peace and being an artist has its own pleasures in life.

There are lots of opportunities if we search for one, the exciting and thrilling opportunities that we see are actually the tip of economic iceberg, you have to prove yourself to exists in this highly competitive business world. We have to mould ourselves in the present shape of the economy then can we reach our  goals and fulfill them. As Daniel pink states in his new book that we are moving from information age to conceptual age where everything is based on the concepts. The economy as its advantage and professional success doesn’t just come through logic, skills but also from concepts, designs, creativity, relationship skills, etc. so all the people who had great demand near about in 20th century are making way for storytellers, artists, inventors, consolers, designers, caregivers and the people who are thinking big in terms of productivity and profits for the company.

The writing is basically for US denizens, in his book Pink identifies 3 fundamental reasons for the change that has occurred in the last century.

1. United States of America is a rich nation and all of its economy is flooded with surplus products, it has adequate resources to fulfill its nations needs and the demand from the people. the goods here are reasonable priced making it affordable even for a common laymen to afford it. The country has never faced any crisis like in developing or under developed nations, this very reason have made its consumers more discerning and more demanding. There are different demands from consumers like attractive packaging, products to be attractive or something which will excite them in buyin.
2. We have seen many a “made in china” products not only it has wider demand all over the globe but they are cheap rated so the people good attractive things at throw away prices. As we have seen the main hub for computer programming are asian nations like china and India, they have made their mark in industries like copy editing, accounting and engineering too. What drives all this? Its money, says Pink, the author of the book, a designer in India get $1000 for chip designing job where as the same person will get $7000 for the work this is leading to brain drain and economies all over are getting unstable.
3. The age of automation has marred everybody and everything, it was in the year 1987 that chess grand master Garry said that no computer can ever beat me and in 1997 the IBM computer deep blue beaten him to everybody’s amazement. And more recently it was heard that Kasparov stated that after some years they be capable of beating everybody in any match. What Pink tries to signify here is Kasparov is a knowledge worker like any other in the field of programming, accountancy, etc and we have seen even doctors are making use of automated computers to help them. Automation has lead to many a changes and there are issues which can be solved with just a click of a mouse rather than moving here and there.

The concept age relates to survival, Pink asks us 3 questions before we set out on our decisions:

1. before handing over the work to some party, ask if there is possibility to get the work done cheaper overseas?
2. Can you make use of computer to do your task?
3. Whether whatever you are offering in abundance is in demand?

Ask yourself these questions before heading out in taking any major decisions. Creativity is not about fun thing or stuff you can relate to spending nice times. It’s a talent, in-grown talent which takes efforts to come up with creative ideas after all if you want to survive in the economy. In my experience I have seen that its difficult to automate the task which are creative in nature or rather complex in nature. Creativity helps you transfer utilitarian products in to artifacts that everybody would love looking at, its all about the design, the shape, the utility, the features that people would love using probably that may be the reason people stand out in queues to get the first hand on an I-phone or an attractive gadget.

The people who have the capabilities to show their creativity in their work or products will surely gain financial rewards and you would say that people with such unique talents are treated like rock stars, in the case of Marla, after all creative talents are must in this economy. Recently I attended the Innovation edge conference held in London which was organized by National Endowment for science, technology and arts which is commonly known by the name (NESTA). The theme was that of creativity and innovation and whether they are really critical to the future of the economy of United Kingdom. The subject was put up in academic terms.

We know the increasing competition in the economies all over the globe and innovation is the key idea to survive in this economy, you can exploit and implement as many ideas you wish when it comes to making use of your creativity. We have seen mature economies like the US and the UK putting all of their strengths in manufacturing, yielding them good creative results because of the creative use of their ideas, we have always dreamt of being an innovative nation like that of US. The new labor government which bought us cool image of Britannia ads, thanks to the wonders done by creative industries, today London is recognized as the key destination for creative ideas a total of 20% of UK’s workforce is engaged in creative world which has great rivalry with financial services also. There was on of these conferences named with the title “where the UK leads and for how long”, the seminar specially focused on different challenges faced to maintain the tradition of surviving in the innovative world, we cannot take things for granted like that of US. The bottom line of the matter is that you will suffer if you too take up a path like that of Lou.

