Marketing Solutions

Archive for December, 2009

Email marketing programs are perfect for the plethora of niche markets that is your current client base. As an owner and operator of an outdoor adventure store or extreme sporting outlet, using the many features included in online email marketing programs will raise your profit margins by helping you stay in contact with first time buyers, converting them into “regulars”. This is especially useful at the beginning of varying sporting seasons, as well as right before certain events or sport competitions. The top-ranked online email marketing programs allow you to diversify your contact list and organize your email sending in any way, shape or form that suits your business needs.

The best email marketing programs solutions provide you with a comprehensive list manager, which allows you to segment your audiences in any way possible. You will be able to segment your audience by state, city, hobby, the sales staff they are associated with, and anything else you can think of. Any form of organization that you can dream up is possible with email marketing.

Also, the best email marketing programs offer you comprehensive data/metrics tracker free of charge. This will allow you get real time information on who has opened your emails; which one of your subscribers has clicked on the promotions or product offers within your email; and which ones have forwarded this information on to their friends. This information is key in helping you reach your audiences better. After you learn this information, you can send them exactly the promotion they are after or product/sporting good they are interested in. This feature usually comes standard with the ability to export the data, so you can use it in conjunction with the list manager to segment your audiences by their likes and interests. This way, your marketing strategy can become more focused, and therefore give you greater success within your various markets.

Timing is important when sending out your campaigns. It is crucial that you are well aware of the events that are pertinent to your customers, so that you know when to send out the email campaigns. Add in the fact that you can set up the campaigns to go out up to a year in advance, and your email marketing programs strategy is set up to deliver customers that are constantly returning to your store location. By providing newsletters for upcoming extreme sport competitions that your customers will be interested in, at intervals before the event, as well as promotions for the products they might need, you will be practically driving them back to your store yourself, and increasing your store’s value in their minds. For seasonal activities like camping and kayaking, offering end of season or pre-season discounts will also bring them flocking.

The functions of online email marketing programs software will increase your sales by helping you to directly market to your audiences, turning one-time buyers into frequent customers. As an owner and operator of outdoor an adventure store or extreme sporting outlet, you are required to cater to a variety of niche markets, and that means getting to know what they want and need. Using the list managers in conjunction with the tracking metrics offered by email marketing programs, and doing so in a timely manner, will increase your overall sales on a continuing basis. With greater sales comes a greater opportunity for expansion and growth. Use email marketing programs to turn your business into an extreme sport.

Rudy Barell
http://www.articlesbase.com/marketing-articles/email-marketing-programs-for-the-outdoor-adventure-store-791447.html

Economies do not exist until somebody BUYS something! And economies cease to exist when a sale is not made.  Management then decides “customers aren’t buying anything so let’s just cut heads, slash budgets, hunker down and shrink our way to  greatness!” 

Prospecting, Interviewing customers to properly identify problems and opportunities and then collaborating with  them to find appropriate solutions seems to be a skill set lost to an entire generation.   How did this happen? 

Two major shifts drove this change. In the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s, virtually every company had a sales force that were required and depended on things like; prospecting- the creation of customers, product knowledge, application knowledge and selling skills.  <strong>Great companies were built on great sales teams who were responsible for creating opportunities not for just selling them. </strong>The sales team was the engine, leading the  charge, driving the revenues of the company!  In the 90’s sales teams were deemed to expensive to maintain, inefficient, difficult to manage and the responsibility for driving revenues shifted to the marketing department.  The theory was that the company could create demand for products and services through advertising, promotion and gimmicks then the company could merely harvest the flood of incoming  orders with call centers or order desks. The second major shift currently taking place is from traditional marketing to internet marketing. 

But, what happens when customers stop looking and searching the net and the phone stops ringing?  Because selling is a lost art the solutions are limited to- increase the advertising, make even bigger claims of the importance of customer satisfaction, lower prices (again) and increase gimmicks like no money down, rebates, zero percent interest and free trips.  Companies started spending more money on ad campaigns and google search then the entire sales force makes in salaries and commissions.  While these marketing shifts created breakthroughs in the ability to reach greater numbers of potential customers, the fact is it failed!  You don’t have to look far to see the corpses of companies who relied on marketing and disregarded the sales team;  Circuit City, Heard Automotive, Dilliards, Sears, Washington Mutual, Wachovia and Merrill Lynch.   These companies failed because of their dependence upon their marketing campaigns and their inability to sell their products!  Marketing without a trained sales team is a “one  way” vehicle, causing the company to only activate at the point of marketing and then become passive at the point of creating an opportunity or even closing on those created.

