Event Marketing

Let's look at some of the key advantages of the proprietary corporate event. †¢When creating a proprietary corporate event, the marketer has nearly complete control of the customer's experience with the company. You can shape the event to suit the needs of your audience — and meet your corporate sales and marketing objectives. †¢Corporate events are an excellent venue for relationship building with key customers, from end-users, to technical personnel, to purchasing officials, to senior executives.The relationship can be deepened on both sides: you get more focused selling time, and the customers provide you with more insights into their needs and business problems. †¢Corporate events are designed to allow higher level conversations than can be expected in the hustle and bustle of a trade show. †¢Customers and prospects can focus on your message, without distractions from competitors. Corporate events tend to be applied to current customer marketing, versus prospecting, for the simple reason of efficiency.For one thing, it's easier to persuade a person with whom you already have a business relationship to come to your corporate event. For another, the future value of a current customer or inquirer is much higher than that of the average unwashed prospect, which justifies the expense of creating and running a dedicated event. To get the most value from a corporate event, keep these principles in mind: †¢Consult with your target audience. In order to attract and influence them, you must first find out what works. Let their preferences and needs guide your planning. †¢Seek opportunities to defray your costs.You can ask your business partners to take sponsorships, or ask your clients to pay their own travel and hotel expenses. Some conferences even charge attendees a fee, which both qualifies their serious interest and supports the budget. †¢Corporate event management is complicated, and requires expertise and resources fro m multiple parties, inside and outside the company. So a focus on project management and team-building will enhance your likelihood of success. †¢Proprietary corporate events share many characteristics of trade shows, when it comes to marketing strategy, planning, and execution.The same rules apply about setting objectives, promotions, post-event follow up, and so forth. Treat the corporate event like a full-fledged marketing campaign, not a one-off. Event Types It's not easy to categorize events, since there is so much overlap in function and activity, but here are some of the more common types. Most of these are focused on current customers, but the last one, road shows, is designed for prospecting. User Groups The user group meeting has taken center stage in the information technology arena, but is also in wide use in other industries.Typically the company's objective with a user group is multi-fold: †¢Education about the current products in use at the account †¢Su rfacing problems and trouble shooting solutions †¢Identifying customer needs for additional products or features †¢Deepening the relationship with the customer Most companies find that the opportunity to network with other product users is one of the key benefits appreciated by attendees. Client Conferences User groups target the engineer or middle manager who actually uses the product in day-to-day business, with primarily an educational and troubleshooting objective.A client conference, on the other hand, is designed to engage a more senior managerial level, addresses more strategic issues and is often, in some respects, more sales oriented. The typical client conference pursues the following objectives: †¢Deepen the customer relationship †¢Communicate company vision, culture, and strategies †¢Cross-sell and upsell †¢Encourage networking among peers A client conference may have any of the following components: †¢Keynotes and breakout sessions â⠂¬ ¢Exhibit hall †¢Meetings with sales reps and senior executives †¢Sports event, such as a golf outing A client appreciation dinner †¢Entertainment Single-Customer Events Events focusing on a single customer can be a useful element of the corporate event marketing mix. Limited to top customers, these events can be as simple as an expanded client meeting, where the business carries on into ancillary activities like dinners or outings. Or they can be workshops, or facilitated sessions — whatever meets the sales and marketing objective. One common type of single-customer event is also known as a â€Å"vendor day,† when a large company arranges for suppliers to come in and show their wares. Educational SeminarsAn educational seminar can be an appealing way to deliver product information within a larger business context — which adds credibility and also increases access to hard-to-reach customers. Most common are daylong or half-day seminar programs t aught by a credible third party on a subject of strong business interest to your customers. If you include speakers from your own company, it's important to keep the tone of the presentation more about solving problems or sharing ideas, and less a blatant sales pitch. One of the secrets to success in seminar marketing is balancing good content with amenities.Consider this wisdom from Mark Amtower, a specialist in marketing to government buyers. Amtower conducts seminars all over the country for clients and prospects as part of his sales outreach. â€Å"The seminar content is important,† says Amtower. â€Å"But the food is how they'll judge the seminar overall. I have learned to provide great food, and plenty of it, and I get rave reviews — and new business — from my seminars. † Executive Seminars Executive seminars are intended to bring senior-level customers together for education, peer interaction, and face time with senior company representatives.Usual ly kept fairly small, repeated at regular intervals, and held in desirable locations, these events combine customer appreciation with sales opportunity. The primary hook to attract attendees is content, topics of strategic interest to senior managers. The events thus serve to position the hosting company as a partner as opposed to a vendor, a trusted resource who can be relied upon to help solve pressing business problems. Attendees appreciate the chance to learn about solutions and to network with their peers from other companies. Entertainment EventsEvents designed around social outings, or around food and drink, are most successful when linked to a specific sales objective. The attendees need to be carefully selected and qualified, since you don't want to be investing in entertaining the universe. Most companies find that entertainment events only work when they are driven by the sales team, and marketing assists in logistics and strategy. Road Shows Road shows consist of a multi -city series of meetings designed to deliver richer product information than is possible through mail or phone, but to be more efficient than solo sales calls.The road show takes the event to the market — sparing customers and prospects the need to travel. Typically, the marketer bears all the expense, and no fee is charged to attendees. The road show venue is usually a hotel meeting room, with a half-day session that includes breakfast or lunch. Because the cost per contact is fairly high, ranging from $25 to $100 or more, road shows are typically reserved for clients or prospects who are fairly far along the buying cycle. Most road shows target a customer based within driving distance from the venue.