The idea of focusing on the creative work appeals to westerners especially when you are shipping them with new ideas and generating the new innovative ads and stuff, the ideas might sound as appealing but they are equally dangerous too. China provides unlimited resources because everything here is automated, it is still not content with what it is producing at larger scales across the globe, whether it may be an economic foresight or a cultural pride, china knows it for sure that the cheap labor cant stand the booming period for longer time. The driving national mission of the country no more remains in traditional labor intensive units its more of a media, fashion, design, latest technology and stuff.

This was the first ever impression I got about the china designs which are not exhibited at V&A museum in London which showcases the glittering fashion, graphic design, and architecture which is so similar to the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Still there is plenty of evidence of Japanese and western influence and there are yet many memorable and startling works which has a distinct Chinese identity, lots been said and done about Chinese economic power as the labor here is cheap and human resource is huge the most attractive thing that stuck me here at the Chinese exhibition was its cultural wealth which rediscovers the pre revolutionary heritage that is actually a rich source to get inspiration for the modern day Chinese creativity.

Going through the recent book written by Michael Keane which has the Chinese government and business leaders as its main topic of discussion are focusing on replacing “made in china” to “created in china”. This needs to take up a great leap forward which is so very much imminent, the world factory is after all not always the priority through developmental aspect. China is no doubt a number 1 contender for cultural and service economies around the world.

In the Book Keane makes a point that there are lots of important barriers to innovation in political system and Chinese economy. It’s the western industry that enjoys the creative head start which is again reflected in the fact that they have showcased Olympic buildings at china design show out of which only one was designed by Chinese architects. But through this mega exhibition, Chinese have made their point clear by letting their creative ambitions know to all different nations of the world.

Whatever part of the world you are or whichever city you may be in things are perceived differently and every view will give you different opinion too. But globalization brings all different banners of the world under one roof doesn’t matter whether its Shogi, chess, or xiangqui or even if its new board games finally what matters is the view. A single entity or a single nation cannot decide upon the rules of the games and thus collaboration is a must in different cases of the life as we have seen that Jack is coming forward as a players and Marla a grand master in her world of arts.

Whether you like or not, money will travel to the destination where there is abundance of currency and loads of labor markets too. The labor and current markets makes it the ideal destination for making profits. You have to just charge the premium amount for giving the services so cheaply. Develop your own skills and tuck yourself in a race, a price war and mark your own prices in the market with your inner talents. Change brings a lots of difference in the economy, the 3 As here are automation, Asia, and abundance with increase in technology there is abundance through automation especially in Asiatic regions of the world.

If you are creative enough then you open yourself to the great outside world opportunities, all the business or the decisions you take in life have many an uncertainty and risk factors involved but we have to face them and not turn away from it. If you think of Marla you might well wonder how she is having a ball, how she has been the queen of roost and what all things does marla know that Lou doesn’t know. To put it straight and perfect you should first understand what qualification a person is having, not just the book knowledge a person has to be creative from inside, Marla is one of those consummate creative entrepreneur, she has one of the best qualities that anyone would vouch for, being a creative thinker, if you have yourself those inner qualities you can do whatever you wish in life, people get things done when they are serious of their thoughts and serious about achieving their targets. Marla has a reason; people love her because of the reason that she doesn’t fear failure and is always ready to work with big or small enterprises, even an ally. Its not just her niche in artistic world she also has great entrepreneurial vision which allows her to do magical things that leads to great opportunities just out of no where, her mind is that of a business savvy mind which always is looking out for something new.

For mastering in things you want to achieve in life you have to have that creativity in you and the 3 critical skill sets which are mentioned below:

All the successes in life are not achieved with a click of a mouse you need to master them by putting your skills and sharpening your skill set with due knowledge setting your objectives straight.