These marketing methods virtually eliminated management’s expectation of the sales team and their abilities. This is a critical problem in a recession, maybe event the cause of it, whereby the customers stop looking for new products and services, and therefore are immune to the wiles of marketing and promotion. The consumers’ focus in now also on cutting expenses and unless your product or service can help them save money without any investment, they simply won’t pay attention. Search engine optimization is useless when potential customers stop searching.  

Companies <strong>must </strong>return to the creation of true sales skills and sales teams because without them nothing happens!  Management, marketing and customer satisfaction does not sell product.  Sales people sell products and you must have effectively trained salespeople that can (1) generate a prospect and (2) know how to determine what is needed, (3) how your product or service can satisfy that need and (4) how to justify a purchase decision. The lost art of real salesmanship must be restored in order to create the revenue a company desires.

A well trained sales team, not management, not the internet, not customer satisfaction and not marketing is the only thing that can cost effectively create customers in this economy.  Economies exist only when someone finds a prospect and then sells that prospect a product or service at which point they exchange money with your company.  Sales people drive entire economies and without them we have no economy.

Grant Cardone, Author of Sell to Survive

Grant Cardone
http://www.articlesbase.com/business-articles/sales-people-make-economies-not-marketing-by-grant-cardone-746563.html

Summary

A mixed technology pack consisting of awareness on generation of total farm income is needed. Our farming is a composite farming comprising crop, fruit, livestock, fish and allied production systems. We need a composite technology pack and not a commodity research end product. Thus a total change and reformation in National Agricultural Research System (NARS) is needed to shape it as farmer friendly. We may name it NFR&ES, i. e National Farm Research & Extension System or simply Indian Farm Research and Business Management System.

Introduction

Future of agricultural extension education lies in its advancement through research, methodological refineness and village–linked mechanization. The disciplines of extension education has to be reshaped, incorporating explorative methods, survey techniques, computing skills, economic and social back ground analysis. An attempt to characterize barriers in transmission of technologies to the baseline farming systems needs a reformation in extension education in India and Asia. A detailed reformation model in the form of Broad Based Agricultural extension has been published (Wani, 1992). The booklet describes a model approach for Kashmir Valley districts. With the establishment of SAMETI in SKUAST-K, as an autonomous Institution, a series of documents for improving productivity in whole agriculture i,e crops, fruits and livestock have been prepared. (Wani, 2008,a& b). On the basis of these reviews and documents, the present document is 4th of the series, reviewing technology dissemination, impact & productivity changes. It concludes with a reformation model for Extension Education – a Vision.

Farmers Perception

A study was conducted to examine the perception of cotton farmers(n= 210) of Guntur District, Andhra Pradesh, India, regarding the attributes of integrated pest management (IPM) technologies. Majority of the cotton farmers of the area perceived that the initial cost of IPM technologies is high, and IPM technologies give meager and irregular net profit, but may be beneficial in the long run. Moreover, farmers stated that IPM technologies are not feasible given the situation of the district, culturally not acceptable, not necessary, not socially recognized, have more cognitive complexity and scarce resource complexity, reversible, and consume more labour. Regarding the practicality of IPM technologies, the respondents felt that the technologies can be easily demonstrated and tried out, and have reliable point of origin. It is suggested that the success of IPM technologies depends on farmers awareness, community approach, timeliness and availability of inputs. (Nasantha & Buchareddy,, 2006).

Eco-friendly Technology

This study was conducted to analyse the constraints encountered by farmers (n=245) in employing eco-friendly technologies in cultivating rice in Andhra Pradesh, India. Ineffectiveness of the recommended dosage of spray solutions (51.42%), and difficulty in maintaining recommended depth of water after transplanting (23.26%), were the major problems perceived by the farmers. Based on the results, 55.51% farmers suggested that adequate trainings must be conducted on improved management practices to enhance farmers’s skills, and 32.24% farmers said that more demonstrations must be conducted on farmers’s fields, for effective adoption of eco-friendly technologies in rice cultivation (Reddy et al, 2006).

