An Overview of changing marketing practices in Bangladesh

To build an effective marketing strategy in order to lure customers was never easy. With the
introduction of Internet there was a bit of change in every companys marketing strategy.
Previously, companies used to have print ads only but, when the Internet storm barged in, many
businesses started to have online presence. And, then with the surge of social networking portals,
multifunctional cell phones, and gadgets, the face of marketing again took a major makeover. In
order to retain existing customers and to attract new ones, companies are keeping them updated
with the latest trends in marketing.
Internet and technology has not only benefited customers but also, created newer space for
marketing in the virtual world. With the emergence of various other forms of marketing such as
social media marketing, e-mail marketing, text/display ad marketing etc. companies have
become more aggressive and innovative in building their marketing strategies to attract new
customers.

Gone are the old Days!
A decade ago, creating personal relationship with customers was given utter importance to boost
sales through one-to-one interaction. Consumers had to believe to what is being said. They did
not bother to verify the information provided. But, the tables have turned now and the customer
is full of information at the click of a finger. Study says, majority of Internet users today, tend to
conduct a background research of a product before making a purchase decision. For example:
what would you do first when you decide to purchase a Smartphone for yourself? You will
immediately jump on to the Internet and start comparing, reading reviews & feedback for a few
of them before making a decision. Consumers have become more and more demanding and
adventurous to try out different offerings which have eventually put greater emphasis on creating
brand value.

New Age Marketing!
The gigantic online presence of consumers has revolutionized the way of advertising and
marketing. An Internet user today can buy almost everything online today. Thanks to the Internet
which has changed the way of trade and commerce. Businesses have started capitalizing the
virtual world by forming networks which eventually allows them to get closer to their clients.
New age marketing is not limited to banner ads on websites only but has extended beyond in the
form of video marketing, blogging, campaigns on social networking websites, discussion forums
etc. Internet has not only been a reliable source to gather information through interactions, polls
and surveys but is also a great medium to keep marketers updated about consumer needs and
taste. Search engines have been eminent in promoting a product/service. If you are not present in
any of the search engines, it means that your business has lost reputation amongst your target
audience. Different forms of Marketing help search engines to rank websites. Hence, companies
are now focusing on marketing to boost sales. It shows the intent for aggression among
companies. Previously, companies had to rely on customer loyalty to prevail in the market. But,
today if a companys presence is not felt to customers then, possibility is more for competitors to
climb over.

In Bangladesh and around the world, tracking technology is changing the way companies do
business. Customers are no longer just customers: they are unique combinations of data that can
be understood and manipulated, within certain parameters. So far, the results have been generally
positive. Companies are tracking higher sales, and customers are more easily able to locate
products that they either need or are searching for. Like most things connected to technology,
though, the future is all but unknown. As things continue to change with internet capabilities and
computer programming, the extent and breadth of profiles in the future could become staggering
indeed

Timeline of innovation in marketing
1990s CRM and IMC (in various guises and names) gain dominance in promotions and
marketing planning,
1995-2001: The Dot-com bubble temporarily re-defines the future of marketing
1996: Identification of viral marketing
2000s: Integrated marketing gains acceptance and in 2002 its first dedicated academic research
centre.
Now as we are living in 2014 integrated marketing concept is going on in Bangladesh. If we
consider as era we are living Social/mobile marketing orientation.

By 7 Ways Marketing Practice Has Changed In Bangladesh
First of all, its no small matter that the tools have changed. When we started using the phone
instead of the letter, or mobile phone instead of the land line, our lives changed in significant
ways. New communication tools have meant lost industries and jobs as well as new
opportunities. The same is and will be true in marketing so we should not deny the major
changes that face us.
One important change in marketing is its intimate connection to technology which should make
us question the status quo every day. And there are more:

01. Marketing and its tools change so quickly that our marketing team has become a research
department.
02. The changing tools of marketing mean that we initiatives have to shift.
03. Our entire business has changed to accommodate the use of social media
04. Our marketing department has become a media and education department.
05. How we spend our marketing expense is different
06. Even the Four Ps of marketing has changed.
07. One thing has not changed: the importance of the Unique Selling Proposition.
Different ways of implementing Marketing Mix in FMCG

