Friday 15 February 2013

AOCAY E-LIBRARY




The AGORA program, set up by the Food & Agriculture Organisation of the UN (FAO) together with major publishers provides access to an outstanding digital library collections in the fields of food, agriculture, environmental science and related social sciences. AGORA provides a collection of 918 journals to institutions in 107 countries. AGORA is designed to enhance the scholarship of the many thousands of students, faculty and researchers in agriculture and life sciences in the developing world. [for more click here]

Bibliomania
This contains thousands of free e-books, poems, articles, short stories and plays, study guides, dictionaries, biographies, religious texts, and popular non-fiction. [for more click here]

Bioline International
Features 30 peer-reviewed journals from Brazil, Cuba, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe etc. Subjects included are health, biodiversity, environment, conservation and international development. [for more click here]

BLDS: British Library for Development Studies at IDS – Institute of Development Studies
This is Europe’s largest research collection on economic and social change in developing countries. [for more click here]

Bridge: Development and Gender
A searchable database of gender and development materials from across the wild. The collection includes tools, case studies, policy papers and research. [for more click here]

Chemistry Central
This collection of peer-reviewed open access research and journals in chemical sciences. [for more click here]

CommsDesign
Provides access to online resources for CommsDesign engineers. [for more click here]

Directory of Open Access Journals
This provides access to 2,565 quality controlled scientific and scholarly journals. [for more click here]

EBSCO
Databases is one of the world’s most valuable, largest scholarly multidiscipline, full text database indispensable to academic institutions.
The Academic Search Premier is by far the world’s most valuable and most numerous collections of active full text peer-reviewed journals. Business source premier is the industry’s most used business research database, providing the full text for more than 2,300 journals. Education Research complete is the definitive online resource for education research. This massive file offers the world largest and most complete collection of full text education journal.
The Health source: Nursing /Academic Edition provides nearly 550 scholarly full text journals focusing on many medical disciplines. MEDLINE with full text is the world’s most comprehensive source of full text medical journals, providing full text for nearly 1,200 journals indexed in MEDLINE. SOCINDEX with full text is the most comprehensive engine and highest quality sociology research database. Its extensive scope and content provide users with a wealth of extremely useful information encompassing the broad spectrum of sociological study. [for more click here]

Electronic Journals and Magazines on the Middle East
Provides a list of journals related to the Middle East, some of which include access to full texts or abstracts of articles. [for more click here]

Electronic Journals Library
University Library of Regensburg offers the “Electronic Journals Library,” which provides access to over 10,500 journals. [for more click here]

Electronic Literature Directory
This is a database of listings that cover poetry, fiction, drama, and non fictions. The forms of writing represented include hypertexts, animated poems, multimedia works, etc. [for more click here]

Electronic Text Centre
10,000 publicly available e-books and journals including philosophy, religion, history, literature, history of science. [for more click here]

ERIC/AE Full Text Internet Library
Links to full-text books, reports, journal articles, newsletter articles and papers on the Internet that address educational measurement, evaluation and learning theory. [for more click here]

Escholarship Editions
Access to electronic editions of academic books published by scholarship editions, mainly in the humanities, religion, history, literature, arts and social sciences. [for more click here]

FindArticles.com
Archive of published articles that can be searched for free. Includes access to some journals which provide free full text access. The service covers more general than academic journals but includes a few journals on management and education. [for more click here]

Highwire (Stanford University)
Highwire facilitates access to over 1.1 million full text scholarly articles on medical/biomedical topics. Most journal titles covered include back issues older than 12-24 months. [for more click here]

HINARI
The Health InterNetwork Access to Research Initiative (HINARI) provides very low cost online access to the major journals in biomedical and related social sciences to local, not-for-profit institutions in developing countries.
HINARI was launched in January 2002, with some 1500 journals from 6 major publishers: Blackwell, Elsevier Science, the Harcourt Worldwide STM Group, Wolters Kluwer International Health & Science, Springer Verlag and John Wiley, following the principles in a Statement of Intent signed in July 2001. Twenty-two additional publishers joined in May 2002, bringing the total number of journals to over 2000. Since that time, the numbers of participating publishers and of journals and other full-text resources has grown continuously. Today more than 70 publishers are offering their content in HINARI and others will soon be joining the programme. An evaluation is in progress which will determine the long term future of HINARI. [for more click here]

NATIONAL VIRTUAL LIBRARYhttp://www.nigerianvirtuallibrary.com/
This is a digital library where you can derive maximum benefit from available resources which includes electronic books, journals, films, videos and maps. It contains highest and latest publications in various fields to facilitate teaching, research and learning.

