Grandmas Treats and Advertising
Among the various promotional strategies, available for implementation for Grandmas Treats, affiliate programs would be the most effective type of advertising. In affiliate programs the company affiliating with another has the chance to gain advantage and profit from the success of the company it has affiliated with. Mostly those companies who apply to be affiliates are aware of the affiliate company because they are already interested in the products they offer. Therefore affiliate programs by its nature cause the selection of areas of advertising that pertain to the product or service that the company offers.
Affiliate programs can be defines as programs which enable affiliates to increase their customer base and traffic and help the affiliates with increased sales (Site Nexus). Affiliate programs are based mostly on the basis of commission. Every time a new contract is secured or a sale is made by the affiliate, the affiliate is given commission (Harris). This means that, no amount of payment is fixed. The payment will depend upon performance. As a result this meets the needs of the companies, i. e. cost effectiveness. Every program selected must be effective if it is to succeed.
The effectiveness of the affiliate program depends on amount of traffic that the affiliates receive on their web sites. However, just having traffic is not enough. The advertisement must be appealing enough, that the traffic coming on the website click on the link of the advertisement. It is not as if affiliates can be found over night. In fact the company, who want affiliates, must first advertise about their intention to start an affiliate program on their website. This will attract companies who are interested and finally a strong affiliate program can start and go from strength to strength.
Like, everything cannot be successful; similarly the least effective method of advertising would be via email. The first reason is basically a social reason. In today’s world direct email advertising is considered as spam email. Spam emails take up space in the email inbox of the users and are a source of annoyance for the user, because they have not asked to be sent the emails. Moreover, users mostly mark advertising emails from companies to go directly into the ‘Junk Mail’ box (Spam abuse). This means they won’t even read it.
Moreover, this frustration associated with spam email means the person has it in his mind about the unsolicited email sent by the company. This can result in the person removing his frustration by not buying the company’s product. So this can do more harm than good. Only when the user has asked to be emailed will this strategy be useful. As far as choosing a strategy for Grandmas Treat is concerned, I believe that the affiliate program is the best, because Grandma’s Treat has a very narrow target audience. Affiliate programs work well when the target audience is narrowed down (Gardyne, 2003).
Grandma’s Treat sells sugar free stuff; hence they are targeting diabetic people. The affiliate program will work towards expanding the marketing of their product, every time a new customer joins. By offering different incentives (such as buy one get on free etc) Grandma’s treat will ensure that, not only are their existing customers retained but they will get new customers as well. This will happen when existing customers talk about Grandma’s Treat to their friends and family as well as by using web site advertising that points to the Grandma’s Treats web site.
Moreover if the website is updated frequently and new incentives are also given the affiliate program will help a lot (100 best affiliate programs). Likewise, certain strategies will not be appropriate for Grandma’s Treat. Target market is one of them. Grandma’s Treats products are purchased by people for reason that they would not like to openly discuss. Moreover in target market, Grandma’s Treat will have to obtain a list of the people they want to target.
This becomes difficult because, for example in case of people who are dieting, the company with whom these people have their dieting programs will not give out their customers information unless the customer has given permission. This makes it difficult and expensive. The CAM-SPAM Act is a law that basically tells the people what is considered as acceptable spamming and what the penalties of unacceptable spamming are. Many people are against this act because they consider it as, giving permission to a spammer to go ahead and do spamming.
According to this act, spamming is legal within the definition of legal spamming. But this is not enough. Some other conditions must also be met. Firstly, legal spam must include an option of ‘opting out’ from receiving the emails for the receiver (Bick). The ‘opt out’ requests must be fulfilled within 10 days. Secondly, the source lines must be accurate and not source names. Moreover, the subject line must not be misleading and must include the real physical address of the sender of the email. Likewise, the content should have proper rating (Bick).
It can be easily be seen that, this act was difficult to prepare. It had to be such that it allowed advertising, but did not have any loop holes, which could be exploited by unscrupulous elements. It had to ensure no illegal activity was done. Moreover, it was important to protect the rights of the receiver, in that; he can avoid receiving such spam mail. Taking everything into account I would agree with the way the CAN-SPAM act was written. However, I disagree with the lack of enforcement of the Act and I believe that enforcement of this law is as important as any other law.
References 100 best affiliate programs. (n. d. ). Niche Affiliate Programs. Retrieved May 21, 2010, from 100 best affiliate programs website: http://www. 100best-affiliate-programs. com/tutorials/niche-affiliate-programs. html Bick, J. (n. d. ). Overview of CAM-SPAM Act. Retrieved May 21, 2010, from bick law website: http://www. bicklaw. com/Publications/Overview_Cam-spam_act. htm Gardyne, A. (2003, Janurary 16). Beginners guide to affiliate programs. Retrieved May 21, 2010, from Associate programs website: http://www.
associateprograms. com/articles/156/1/Beginners-guide-to-affiliate-programs/ Harris, T. (n. d. ). How Affiliate Programs Work . Retrieved May 21, 2010`, from How stuff work website: http://money. howstuffworks. com/affiliate-program1. htm Site Nexus. (n. d. ). Glossary of Terms. Retrieved May 21, 2010, from Site Nexus website: http://www. sitenexus. com/glossary. asp Spam abuse. (n. d. ). Fight Spam on the Internet! Retrieved May 21, 2010, from spam abuse webite: http://spam. abuse. net/
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