The marketing of products and services have been around for many centuries now, and dates back to the start of free trade, in which a commodity item, such as cotton was quite common and it all looked the same. In order to make one batch of cotton more special than the other batch, you had to convince the people that your batch was special or unique in certain ways, and spread that message throughout the land. So now everyone has the message, and has learned of this special cotton, but how do you indentify it. How do you know that this cotton is the special cotton? Well that's where effective branding comes into play. In 1000 BC, Egyptian cotton was considered the finest cotton available. In the 17th century, the English discovered cotton in upper India that rivaled Egyptian cotton, and brought it to America for cultivation. Cotton is grown on every continent now, and comes in different grades of quality.

The basic element of cotton

I like using cotton as an example, because it brings us down to the most common element of a product, such as clothing, window coverings, ship sails and so forth. Now we can take this cotton, and mill it into thread, and die it different colors. So we have thread, which can be considered generic. But some threads are better than others, so we use effective branding of the thread by placing labels on the spindles, to indicate the thickness, color and strength, as well as the cotton source.

Now the cotton will be weaved into cloth

Now the thread will be weaved into cloth. Some cloths will have fancy designs, while others have a unique texture or level of strength. So how do we distinguish one cloth from another, through effective branding. A certain cloth will now be rolled up, and a unique label will be placed upon it to identify the quality, purity or uniqueness to its properties.

Let's take that cloth, and cut and sew it into an article of clothing such as a pair of jeans. From far away, a pair of jeans is just a pair of jeans, designed to be tough to protect our skin, and comfortable wearing as we perform our daily activities. But up close, one pair of jeans can be better than another through effective branding.

Now the cloth will be cut and sewn into jeans

Take the Levi's brand versus Wrangler. One claims that their better than the other through either style or comfort. In the end, the consumer that wears them will decide his or hers preference for a pair of jeans. Or perhaps maybe, will a clever advertisement, a popular group of people to envy, decide which jean will be the one of choice for us, regardless of our secret opinion. The latter is once again the use of effective marketing, through using famous people, or a trend in society, or perhaps an agenda in ideology, to per sway ones thought and judgment as to which brand to make purchase of.

I have just demonstrated how marketing is applied from a base raw material to a finished product available to consumers, regardless of whether it is 1000BC or the year 2010. I have just given an example of how large groups of people can be persuaded to lean one direction or the other through effective branding. Almost anything is possible with the correct marketing strategy, and can be applied to tangible or intangible items, politicians, world leaders, political agendas and lets not forget ideology.

Marketing is all around us, and influences our consumer decisions on a daily basis. From the food that you buy, to the cloths you wear, and the city you live in, one form of marketing or another has been used to influence your decision.

Effective Branding is a technique to be mastered, in which you use logos, colors, and patterns to identify your products special uniqueness. Catchy slogans, and the use of famous people that are envious, can be used to align your product or service with something that is held dear to the consumer, such as car racing, golf, or a particular hobby in general.

I will not go into the details of logos or colors, but I will demonstrate the mechanisms used to deliver the word across the land. These messages can be targeted and launched far from the actual product itself, or can be within 50 to 5 feet of the products actual location. The origination point of the message, determines the messages strength, or amount of mental force to push upon the consumer.

Mastering the Skills of Marketing

The ones that can master this skill, will be able to initiate trade, in which ones labor, the consumer is traded in exchange for property or wealth. In other cases, one will trade his or hers labor, in exchange for their labor, which is called a service, simply an exchange of labor. The value of each person or organizations labor is balanced through time. One persons time may be worth more than another persons time, and is currently rated in currency. The amount of currency is determined by the free market, and the values will go up and down, based on the laws of supply and demand. This is also referred to as the supply chain.

How to implement this information

Regardless of which stage the products lifecycle is in, from the raw component of cotton to the finished product like as a pair of jeans, marketing can be applied to make the sales or adoption of the product successful. The target market or demographics of the cotton would be threadmakers or weavers that create the cloth. The target market of the cloth would be clothing manufactures or designers. The target market of the jeans would be wholesalers, distrubutors and end users of the product.

Use the power of imaging to project the look and feel of the product

The key is to use visual appealing photos and logos, that send a message to the customers mind, which either creates a mental relationship to a need that they must fulfill, or provides the anwser to that need. Some of the images above suggest to the customer that they will receive approval from their peers for the purchase. The strategic placement and blend of images, logos and text and will solidify in ones minds that a purchase is required. As far as price goes, many are willing to pay a little more if the process of obtaining the product is easier.

Setting up your stores look and feel - The power of brick and mortar

When setting up your internet store, you must use everything you have in your marketing arsenal, to compete against other stores for sales and revenue. I'm quite confident that I have proved how a simple element or product such as cotton, or a more complex product like a pair of jeans, can be marketed successfully in todays markets.

The greatest examples of marketing on the web are brick and mortar stores that have turned to the web for market share, and those infomercials you see on TV. They have taken the power of internal marketing, and projected it onto the internet. Take a look at Macys to see what they are doing. I have a paper that I have written on Brick and Mortar, and will post it on the blog soon.

Thanks for reading, jkirkerx

Oh just FYI, we were not able to find a blog program that worked with our website technology, so we just wrote one from scratch. It will take a couple of months to get everything working, so just wait a bit to post your comments. The comment program works, we just need the moderator portion to finish it.