Perception, Sensation

â€Å"Perception is more than just a sensation† Introduction Sensation is the passive process of bringing information from the outside world into the body and brain. Perception is the active process of selecting, organising and interpreting the information brought to the brain by the senses. Sensation and perception are two distinct processes, which collaborate to help us make sense of our environment. Perception requires physiological mechanisms and psychological components, these combine to help us understand.Perception is the process of how we acquire and understand information, sophisticated perceptual mechanisms go to work in order for us to gain knowledge. Our perception of the world is â€Å"direct, immediate and effortless† (Mather, 2006). Understanding how perception works is extremely complex and people differ in how they perceive, humans are quick to perceive as Biederman (1990) showed people can recognise and interpret complex novel scenes in as little as 1/ 10th of a second.The differences between sensation and perception are based around the fact that sensation is a physiological process stemming from one of the five senses, sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch. These senses enable us to detect stimuli in the environment. Perception on the other hand involves an understanding of this sensory information, drawing from the stimuli detected from the senses, our minds must process that information and create a mental representation of the senses. How our mind perceives this depends upon our background knowledge.For example if we smell sour milk, our nose picks up the smell which is the sensation, then perception plays its part by telling us that the milk has passed its used by date. Sensory organs absorb energy from physical stimuli in the environment which pass to sensory receptors these detect stimulus energies and convert them into mental impulses which are sent to the brain. Now perception begins, upon receiving the impulses the bra in organises the input and translates it into something meaningful. However perceptions are not always accurate.The picture below is called the Muller- Lynn illusion. People are asked which line is bigger and people immediately answer with the bottom line, when in fact they are even. This shows that perceptions can be deceived quite easily. What we ‘see’ is not the same as what is ‘there’. Perception and reality differ. Numerous illusions show that the human mind can misinterpret information and inaccurately perceive senses, these include the Poggendorf illusion and the Penrose staircase. Muller-Lynn Illusion. PerceptionPeople perceive through sight, which is one of the senses. The physical stimulus for visual perception is light. (Wavelength > colour and Intensity > brightness. ) Light interacts with objects. (e. g refraction, bending of light. ) This forms the basis of how we perceive visually. Colour is the most important component of our visual experien ce, some of the earliest theories of perception were developed from how we perceive colours. In order to explain colour perception one has to be familiar with, 1.Hue – variations in wavelength, difference between colours. 2. Brightness- the intensity of energy, black v white 3. Saturation – purity of colour, difference between pink and red (how much black/white added to the colour) The human can identify approximately 200 hues, 500 intensity steps and 20 saturations, combining to nearly two million colours. Does colour exist? People just assume that because we see colours, they actually exist in the world. Meaning, that when they see the colour red, that red is a real, physical, tangible, â€Å"thing†.But is it, or is colour just a matter of our perception? If we had different types of nervous systems, we would see things differently (literally) and so wouldn't we think those other things we saw were the real â€Å"things†? The Trichromatic theory Thomas Young, a 19th century English scientist suggested that it takes just three colours for us to see all the colours of the spectrum. He demonstrated this through experiments where he showed that people could match any colour by making a combination of just three colours (wavelengths) of light.Similar to a colour wheel explanation of vision taking just three colours and blending them to make any colour. Seventy years before we knew that humans have three retina cones- red, green and blue. Opponent-process theory Herring (1870) suggested cone photoreceptors are linked together to form three opposing colour pairs, red/green, blue/yellow, light/dark. The two stage theory was output of three cone types recoded by another layer of neutral mechanisms into 6 psychologically primary colours. (Hurvich & Jameson, 1957) Perceptual constanciesSize constancy means objects maintain the same size, despite changes in proximal stimulus, people that are further away do not seem smaller than people that a re close. This is exhibited in the Ponzo illusion. The Ponzo illusion. In the Ponzo illusion, two identically-sized lines appear to be different sizes when placed over parallel lines that seem to converge as they recede into the distance. How Does the Ponzo Illusion Work? The Ponzo illusion was first demonstrated in 1913 by an Italian psychologist named Mario Ponzo.The reason the top horizontal line looks longer is because we interpret the scene using linear perspective. Since