For Customers
Customers buy branded products frequently are bath soaps, shampoos, food products
and tooth pastes. Branded beverages are purchased least.
Advertisement and sales promotions methods attract more customers and personal
selling is the least method that attracts customers.
One third of customers said price off, and nearly one fourth of respondents said
discount and premium are the methods used for promotion.
Price off or discount method is the most effective method, premium and extra quantity
methods are second and third respectively to motivate customers to buy products
One third of respondents said sometimes, nearly one fourth said often and always
respectively gets information regarding sales promotions methods.
More than one third respondents opined sometimes, one fourth said often and nearly
one fifth said always, the shoppers provide information regarding sales promotions
benefits.
Respondents more than one third opted sometimes willingly, nearly one fourth only on
request and one fifth opted always willingly, the shoppers give benefits of the scheme.
As per opinion of respondents the company interested to offer sales promotions benefits
are ranked as HLL first, Nestle second, Colgate third and P&G fourth.
The respondents opined that the timing for bringing sales promotions scheme are off
season, during falls in sales volume and during peak season.
More than one third of the respondents said the objective of sales promotions schemes
are to increase sales, push up sales in off season, increase sales of products out of
demand and neutralize completion effect.
Two fifth of the respondents said sometimes, one fourth said often and one fifth said
always they get benefits of sales promotion schemes.



For Salesmen
Nearly one third of respondents in each case agreed that the role of sales force is
important, very important and most important in sales promotions.
For motivation of salesmen management takes step, more than one third said
sometimes, nearly one fourth said often and always respectively.
Nearly two third majority for salesmen agreed that the methods used for promotions of
salesmen are incentives, travelling allowance, commission on sales, recognition and
rewards.
Two fifth agree for sometimes, more than one fourth agreed for often and one fifth of
respondents agreed for always that the motivational methods are implemented properly.
Nearly, two third majority of salesmen agreed that unfair practices are not used by
mangers in implementation of schemes.
Majority of salesmen are having experience in present job less than three year. Very
less number of salesmen is having experience more than 3 years.
More than half of salesmen are not planning to change their jobs and nearly one fourth
are planning to change their jobs.
Nearly half of the salesmen agreed that they are satisfied and slightly less than one
fourth agreed that they are highly satisfied. Number of unsatisfied salesmen is less
comparatively.
For motivation of salesmen the method used are ranked on the basis of their
effectiveness, commission on sales as first, incentives as second, recognition and
rewards third.
For motivation of salesmen they suggested the methods are human touch in
implementation, increased financial incentives and present methods should continue in
preference of concerned parties.





For Dealers
Majority of dealers agreed that they are given as nearly one fourth said they are not
given sales promotions benefits by the companies.
On the basis of effectiveness, discount is the best method and followed by travel
allowances, Pop display, dealers gift sales contests and cooperative advertisement.
Majority of dealers agreed that they get POP display items from companies. More than
one third agreed for always there are benefits from POP display, More than one fourth
agreed for often, and one fifth agreed for sometimes.
Nearly half of dealers said no and less than half say yes they have participated and had
knowledge of sales contests. A very less dealers have no idea about this.
Nearly half of the dealers agreed they get discounts on sales always and one third
agreed they get discount from companies often.
Majority of the dealers agreed that they get trade allowances from the company
frequency varying from always, often to sometimes.
Out of respondents nearly one third said sometimes, one fourth said often and nearly
17% said always and rarely respectively they get gifts from dealers.
Majority of dealers agreed that the company supports them in cooperative
advertisement but the frequency varied from always to rarely.
For Managers
Nearly all the mangers agreed that there is need for sales promotions scheme to
increase sales.
Nearly three fourth of managers agreed that the reasons for using sales promotions are
increasing competition, standard products need non ~price factor support, customer
numbers increase marginally and easy to measure effect of them.
More than half of the respondents agreed that sales promotion is used with the objective
to increase sales of slow moving products, and in off season, attract new customers,
improve relationship and neutralize competition effect.
Over whelming majority of managers agreed that sales promotions schemes are
targeting customers, dealers, and sales force.