The study was conducted to analyse eco-friendly technologies for rice cultivation, which exploit renewable resources to control pollution upto consideredable level and to recycle wastes. The data were gathered from 245 farmers in three regions of Andhra Pradesh, India . it is suggested that extension agencies should concentrate on major suggestions i.e., conducting required number of training programmes for enhancing the skills of rice farmers in various management practices. Conducting more number of demonstration on the efficacy of eco-friendly technologies in the field, rather than mere publicity. Extension should be strengthened so that it is demand driven, market driven and farmer led. Visits of experts should be increased to farmers’ field region wise and block wise for better comprehension and diagnosis of field problems. (Reddy et al 2005).

This study was conducted to analyse the attitudes of rice farmers (n=245) in Andhra Pradesh, India, towards eco-friendly technologies. Results showed favourable attitude of farmers towards eco-friendly technologies. The results indicate the need for the extension agency to train and educate the farmers regarding the advantage of adopting eco-friendly technologies to decrease environmental pollution, obtain high quality produce and sustainable yields,(Reddy et al, 2006).

Technology gaps

The study was conducted in Junagadh-1 and Junagadh-2 subdivisions of Rajkot division, where National Watershed development programme has already been implemented, to find out the extent of technological gaps in adoption of soil and water conservation technologies and factors responsible for it. The results revealed that the technological gap was higher in adopting the percolation tank-cum-farm ponds, strip cropping and mulching practices in beneficiary farmers (BFs). But in non-beneficiary farmers (NBFs) , the technological gap was higher in the practices of contour cultivation, contour bunding along with vegetative barriers, afforestation, recharging well and tubewell, deep ploughing and graded bunding in addition to above three practices mentioned for BFs. The study clearly indicated that overall technological gap in NBFs was significantly higher with a mean difference of 24.57% compared to BFs. It was also observed that variables namely, size of land holding , social participation, employment status, opinion leadership, extension participation, localite-cosmopolite value orientation knowledge and attitude were significantly correlated with the technological gap (Popat et al 2006).

Farmer Decision Process

This study was conducted to analyse the direct and indirect relative influence of the selected independent variables with each other to analyse the relative influence of other dependent variable, i.e., differential innovation decision process of rice eco-friendly technologies. The data were gathered from 245 farmers in Andhra Pradesh, India , and analysed using path coefficient. The path diagram clearly shows that the variables social participation, farm size, and extension participation were crucial variables. This might be due to the fact that many variables were channeling their substantial indirect effects on differential innovation decision process of rice eco-friendly technologies through them. The variables exposure to electronic media and cosmopoliteness showed significant positive direct effects. Moreover, maximum direct negative effects were shown by fatalism and religious beliefs (Reddy et al, 2006).

Farmer cost-sharing – Nigerian Model

Providing adequate and stable funding for agricultural extension service in Nigeria has been a major problem since the expiration of the World Bank’s funding arrangement. In order to solve this problem, cost –sharing of agricultural technology delivery is seen as a tenable privatization policy option. Considering the fact that agricultural technology transfer in Nigeria has mainly been publicly funded, introducing cost-sharing arrangement is expected to meet some obstacles. Hence, this study ascertains the perception of farmers and extension agents on the constraints and strategies towards effective cost –sharing of agricultural technology delivery in Nigeria. This study was carried out in six geopolitical zones of Nigeria. Multistage random sampling technique was applied in the selection of respondents. A sample size of 267 farmers and 272 Agricultural Development Programme (ADP)staff participated in the study. Means, standard deviation, exploratory factor analysis and test statistics were used in realizing the objectives. The results show that the major constraints to effective cost-sharing of agricultural extension service in Nigeria are weak institutional development, extension system lapses, lack of cooperation by farmers, uncertainties experienced in agriculture, conflicts and corruption. The major strategies for effective cost-sharing arrangement include building political support for cost sharing , establishment of farmers’ cooperatives to serve as avenues for collection of payments, creating enabling legislation for cost –sharing and increasing the number of extension staff. The study recommends proper dissemination of information on cost-sharing before implementation, creating enabling legislation, decentralizing the extension system and building the capabilities of extension staff (kukwuone et al, 2006). Should we use this model of Nigeria.

