Marketing, Advertisting & Communication in Iowa

I am about to jump off the 3rd floor of my current "contractor" job
If anyone knows of a good opportunity, please let me know. Ive had 10 years experience in the Market Research industry. My last job was as Director of the coding and translations division. Ive been looking everywhere, not many hiring. Thought id give Yahoo Answers a try. Thanks in advance for helping.

what part of Florida?

Catalina Marketing is in the Tampa area

AC Nielsen has an office in Dunedin (near Tampa)

in other words, does Wal-Mart tailor its products to specific geographic markets and regions, or do they just sell the same stuff all across the country?

They tailor their products to who the consumer is in the region. I’ve heard that Wal-Marts in Colorado stock a lot more organic items than they do in say, in South Carolina. Since there are so many stores all across the country, it is necessary to do that in order to gain the most profit. You wouldn’t want to stock 20 snowblowers in Arizona!! But if you did that in Michigan, it would seem more appropriate.

Sometimes the products (that are the same) at different Wal-Mart stores within the same region have different prices. Where I am from, there are two Wal-Marts in the same county, yet one has generally cheaper prices than the other because of the different neighborhoods that are located around them. This is simply another way to target the general demographic in the area the store is located.

Also, on a side note, Wal-mart also has stores where it "experiments" to see if certain products, visual displays, or policies draw customers in. If the "experiment" is successful, they will expand it to other stores, then eventually nationwide. An example of this is the new $4 generic prescription drug plan. You can learn about this plan on their website. But basically, it began in larger cities in Florida, then spread to the whole state, and now it has spread to other select states.

Is there a given name for the kind of offer customer service representatives give to customers who are contemplating canceling their current service? (Such as offering a lower monthly rate or throwing in extras to discourage a customer from canceling a cable subscription.)

There are sections in a call center designed to save a client or the proper term would be retention. These callers are the ruthless closers that it is their job to save your business. They will offer you services and close. Most rooms will focus on the incentive and make it a soft sell. I signed up for a credit card at a ball game knowing I shouldn’t qualify, but wanted the gift, and they slammed me with a lower quality card and they were ruthless in trying to keep me there. I had a problem with Direct TV with moving within a year of my installation, they charged me $200, but threw in $200 in incentives to even it out. Cable is cut throat, especially in this economy. Good Luck

Marketers need to understand consumer "decision trees" so that they can innovate and position their products to cater to customers’ most important needs. This helps to maximize their chances of success.

For example, if you think about carbonated beverages, the first consumer decision might be cola vs. uncola, followed by diet vs. regular, followed by brand choice, followed by flavor, etc… If this is the case, a marketer is going to want to have product offerings in colas, uncolas, diet, and regular — moreso than offering different flavors. This is because these are more important decisions that consumers make. You won’t convince an uncola buyer to ever buy cola because it’s their most important decision, but you might be OK with just one flavor offering because flavor is not as important.

Likewise, in the example above, the marketer is going to want to position their products and place emphasis on the product characteristics that are most important to the decision process. In the case above, it would be more important to emphasize that a product is "diet" than a particular flavor. Similarly, if the most important characteristic to consumers in their decision process is low price, that might be the focus of a marketing campaign.

Finally, retail stores sometimes design their shelves around the consumer decision process to make the shopping experience as enjoyable for consumers as possible (e.g., shelve all of the colas together, uncolas together, etc.).

Hope this helps!

Define an example of the product which is advertised differently just because of the segmentation.

e.g. an motor bike company advertises in rural and urban areas
when they advertise in urban area, they describe its milleage and fuel consumption
when they advertise in rural area, they describe its powerfull engine, durability, shocks etc.

Have a look at Nintendo - the DS and the Wii

They advertise differently for boys, for girls and most recently, for older people (see their brain-training promotions especially).

J

I am trying to sell my home in a somewhat declining neighborohood in Nashville, TN. It is listed with an agent. She advertises in the little home magazines you find in the food stores and the Bob Parks catalog. Of course it is on MLS, and there is a little sign out front with a 2nd sign showing "1 acre".

Can anyone suggest effective ways of advertising? I am willing to spend the money if it is worth it.

There’s not much more you can do at this point. You can try to lower the price, but other than that?

This is a buyer’s market, and putting more advertising up isn’t going to do you any justice. You have an agent working for you–that’s the best thing you COULD do for yourself.

I just started my own carpet and janitorial cleaning business in the memphis, tn area. I do commercial, residential and vehicles. What are some successful ways to get contracts and market my business to get more business?

Offer a buy something and get something for free promotion.

People love free stuff.

Maybe a free room cleaning or free car wash with every 6 cars washed. Something like that.

I am trying to start a domestic cleaning business. Although I have estimated the revenue that potentially I can achieve, these are only estimates. What I really need is real data from surveys and market research. looking on the web this can be expensive! And at this early stage its too expensive to even invest.

The following questions I need answers to:

1. Number of homeowners per UK area?
2. Number of homeowners who currently have a private domestic cleaner?
3. Number of domestic cleaning businesses per area?

etc.

Please help?

Yep - go to your MAIN library and speak to the business librarian who may be able to produce the information for a nominal fee or even free!

Right now, there is not a specific market segmentation for vegetable oil. Your best bet would be to look for companies that produce vegetable oil.

Which do you think is easy on the marketer? What do marketers have to overcome when marketing services?

It’s definitely more difficult to market services because they are never the same. If two consumers go to the same massage therapist for the same "type" of massage, it wont be exactly the same. Services are more subjective to the consumer purchasing them. What one person considers a great service, might be considered only fair by another consumer.

Products, on the other hand, have continuity. You can expect exactly the same thing from the exact same product, each and every time it is purchased.