1. Collaboration – you have to connect to your partners to come out with good solution that will help you to keep pace with the competition, it will help you to work in close bonds with clients, partners, investors and professionals.
2. Creativity – you can create new ideas by generating them, evaluate them with effect and take actions to run them in the company that will help you increase your sales and provide good services too.
3. Entrepreneurship – identify the opportunities that come your way in market place or also in big companies, change your skills into actions and implement them.

We have known and we have seen that entrepreneurs totally rely on the creativity aspect and produce wealth accordingly if you see the modern day entrepreneurs you can see the concept of wealth creation goes even further as John Howkins rightly said that creative entrepreneurs are those who use their creative power to create wealth which lies in themselves rather than using outside resources.

By using their creative power entrepreneurs create value for themselves and for the company, the value is not just the physical products but these are some of the most demandable intangible assets like the brand name of the company, reputation, intelligence and network of partners. They are so used to projecting new things and bring up a desired position in the market and elsewhere in the world. The people who are creative entrepreneurs are not always freelancers, some are bound by company regulations and restrictions but they can surely help to innovate and bring up new things in the company. Freelancers are the people who do their work independently they are not bound by any regulations, they are paid by companies or individuals for particular task they are asked to do. This is the way they earn their livelihood, they charge their fees by the projects they day, on an hourly basis or daily basis depending on their work type. Freelancers are always in search of new challenging work which will give them proper edge over their other counterparts who are working for companies. Creative entrepreneurs are those individuals who are always ready to grab new opportunities thereby increasing their own expectation, and they produce results accordingly, the very same outlook brings them good opportunities and create a system for themselves and others around them that will help in wealth generation. Now let’s take a quick look at Mary’s story.

There was this young girl who always wanted to draw pictures, at the age of 11 she had enough of skills that her family created a studio specially for her by emptying their closet this was the place where she used to sit and draw the pictures for hours together without worrying about summers or winters. Slowly and gradually as the days passed she turned from a girl to woman and still kept on drawing pictures. She finally took up a job at some ad agency and also did freelancing work for clients with commission but she was not very happy with the type of the work she was doing that of drawing things which were ordered so there she started with her licensed drawings which she herself designed and sold to other greeting card companies and there grew her income level and her satisfaction for the job increased.

Not only just greeting card industry, she ventured out into other media and also hired staff to look after her wide number of fields. Even today she keeps drawing all her licensed designs and her staff get them reformatted and get them licensed for calendars picture, cards, animated films, t-shirts, mugs, books, etc. she became so famous in just no time that she launched her national magazine with her own name “Mary Engelbreit’s home companion”. If she wouldn’t have taken this step of doing some thing of her own, she had be freelancer or a contract author with companies to design their products. Mary would surely be happy individual with income and all but wouldn’t have got the satisfaction of her skills what she has today. She is now an entrepreneur, a creative entrepreneur just through her talent and hopes she has reached such great height, she now licenses her art and has built up a big business behind her name. she has already touched $1 billion of sales through retail selling, the art lovers know her name well and is an inspiration to millions of people world wide. She has also partnered with charity first book where she promotes literacy by giving millions of books to children belonging to the parents of low income group.

The concept of conventional thinking pursues the world of art and business as 2 different entities, they don’t have anything in common. We are all here to think of all the uncreative ways through which we can look at things in the case of Mary Engelbreit we can see the qualities of both an artist and that of an entrepreneur both of them working in great harmony.

While still many of us keep deciding out future plans till we finish our high school, there was this girl who made a firm decision of being an artist some day just at the mere age of 11, she has taken her company to amazing heights through her sheer hard work and success and of course dedication. Mary Engelbriet studios have acquired world famous name today with global licensing of her designs and she has entered in different arenas like the retail business, she is the same girl who still sits with her designs with same enthusiasm and with the same wonder, the same hopes and the same imagination.