Recent Marketing Practices By The Development Of Technology

In this day and age, technology is developing so rapidly that changes are occurring all across the
board. Faster internet, digital photography, and interactive programs are all making advertising
and marketing much easier in the ever expanding world of consumerism. With all these new
advances, there are bound to be numerous changes.
One area that has been undergoing vast changes is media. Mobile devices and cellular phones are
expanding their capabilities all the time. Just as soon as you purchase the new and hottest item of
the week, the industry has turned around and produced something even better. Examples of such
devices include the iPhone, BlackBerry cell phones and Sidekick cell phones.


Social Media Marketing-A Great Revolution

Introduction at Face book, everything we do is about making the world more open and
connected. This has a profound impact on the way people communicate and interact. We are
continually developing authentic ways for people to connect with one another as well as with the
businesses, brands and institutions they care about, both on Facebook and across the web.
Facebook allows marketers to stay connected with people throughout their day whether they are
on their computers or mobile devices, at home or at work, watching TV or shopping with friends.
This allows businesses to create rich social experiences, build lasting relationships and amplify
the most powerful type of marketing word of mouth. Connecting with people is just the
beginning. In the pages that follow, you will find best practices for reaching your Face book
allows you to learn about your target audience and to understand their interests and friends. For this
reason, Face book can be used to generate new product ideas and innovations. Our platform tools allow
you to build entirely new social product experiences like an online store that displays only your
friends favorite products, or a car in which you can access your News Feed. You can also enlist your
Face book community to help crowd-source your next product idea.



Marketing is now through E-Mail
Despite the emergence of new communication channels such as social and mobile, e-mail remains
a powerful and important means of connecting with customers. You can use it to deliver highly
targeted and personalized communications that reinforce your brand and build lasting relationships
with customers. Better still, you can use it to gain the attention of a large number of customers at .
E-mail marketing, however, is not without its challenges. One of these is getting your e-mail into
the right inboxes. Spam detection remains an imperfect sciencewhich means your commercial
e-mail efforts are likely to be identified as spam if you dont meet certain key criteria. This
document identifies those criteria and provides best practices for meeting them. Its not enough,
however, to just get your messages into customers e-mail inboxes. You need to engage readers
with those messages and prompt them to take action. The best practices outlined in this document
should help you do soenabling you to customize and personalize your communications so that
each message achieves maximum impact and helps you build lasting customer relationships.
A review process ensures high-quality communications by making sure that the proper
stakeholders are involved along the way.
Build Your Mailing Lists the Right Way: Although it may be tempting to send your
messages to the broadest range of recipients, its more effective to restrict them to a
targeted list. For this reason, you should avoid purchasing bulk mailing lists. Not only do
they contain recipients who are a poor match for your business, but they also contain
recipients who have not requested your communicationsmeaning that your messages are
likely to be labeled spam. Instead, we recommend that you pay careful attention to your
subscriber base and remain on the lookout for appropriate opportunities to recruit new
subscribers. Organically grow your subscriber base by asking customers to opt in to your
mailing list.
Sending unsolicited e-mail results in low response rates, poor customer experiences, a
decrease in the sender score, and diminished brand reputation. Unsolicited mailings also
increase the likelihood that service providers will block your other messages. Comply with
International Spam Regulations. You should also be aware that there are many laws and
regulations for sending commercial e-mail through servers in various countries. Although
foreign regulations vary, we recommend following CAN-SPAM at a minimum, and
conducting further investigation of the laws for any nation where you have a customer base.



Best Practices for E-Mail Marketing.
Understand the commercial e-mail regulations that apply to your audience. Shared IP
addresses let low-volume senders share in the reputation of other senders using Oracle Right
Now CX Cloud Service, thus increasing the likelihood that their e-mails will be delivered. If
youre a high-volume sender, a dedicated IP address is more appropriate because it allows you
to maximize your own reputation and achieve the highest deliverability. Use the sender
score to determine your sender reputation.