National Academies Press:
Provides access to thousands of entire books and reports on a wide range of topics in science, engineering, and the health sciences. [for more click here]


EBRARY http://openuni.bravecontent.com
Ebrary employs powerful tools for information retrieval, discovery, and management.
These include content products, such as handbooks, e-books, manuals, reports and other authoritative documents
• Academic Complete (includes all other academic databases)
• Business & Economics
• Community & Career Colleges
• Education
• Engineering & Technology
• History & Political Science (also includes a bonus selection of historical maps)
• Humanities (includes Music, Theater, Dance, Film, Media, Communication, Art, and Architecture) Interdisciplinary & Area Studies (includes Asian, Ethnic, Native American, Gender, and Gay & Lesbian Studies)
• Language, Literature & Linguistics
• Law, International Relations & Public Policy
• Life Sciences (includes Biotechnology, Agriculture, and Environmental Studies)
• Medicine
• Nursing & Allied Health
• Physical Sciences
• Psychology & Social Work
• Religion, Philosophy & Classics
• Sociology & Anthropology
• Other Databases
• Canadian Electronic Library
• D&B International Business Reports™
• Datamonitor Industry Reports™
• Online Sheet Music
• Public Library Complete
• SME (Society of Manufacturing Engineers)

Online Access to Research in the Environment (OARE)
Provides access to one of the world’s largest collections of environmental science literature an d database search tools. [for more click here]

QUESTIA http://www.questia.com/Index.jsp
The world's largest online library of books (humanities & social sciences)
The first online library that provides 24/7 access to the world's largest online collection of books and journal articles in the humanities and social sciences, plus magazine and newspaper articles.
• You can search each and every word of all of the books and journal articles in the collection.
• You can read every title cover to cover.
• This rich, scholarly content -- selected by professional collection development librarians -- is not available elsewhere on the Internet.
• Undergraduate, high school, graduate students, and Internet users of all ages have found Questia to be an invaluable online resource.
• Anyone doing research or just interested in topics that touch on the humanities and social sciences will find titles of interest in Questia.
• Questia offers a range of search, note-taking, and writing tools. These tools help students locate the most relevant information on their topics quickly, quote and cite correctly, and create properly formatted footnotes and bibliographies automatically.
• Questia provides a comprehensive research environment to meet students' academic needs.

LEXISNEXIS (Legal and related Studies) Local Content http://www.mylexisnexis.co.za

Lexis Academicshttp://www.lexisnexis.com/hottopics/lnacademic/?
LexisNexis® is a leading global provider of content-enabled workflow solutions to professionals in law firms, corporations, government, law enforcement, tax, accounting, academic institutions and risk and compliance assessment

Multi-Science Journals http://multi-science.metapress.com/publications
Multi-Science Publishing Company prides itself on publishing journals that fill gaps in the scientific literature and are responses to technological developments that call new disciplines into existence. In that way, it achieves uniqueness for its journals, they are not ‘yet another’ journal on any given topic. Of course, all Multi-Sciences primary journals are fully refereed; the fact that distinguished editors and editorial boards lend their names and their time to the journal is one way of understanding the esteem in which they are held in certain quarters. As well as journals, Multi-Science publishes books in the same subject areas as its journals.

Social Science Online Periodicals
Database of articles from the UNESCO Social and Human Sciences Documentation Centre. [for more click here]

World Bank E-Library http://elibrary.worldbank.org/
The World Bank eLibrary is the World Bank’s subscription-based collection of nearly 6,000 books, reports, journals, and working papers including:
• Development Outreach, World Bank Economic Review and World Bank Research Observer journal articles published since 1996
• Development Economics (DEC) policy research working papers published since 1995
• e-books and reports dating as far as the 1970’s (in the case of the World Development Reports), plus
• all new formal publications upon release.

Armed Conflict Database http://acd.iiss.org/armedconflict
Armed Conflict Database, a frequently updated source of information on armed conflicts worldwide. You can generate reports and download data as well as browse through the yearly analyses and fact sheets online.