Take the case of Caterina Fake, a designer, she started out with plain designer and was later working as Art director in some famous company, she also started with photo sharing portal which is today world famous. her famous business interests include sitting on the boards of creative commons and Etsy, she also takes interest in speaking at conferences and also gives lectures at universities and takes initiative in advising the starters in the field. She also takes deep interest in writing and also writes some fiction stories and also takes keen interest in poetry, art installations and making sculpture designs. Do you think her business is any different from the works of a creative artist?

Creative has no end. Marla wouldn’t have said so, she is herself “Artist in business” promoting business line, she describes herself as being an artist who is involved in the business and also an entrepreneur whose main line of business consists of creative art. Today we can term anyone as an entrepreneur because somewhere or the other we have created that niche for ourselves and others so that we can pursue our own life goals. Lou is finding that in full fledged, working out on his costs factor, the fears of steady job and searching a predictable career path, these are now only historical relics that change with time. The risk here is that of security the steps we take while adopting and entrepreneurial approach, we take up responsibilities and try to develop our skills in that field, we build up our network of clients, partners, investors and also build up a good reputation and proper skill set to achieve our goals. If we are working somewhere, you always learn something or the other, a learning experience while earning money and its an investment in itself that will remain with you as a knowledge forever.

This sounds like a real great news for someone like Jack who loves his independence unlimitedly. He always has something or the other to offer for some creative side of the projects currently on. He will go on and on till the time he become bored of his work and is made redundant, he keeps writing blogs every evenings through those flexed muscles landing him a book to write may not be a bad option after all, he has his collaborations with people around the globe. He knows that he can make it really big by writing blogs and make it big and take it too bigger heights, its not just about achieving one’s dreams it actually takes more than your dreams to succeed in the path you have selected.

The economy today is full of creative artist where people want to see something new and something which has good logic. It might sound easy to come up with creative ideas but only the artist knows what it takes to during brainstorming sessions. We can start up with a total different avenue in the field of art and creative. Please do not forget to write your comments regarding the things I have written and tell me your views of being an entrepreneur, the challenges that you will face and also using your creative side at the same time, etc.

We have all been born with an innate ability to do something on in our lives; we have been gifted at least with one quality that we ourselves might not know that will yield us good recognition in life may be earlier or later stages of life. We are here to do something, make a living difference to ourselves and those around us. We are here to make a mark and do remarkable things in life and lead accordingly, no one likes to stay idle all day long everybody wants to involve themselves in some or the other activities, sitting idle and waiting for things to happen is obviously not you, I know that for sure otherwise you would not have been reading my article.

Everybody is seeking a change in life, why are we striving so hard in our lives that we want to break free and overcome all the challenges of life, when you want to change the world we need to change ourselves first doing innovative, productive things that will bring a change that everybody of want. For changing just one habit in life there are so many things to look after, we have to change our perspective towards it that will bring about slow and steady change in our lives. You cannot change everything just at one go, you have to become another person if you want to get things done.

If you ever had this chance of watching the movie fight club, well, well, I am not going speak out the twist in the tale, but watch it once and you would know well who Tyler Durden is, the story is not meant for everyone its not the fight story if you are thinking that then you have got it wrong for sure. Watching fight club will give you a good lesson in life, its all about living your life the way you want to and how to achieve the things in life you had always dreamt of. The story of flight club gets you to the path of glory and enlightenment and teaches you the hard path of life which seems like next to impossible; you can achieve everything in life provided you want to and work hard upon it. There are so many lessons you need to learn from Tyler’s story, its all about innovative action that you can directly apply to your life, given below are some of the creative rules stated by Tyler to live life to the fullest.