Digital Trends in Marketing

E-mail marketing is like the little black dress of the marketing mix; reliable and never out of
fashion. While social messaging and texting have become a normal form of staying in
touch, as soon as you enter the workplace, email kicks in as the most acceptable form of
communication and is the primary communications tool for almost all workers. Indeed,
almost seven out of ten respondents said that email remained their preferred channel for
sharing and receiving marketing information with brands according to a survey that Experian
conducted this year among 2,000 BABGLADESHI consumers. While younger consumers
were increasingly likely to opt for engagement via social channels, the role that email
continues to play in marketing cannot be ignored. Email is a tried and tested marketing
channel, especially for transactions, and is proven to be where the highest levels of
conversation happen. It ties together the multichannel experience and it is at the backbone of
many marketing campaigns. Marketers are already including social sharing buttons
within email campaigns, but including more advanced, real-time content such as social
feeds and best selling products, ensuring emails are optimized for the mobile device on
which they are opened and ensuring that the products are relevant and tailored to the
recipient are increasingly critical to the success of any email campaign. .




Mobile Marketing and Smartphone Miracle Savvy Marketers Wil l Use Mobil e To Bridge Online And Off l i ne
Marketers must remember the normal rules of engagement here: deliver the right message to the
right person at the right time. Understanding customers and their marketing preferences will
remember those that have not upgraded to 4G and 3G-ready handsets continuing to ensure that
mobile experiences perform well regardless of the device or operating system. 3G will also see
consumers change the way they apportion their time using their mobile phones. The additional
bandwidth will ensure that content is delivered more quickly, freeing up time previously spent
waiting for loading to complete. This has two implications: while consumers will have more time
in which they can be marketed to, they will also become far more discerning about when they are
willing to be marketed to. This increasing use of and reliance on, mobile devices.


Internal Marketing Practices
Whether called internal marketing, employee engagement or internal communication, the concept
is the same: to align, motivate and empower employees -at all functions and levels- to
consistently deliver positive customer experiences that are aligned with the firms organizational
goals. This definition of internal marketing advances the notion that the discipline is more
than communication tactics -such as workplace posters and employee meetings- or a way to build
employee satisfaction. Instead, it recognizes that IM can be deployed as a strategic tool to help an
organization achieve its business objectives. Internal Marketing (IM) is a new and emerging
discipline that is practiced in multiple companies under different names.

Strategic Marketing Approach
When it comes to marketing internally, best practice companies borrow from external
marketing methodology. The internal audience is approached in a manner that parallels how a
company acquires, retains and grows its customer base by applying the same planning
processes, tools and techniques of consumer marketing to internal marketing. Four main actions
were observed:
Gaining employee insight through internal research before making decisions
Best practice companies use qualitative and quantitative research to support the decisions they
make regarding employees. For instance, during a period of workforce downsizing, a best
practices company believed it was vital for employees to understand the company challenges
and strategic direction. An assessment of employees informational needs was completed
through focus groups at a variety of office locations with employees of varying functions and
levels in the organization. As a result of this initiative, the company now provides opportunities
for online learning and allows employees to decide what information is relevant to their specific
position.
Segmenting employee audiences to improve relevancy of medium and messages: Internal
marketers are increasingly using STP (segmenting, targeting and positioning) to generate the
most impact from multiple messages. One best practice company stated, Only certain
employees need to receive all messages, otherwise they feel overwhelmed and end up ignoring
them all. Each employee segment receives only the messages relevant to them.