the vertical parallel lines seem to grow closer as they move further away, we interpret the top line as being further off in the distance. An object in the distance would need to be longer in order for it to appear the same size as a near object, so the top â€Å"far† line is seen as being longer than the bottom â€Å"near† line, even though they are the same size. Depth perception Images projected to our retina are 2D but we interpret this as 3D dynamic scene.In order to perceive depth we use a number of visual cues both monocular and binocular. Gibson & Walk (1960) ‘visual cliff’ experiment suggests depth perception is not present at birth. ’Visual cliff’ Gestalt psychology Gestalt psychology was founded by German psychologists Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Kohler and Kurt Koffka and focused on how people interpret the world. The Gestalt perspective formed partially as a response to the structuralism of Wilhelm Wundt, who focused on breaking down mental events and experiences to the smallest elements. â€Å"The whole is greater than the sum of its parts† (Wertheimer, 1923).We perceive a visual array in a way that most simply organises the disparate elements into a coherent form. The Gestalt theory puts forward a number of laws. 1. Law of Pragnanz – things are perceived as simply as possible. 2. Law of proximity – Objects near each other will be seen as a unit. 3. Law of similarity – objects similar to each other will be se en as a unit. 4. Law of continuity – we perceive smoothly flowing or continuous forms rather than disrupted or discontinuous forms. 5. Law of closure – we create illusory contours to perceive incomplete objects.Perception has much to do with processing and we use two methods of processing these are, bottom up processing, and top down processing. Bottom up processing is also known as data driven perception. Sensory receptors register a physical stimulus which in turn sends the information to the brain, sensation starts the process but perception takes over and places the parts together when recognition occurs. This is the most basic form of processing. Top down processing is more concerned with higher level mental processes, such as memory and expectation.The information travels down from our brain to influence what we perceive, this is also known as hypotheses driven processing. This is an example of top down processing, this shows how context helps us recognise the le tters in the alphabet. Top down processing speeds up the analysis of the retinal image when familiar scenes and objects are encountered and can complete details missing in the optic array. Perception beyond vision Auditory perception plays a key role in perception, along with the chemical senses- taste and smell.Auditory perception comes from sound, the physical definition being pressure changes in the air or other medium. Sound waves vary in amplitude- loudness, frequency- pitch, timbre- quality of tone. Chemical senses help in our everyday lives by helping us to taste and smell stimuli. Humans are microsmatic meaning smell is not crucial for survival, we typically have ten million olfactory receptors in our noses whereas dogs have one billion which shows how dogs have such keen senses of smell. Taste and smell are seen as the gatekeepers of the body they can induce good or bad responses.Tastes and smells involve a different physiology than vision and sound, this is because the lat ter two are nerve ends tingling, however when chemical senses are induced the person actually inhales some molecules of the smell inducing substance. At any one time there are hundreds of odour molecules in the air, people have the capability to make sense and distinguish between them. This demonstrates perceptual organisation. We can identify approximately 100,000 odours but cannot label all accurately, this is due to our memory not sensitivity.Gender differences can affect ones ability in identifying odours as women are normally better. (Cain, 1982). Due to the fact that memory plays a part in this top down processing is used. Conclusion Sensation is the process by which our senses gather information and send it to the brain. Once the signal is received the brain processes it and allows us to make sense of it. A large amount of information is being sensed at any one time such as room temperature, brightness of the lights, someone talking, an engine sound, or the smell of aftershav e.With all this information coming into our senses, most of our world never gets noticed. We can’t notice radio waves, x-rays, or the microscopic parasites crawling on our skin. We don't sense all the odours around us or taste every individual spice in our gourmet dinner. We only sense those things we are able too since we don't have the sense of smell like a bloodhound or the sense of sight like a hawk, our thresholds are different from these animals and often even from each other.Perception has all the previous components working at the same time so that we can function and make sense of things. How we perceive things can depend upon many factors but without perception nothing would make sense. Sensation differs from perception, but the two go hand in hand to help us gain a greater understanding of the world around us. Perception forms such a large part in our day to day lives and many don’t grasp how important it is to us and how lost we would be without our percept ions.