1. Tyler’s first rule relates to Innovation – innovate is the key if you want to achieve something in life, there should be no fear and no distractions, once if you distract from your goals then you loose the game completely. This is a struggle some lesson for the people but most of the time we see people moving away from it. The 80/20 productivity rule of Tim Ferriss helps to focus yourself on the task you are already putting your efforts in, the rule focuses 20% on the actions and 80% on the returns that you get, most of the times people have felt the theory to be good enough but not practical.Running a business can be a hell lot of trouble especially when it involves taking huge risks, when you take risks, you evolve and become more confident of taking decisions. Running my business for all these years have clearly made me understood of the fact that entrepreneurial skills don’t come easy you have to gradually catch up on things and learn the tactics of the game. When you are applying 80/20 productivity rule to your business, it requires radical elimination that is let go off the time which are not into creative thinking. Letting go off unnecessary things from proper creative thinking will lead to innovative actions and you will get successful results.
2. Tyler’s 2nd innovation rule again some where or the other states the same functions of not having fear while performing the task you really want to perform and get results and there should be no distractions while doing the tasks, concentration is the main key. Don’t break the first 2 rules stated by Tyler
3. Tyler’s 3rd rule pertaining to innovation states to evolve your self and complete the task beforehand. You have to face the facts of life, today or tomorrow you have to come up with solutions, don’t ever get distracted from the things you want to achieve in life. Sometimes while getting in the task to solve our mundane problems it so happens that we often face the fear of getting the failure, or the fear of ridicule, the risk factor or mediocrity and sometimes even facing the success.If you are evolving out of your mistakes it is but natural that you are going to face mistakes then comes a stage in life where you stop mistakes and meet success once. You should be making as much mistakes as possible at the very start so you can gradually correct your mistakes while reaching the end. Once you make a mistake you become aware where you might fail and so lets the chips fall away where they should and let success embrace you
4. The 4th Tyler’s rule of innovation is quite interesting and states that once you have lost everything in a business game, somewhere in your heart you set free because now you don’t have that anxiety and fear of being successful you have already faced failure and now you are totally free to do whatever you wish to. But that doesn’t mean that you should be waiting for failure to happen and taking up big mistakes, while in a process of making adjustments to meet success you need not worry that everything will work as per the plans, if everything is going as per the plan that you have set for your success it is obvious that somewhere or the other you are missing something and that you are not doing that remarkable a job.Life’s problems are never ending; life keeps on going till the time you are making other plans of life and innovation happens to you when you are at your ultimate best in the creativity. As the time passes on you will come to know where to make changes and if whether you need to change your entire plan. No one is successful at just first go sometimes you might get success in just first go but not all are as lucky as you it could be possible that your initial plan fails but other plans are a great success.
5. The 5th rule applies that you are not what your job is or the car which you drive or you are neither the amount of money you have in your bank. When we are talking about anxiety that grips us, the fear, the pain of failure what all things does really matter to you, do people judge you by the things you own or the task that we accomplish in life? Its not that you need to give away all that you have but don’t own the stuff to that much extent that one point comes where you cannot even live life the way you want.
6. The 6th rule of Tyler states that people see or perceive themselves as they want to see, or they are comfortable thinking of themselves to be. You talk to your inner self on daily basis whether directly or indirectly, you have to accept your true self without any compromises. Live naturally and behave naturally as you want to be and do the things you like to do, run with the flow and don’t get diverted from it when you are doing what you like there are more chances of increase in productivity.
7. The 7th rule applies that when you delve upon some task that doesn’t necessarily make you a professional in it meaning that you don’t become a chicken just sticking feathers up your butt. You just can’t become creative by being just that kind. You reach upon a stage of innovating new things with sheer hard work, no one can reach success without facing failures, as you get into the grove of achieving your task you come up with different ideas and your thinking process leads you to solving your problems, you need to take action if you are looking for results.
8. Tyler’s last rule applies that nothing is forever, life is not endless you should know that one day you are surely going to die each passing minute you are reducing from your life. Life is priceless you should know that unless you understand that if you wont take up things in a real urgent way, life will just pass by so get going and live every minute of your life. You might think you have lots of time in life to live by and go on slow pace but then you might not even know when the time has all gone.

Get to a new beginning and get started with your work what urgently needs to be done and stop worrying about its consequences.