USAID Development Partner Resources
A searchable database listing USAID programme and technical documents, with many available to download. [for more click here]

World Bank Documents
Collection of World Bank reports, documents and working papers. [for more click here]

World Development Reports
This is an invaluable guide to the economic, social and environmental state of the world produced by the World Bank.
[for more click here]

Digital Or E-Library Guides


Digital Librarian
With over 50 subjects, Digital Librarian is a selection of web resources put together by a Librarian to aid anyone use the web to find information relevant to research in specific areas.

Google Scholar
"Google Scholar provides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature. From one place, you can search across many disciplines and sources: articles, theses, books, abstracts and court opinions, from academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities and other web sites. Google Scholar helps you find relevant work across the world of scholarly research."

Research Guides from Baker Library, Harvard Business School
These guides put together by the Baker Library, Harvard Business School contain resources in various subjects around business (local and global) in today's world including Agribusiness and World Statistics.

Wall Street Executive Library
Useful websites, magazines, journals, search engines on subjects covering both U.S. and Canadian magazines, journals, periodicals. Direct links to a long list of News Stand magazines, Business, as well as Computer & Technology magazines online.

 

Journals and Articles

AGORA (ACCESS TO GLOBAL ONLINE RESEARCH AGRICULTURE):
The AGORA initiative was set up by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) in conjunction with other publishing bodies to put together a collection of journals in food and environmental science, agriculture and other related subjects. It is aimed at empowering students and academics via scholarly resources.

Armed Conflict Database
Armed Conflict Database, a frequently updated source of information on armed conflicts worldwide. You can generate reports and download data as well as browse through the yearly analyses and fact sheets online.

Bioline International
Bioline grants access to peer-reviewed journals in bioscience published in ‘developing’ nations ( Brazil, Cuba, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe etc).

BLDS: British Library for Development Studies at IDS – Institute of Development Studies
For about forty (40) years, one million (1,000, 000) items (e-books and e-journals), BLDS has one of the largest research collections in Europe. It records that more than half of its collection resonate from developing countries, most of which are unavailable in other libraries in European libraries. Some of their resources can be accessed remotely for free.
Bridge: Development and Gender:
This database contains white papers, policy papers, case studies and scholarly articles on gender issues from a global perspective.

Chemistry Central
Chemistry Central offers open access to peer-reviewed journals in chemical sciences. It is operated by BioMed Central and owned by Springer Science+Business Media, committed to the free and widespread dissemination of chemical research.

CIA Factbook
The CIA Factbook is an excellent resource for global statistics on economic issues.

CommsDesign
In a user-friendly manner, CommsDesign has a number of articles for communications design and engineering.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Recommended)
As at March 2012, DOAJ recorded 7588 journals and 777295 articles. All of these articles in various subjects are open access and can be obtained for free.

DIVA
This is a resource portal that offers, student theses, conference papers and journal articles in various subjects .

Electronic Journals and Magazines on the Middle East
This is a directory listing resources (articles and journals) in Middle East Studies from history and civilization to gender-related studies.

Electronic Journals Library
Provided by the University Library of Regensburg and University Library of the Technical University of Munich, EJL offers a central repository of journals and other scholarly material, a number of which are free accessible (marked )

Electronic Literature Directory
The Electronic Literature Directory (ELD) is a collection of literary works, descriptions, and keywords. It is aimed at bringing both author and reader to a common platform where both the work and consequently appreciation is encouraged through forums and discussions. Submissions of entries as well as reviews are free.

ERIC/AE Full Text Internet Library
Here, one can gain access to material (books, reports, articles, and papers) available on the net centred around education and learning theory.

FindArticles.com
All known as the Resource Library, this is an archive of published articles that can be searched for free. It also includes access to some journals which provide free full text access. It has to be noted that the articles here are more general than academic but contains a few journal titles.

GDNET
“GDNet has compiled a comprehensive listing of the different initiatives which provide researchers in low and middle income countries with free access to academic journals. It is a listing of collections of free online journals related to the social sciences. It also provides a list of websites which provide links to journals for which full text access is restricted to subscribers, but non-subscribers can access other journal information such as the table of contents or abstracts of articles.”

Harvard Business Review
Perfect for resources in business research including case studies, articles, and books.