Potential security threats on a home personal computer Essay

Potential security threats on a home personal computer - Essay Example In this context, one can easily shop and buy goods online without necessarily having to travel to the business premises. This mode of conducting business has boosted computer crimes, by creating an alternative avenue for defrauding unsuspecting customers, mostly through phishing (Quarantiello, 2006). Phishing involves the creation and designing of rogue websites by criminals, imitating websites belonging to genuine businesses, with the intention of capturing personal information such as credit card numbers, passwords, among others; which is commonly known as identity theft. After attaining the details, criminals can access bank accounts and make purchases without the knowledge of the bank holder (Quarantiello, 2006). The internet comprises of numerous sites, most of which are genuine but with some designed to spread malicious programs and computer viruses (Gollmann, 2005). These sites are difficult to suspect and they create curiosity in the user by displaying attractive messages in form of pop up menus, prompting the user to click, for example to unhide a free gift.

Analyze of the Vibe Magazine Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Analyze of the Vibe Magazine - Essay Example Analyze of the Vibe Magazine Vibe magazine has been seen to be very creative in the way it designs its cover and has used creativity of its cover to increase popularity of the magazine. The magazine has used celebrities such as Rap and R&B musician Mary J. Blige for its cover especially during its first few days when it was launched. The cover of the magazine is a graphical one and unlike in many magazines, the cover of Vibe magazine is usually more creative and graphical. The cover of Vibe magazine always has a celebrity and sometimes a single celebrity may be in the cover for many issues of the magazines, either continually or not. The back cover serves as a feature in the magazines, offering readers a sneak peak of the development in the music industry and also looking at the Caribbean market. Vibe has a clear format which makes it easy for readers to be able to be able to read the magazine and easy for them to find their interest in the magazine as well. It has specific structure such as a 20-question featur e at the back of the magazine that addresses reggae music and Caribbean music in general. Vibe has also entered in to the internet domain since the development of the internet and it has an online version of the magazine that is a mirror for the printed version. The online version is even more dynamic and the contents can change much more dynamically unlike the printed version that is a bimonthly magazine and once printed and circulated cannot be changed. Location in the marketplace (competitors etc) The magazine is headquartered in New York and but is in circulation in most of North American country. This huge circulation is probably caused by the fact that rap and R&B music is an American affair that covers the all states of America. The man competitors of the Vibe magazine are other entertainment magazines such as Playboy. However, due to its creative and different from streamline format, the magazine is able to access a different market niche that has not been tapped by other en tertainment magazines. Description of general content The magazine offers news about the celebrities in the entertainments industry. The magazine maintains a graphical approach to its content and most of its content is colorful pictures rather than many les of articles. The magazines features in each of its issue a huge volume of rap and R$B artists who are on the pages of the magazine. Apart from celebrity and entertain news, Vibe also features information