Measuring effectiveness of IM programs to support further investment of resources
Before implementing any new IM program, a participating company conducts a pre-
measurement study to provide a baseline of employee attitudes and behaviors. Ongoing
measurement throughout the change process helps ensure that shifts in attitudes and behaviors
are taking place. Post- measurement studies help management better understand whether the
change was effective and if it impacted business performance.
Internal Brand Communication
Before an organization can deliver its brand promise to customers, it must first communicate and
explain that promise to employees and motivate them to deliver it to customers. Internal
branding bridges the gap between promise makers (marketers) and promise keepers and
deliverers (employees). It helps organizations be true to their brand promise. Communicating
the brand promise is also critical during company transformations (i.e. Mergers & acquisitions and
organizational change processes). Companies that are true to their brand promise foster
employee advocates who display behavior beyond the call of duty. Following are examples on
how best practice companies deliver their brand promise:
Aligning internal branding material with external communications
Regardless of size and scope of branded communication, branded material must identify the brand
name and promise in a consistent manner. Furthermore, it should be updated as new campaigns are
rolled out to reflect the most current information. Best practice companies make use of internal
communication material that mimics the look and feel of the companys external communications.
By incorporating the same visual cues, Employee messaging underscores that the corporation has
the same promise externally and internally.
Using technology to better interact with employee segments
Intranet portals are among the most frequently used internal marketing communication
technologies. They are especially useful in global environments where employees are dispersed
over large geographic areas. Intranet portals are also used to align business units and keep
employees abreast of corporate news. For true credibility, portals must be user-friendly and
remain updated, relevant and engaging. Some best practice companies are also using blogs as
two-way communication systems. These companies have an intrinsic belief that it is not possible
to over-communicate and regard their employee efforts as key to the achievement of results.
Launching internal marketing campaigns to share important news with employees
Best practice companies often share new campaigns or product launches with employees before
releasing them to customers. By carefully monitoring the timing of communications, companies
ensure that employees understand the message, are excited by it and are prepared to deliver it to
external audiences. For example, a participant company celebrated three major product
approvals with all of its employees. The company rewarded employee accomplishments with
milestone celebrations, and each employee in attendance received a special t-shirt. Finally,
three customers who had benefited from of these products explained to employees how important
these products were to their lives.
Fostering brand ambassador teams as an informal communications tool
People tend to believe people they know. Thats why best practice companies assemble advisory
boards and train brand ambassadors to disseminate information to, from and about employees.
Changes in consumer-packaged-goods
The consumer-packaged-goods (CPG) industrys growth over the past quarter century has been
nothing short of exhilarating. CPG companies have launched innovative products to meet an ever-
growing array of human needs and desires. They have expanded rapidly into the burgeoning
consumer markets of the developing world.

Changes in Strategic Marketing

To be sure, this growth has taken place on the back of steadily rising incomes and population,
particularly in emerging markets. But leading CPG players have not simply followed economic
and demographic trends: they have actively anticipated them in their strategies and investment
choices. Constant innovation, along with a knack for passing on input-cost increases, has allowed the

Million New Consumers in Emerging Markets
Industry to boost its margins significantly. The upheavals in global consumer, retail, and supply markets
over the coming decade threaten to wreak havoc on established business models and marketing
approachesand promise huge rewards for those best able to anticipate new opportunities. This decade
marks the tipping point in a fundamental long-term economic rebalancing. In the coming years, the
growth of emerging markets will continue to outstrip that of the developed world by a wide
margin.






Conclusion:
The gigantic online presence of consumers has revolutionized the way of advertising and
marketing. An Internet user today can buy almost everything online today. Thanks to the Internet
which has changed the way of trade and commerce. Businesses have started capitalizing the
virtual world by forming networks which eventually allows them to get closer to their clients.
New age marketing is not limited to banner ads on websites only but has extended beyond in the
form of video marketing, blogging, campaigns on social networking websites, discussion forums
etc. Internet has not only been a reliable source to gather information through interactions, polls
and surveys but is also a great medium to keep marketers updated about consumer needs and
taste. Search engines have been eminent in promoting a product/service. If you are not present in
any of the search engines, it means that your business has lost reputation amongst your target
audience. Different forms of Marketing help search engines to rank websites. Hence, companies
are now focusing on marketing to boost sales. It shows the intent for aggression among
companies. Previously, companies had to rely on customer loyalty to prevail in the market. But,
today if a companys presence is not felt to customers then, possibility is more for competitors to
climb over.