Farmers Knowledge Level

The study was conducted to determine farmers’ knowledge level regarding the major aspects of pearl millet production technology in dryland farming. The data were gathered by administering a questionnaire to 120 farmers in Sirsa District, Haryana, India. Results showed that 54.17% of farmers possessed medium knowledge level whreas 26.67 and 19.16% of them have high and low knowledge level, respectively. Regarding aspect-wise knowledge level of production technology, 75% of farmers possessed high knowledge in preparatory tillage, 78% had low knoeledge level about improved variety, 90% of farmers had low level of knowledge on seed treatment and 68% possessed medium knowledge level about sowing rate. For sowing date and FYM application, 82% and 70% of farmers had high and medium knowledge level, respectively. Farmers possess low level of knowledge about chemical fertilizers application 48%. In mechanical weed control, 85% had high knowledge level and 82% had low knowledge about chemical weed control. On plant protection measures, 50.83 and 70% farmers had low knowledge level about insect control and disease control, respectively (Chander et al, 2006).

Farmers Field Schools

The Farmer Field School (FFS) approach is gaining prominence as an extension approach but its usefulness in influencing farmers to understand and uptake new technologies is still a question lingering in the mind of many FFS practitioners. This study was conducted to determine the effectiveness of the approach in knowledge acquisition, adoption and dissemination of soil and crop management (S&CM) technologies among small-scale farmers in Kenya. Eight technologies were scaled –out using the approach and the conventional extension methods. A survey with an ex-post facto design was employed with a sample frame consisting of 940 farmers. A sample of 60 FFS graduates and 60 non-FFS (NFFS) farmers was chosen for the study. There was a significant difference in knowledge acquired in S&CM technologies by FFS compared to NFFS farmers. About 50% of FFS farmers had acquired high to very high level of the knowledge of all the eight technologies disseminated while the majority ( 80%) of the NFFS farmers had acquired less than 50% of the same knowledge. About 45% of the FFS farmers had adopted 50% of the technology components while only 17% of NFFS farmers had adopted the same percentage of the technology components. The FFS participants were significantly (P .05) better disseminators of S&CM technologies than the non-FFS farmers. It was recommended that all stakeholders in Agricultural development in Kenya be sensitized on the potential effectiveness of FFS methodology in scaling-up agricultural technologies and also monitor how the application of knowledge acquired by FFS farmer is impacting on their livelihoods. (Bunyatta et al, 2006).

Conclusion and work plan 2008

Community supported agriculture system needs to be evolved. It should encompass food production, marketing, distribution, quality assurances and pricing decisions. A transparent system of research, outreach (extension) industry profiting based on Farmers production prices need to be evolved. Research and extension needs to be clubbed to give end products to farmers and not the research publication which are never transferable to farmers. Communication process within extension system need to be informative, analytic and fact gathering exercises. The total change in Extension delivery system should begin with curriculum changes to suit new name of “Farm Business Management. It needs incorporation of Agricultural sciences awareness with particular emphasis on Agribusiness, appraisals, consultancy, risk management, data analysis, credit management, marketing, public relations, economics and policy issues, farm management and international agriculture – public private partnerships, Farm co-operative ventures, rural banking, Agro-industrial managements, feed/seed services and programmes need to be added to the projects and mission on agricultural technology delivery system.

Farmer schools, women awareness and technology impact analytic projects need to be financed by ICAR. A broad national based project as Agriculture and National resource utilization needs to be financed including all SAU Extension Education Directorates. This should cover areas of farm production, production cost, price structure, service cost, input – output ratio with respect to livestock, fish, agriculture, forestry, sericulture and horticulture products. Quality trainings in food processing and preservation to stimulate new graduate to set up food processing units. A composit packaging of technology, their use and cost benefit ratio analysis should be the areas of operation of the project. Once the basic idea of reforms is conceived by ICAR logistics could be worked out.

G.M. Wani
http://www.articlesbase.com/science-articles/extension-education-reformation-iii-farmers-perception-and-farmers-schools-331856.html