The East India Company Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

The East India Company - Research Paper Example However the Company’s trading practices were challenged by a rival English company in the late 17th century which led to the amalgamation of both companies. The new Company was formed in 1708 and was proclaimed as United Company of Merchants of England Trading to the East Indies. Under the new arrangement the Company was provided with an environment that favoured the creation of a monopoly. The Company was largely involved in the trade of commodities such as tea, silk, saltpetre, opium and indigo dye. The burgeoning trading enterprise eventually formed into a mega-corporation and was responsible for governance in India as well as for military expansion in India. (Ride, Ride, & Mellor, 1995) The Company loomed large on the British trading and political scenes for a good two and a half centuries. One of the most important time periods for the Company comprises of the Company’s amalgamation with the rival English company in the late 17th century to the impeachment of Warre n Hastings. In between the company went from an ordinary trading enterprise to become the eventual master of India. A combination of human factors helped transform the Company into a behemoth that wielded power in both England and abroad alike. This paper attempts to analyse the subject period in the Company’s history to discover how the Company was able to achieve such a transformation. (Anderson, 1854) Expansion of the Company’s Influence By the mid 16th century the Company had establishments all across India including Bengal. Oliver Cromwell also supported the Company’s charter and this helped the Company fortify its position. The Company was also allowed by Charles II in 1670 to acquire territory, to mint money, to command troops and fortifications as well as to exercise criminal and civil jurisdictions in the acquired territories. Political manipulation by the Company had also begun by this period. Consequently the Company was allowed to trade in Bengal wit h no duties on the trade in 1717 by the Mughal emperor. The later part of the 17th century also saw trouble with the Mughal Empire although the Company acted diplomatically to convince the Mughal emperor for concessions. On the other hand the Company was able to expand into China as well and was able to establish a trading post at Canton in 1711 for trading silver and tea. (Gandhi, 1997) Forming Trade Monopolies Service for the Company allowed the officers to develop large estates and businesses. This in turn allowed the accumulation of political power for the officers of the Company. This political power was projected in the British parliament as a lobby for the Company. In contrast former Company employees who wanted to establish smaller private firms and trading enterprises were allowed to do so after a deregulation act in 1698. These people were termed as Interlopers pejoratively. Later these opposing groups tried to wrestle each other and were subsequently merged as mentioned b efore. The emerging Company was a tripartite venture between the original East India Company, the British government and private traders and former employees of the Company. The newly formed Company lent the Treasury a total sum of 3.2 million pounds in exchange for exclusive privileges for the next three years. (Dean, 2009) In the years that followed the Company’s lobby and Parliament were in constant battle. The lobby for the Company was looking for an establishment of a more permanent nature but the Parliament was reluctant to give the Company any more power. An act in 1712 helped to renew the Company’s status even though the existing debts were repaid. The Company gained strength with time and by 1720 the Company was processing around 15% of

The Social, Ethical, and Economic Implications of the Human Genome Term Paper - 1

The Social, Ethical, and Economic Implications of the Human Genome Project for Society - Term Paper Example Social implications include major advances in medical treatments, but also changes in people’s attitudes and behavior due to new procedures like testing when symptoms arise or screening before any disease symptoms are apparent. Ethical issues include balancing individual interests against the interests of others, and such considerations as potentially racist applications and unforeseen consequences of information which gene-related activities can produce. Some of the most critical issues such as privacy and the desire not to know are highlighted. Financial implications for society at large, private companies and for individuals are explored. Finally, there is the assessment of the extent to which the Frankenstein metaphor applies to this project. The paper concludes that the Human Genome Project is an extremely powerful resource which can be used for good or evil purposes and that we have resolved some but by no means all, of the major ethical issues that it brings. The Human Genome Project promises a revolutionary insight into the genetic â€Å"blueprint† of the human body. Consider the social, ethical, and economic implications of this project for society and the potential for applications of this research. Genetic engineering is a relatively new science, which rests on the pioneering work of Gregor Mendel on the garden pea, leading to the formulation of Mendel’s laws in 1866. (Thomas, 2003 pp. 1-3). It was only some fifty years later that the true significance of his discoveries was realized.  

Marketing strategy of Starbucks Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Marketing strategy of Starbucks - Essay Example Starbucks is attempting to involve its customers in the product in many ways. First, the company is marketed as a status item hence it is high involvement (has higher psychological, economic, and social risk) cheaper coffee or unbranded coffee from its competitors. Secondly, Starbucks is utilizing different campaign, like â€Å"Bold Coffee† campaign and the â€Å"Via† taste challenge so as to get its customers to come to the store continuously and try the new products. This is a perfect use of the buyer behavior theory that predicts that the customers could switch brands only to try a new thing. Offering its customers with a new flavor to try every week, the company actively manages the natural inclination of the customers to try new things. These strategies together with emphasizing on socially responsible behavior, the company are also offering customers with additional benefits on which they can evaluate its products. Through building a strong brand that its customer s are loyal to, implying that the customers don’t even consider the other brands whenever they are going for coffee, immediately they will choose Starbucks since it’s the coffee for any person who loves coffee. These are the strategies that are employed by Starbucks to keep its existing customers satisfied (Simon, B. 2009). Promotion is the most common promotional mix elements utilized by Starbucks are internet marketing, advertising, public relations, personal selling, and sales promotion (Michelli, J. A. 2007).