Highwire (Stanford University)
This enables access to a huge database of scholarly articles in medicine and medical sciences.

Online Access to Research in the Environment (OARE)
“Online Access to Research in the Environment (OARE), an international public-private consortium coordinated by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Yale University, and leading science and technology publishers, enables developing countries to gain access to one of the world's largest collections of environmental science research.”
Over 4,150 peer reviewed titles (as of 10/2011) owned and published by over 350 prestigious publishing houses and scholarly societies are now available in more than 100 low income countries. Research is provided in a wide range of disciplines.

The Business Publications Search Engine
Directory of over 200 free subscriptions to Business & Trade Publications.

QUESTIA
Tagged as ‘Trusted Online Research’, Questia has one of the world’s largest repository of books and articles. This comes highly recommended because aside from having all of its content freely accessible, it claims that its title are exclusive and it has content suitable for research at all levels (undergraduate, postgraduate and professional).

RAND: Objective Analysis, Effective Solutions
A research site for students seeking reliable analysis on various subjects of interest. It focuses on a wide range of topics and is quite insightful.

USAID Development Partner Resources
A searchable database listing USAID programme and technical documents, with many available to download.

World Bank Documents
Collection of World Bank reports, documents and working papers.

World Development Reports
This is an invaluable guide to the economic, social and environmental state of the world produced by the World Bank.

E-books and E-libraries
Bibliomania
Specifically rich in classic literature and verses, Bibliomania has free online literature with more than 2000 titles in classic texts, reviews including literature book notes, author biographies, book summaries and reference books, study guides, and reference material (Dictionaries, Quotations).

Book Boon
Bookboon.com originated in Denmark in 1988 and since its inception, has focused on publishing books for students and business professionals. In 2005, it shifted its focus to publishing only 100% free ebooks for its market. Since this leap, Bookboon has experienced huge rates of adoption with over 1500 book titles in its database and over 10 million downloads in a year.
In 2005 the company made a strategic leap and became the first book publishing company in the world to focus 100% on free eBooks. Ever since, the company has been aiming to set new standards in the world of modern publishing based on the readers’ needs. Its aim is to remain at the forefront of publishing while satisfying its target market.
Check this site for textbooks written by eligible professors used both as primary and secondary literature and is designed to usher in a group of well-informed professionals.

Education and Information Technology Digital Library
This e-solution is a digital library for resources in Education and Information Technology and is aimed at facilitating "learning, discovery and innovation by connecting scholarly research on Educational Technology/E-Learning with learning opportunities."

Escholarship Editions
The University of California e-Book collection contains more than two thousand (2000) book titles in a range of topics including ‘art, science, history, music, religion and fiction’. A number of titles are freely open to the public.

The Free Library
"Since 2003, The Free Library has offered free, full-text versions of classic literary works from hundreds of celebrated authors, whose biographies, images, and famous quotations can also be found on the site. Recently, The Free Library has been expanded to include a massive collection of periodicals from hundreds of leading publications covering Business and Industry, Communications, Entertainment, Health, Humanities, Law, Government, Politics, Recreation and Leisure, Science and Technology, and Social Sciences. This collection includes millions of articles dating back to 1984 as well as newly-published articles that are added to the site daily."

VIRGO
By the University of Virginia Library, VIRGO is a repository of resources (books, articles, digital material, digital images) made searchable and easy to access in various subjects.

World Digital Library
"The World Digital Library (WDL) makes available on the Internet, free of charge and in multilingual format, significant primary materials from countries and cultures around the world."

Dissertation and Theses

Digital Library and Archives
Digital Library and Archives allows searching for citations and abstracts of over 6,700 theses and dissertations. Free full-text access is provided for over 4,500 of these items.

Directory of History Dissertations
The Directory contains 27,640 dissertations that were completed or are currently in progress at 200 academic departments in Canada and the U.S."

Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
"NDLTD provides access to citations from thousands of digital dissertations and theses that are in PDF format. We support electronic publishing and open access to scholarship in order to enhance the sharing of knowledge worldwide"

Open Theses
OpenThesis is a free repository of theses, dissertations, and other academic documents, coupled with powerful search, organization, and collaboration tools.

Proquest Open Dissertations and Theses
"PQDT Open provides the full text of open access dissertations and theses free of charge. The authors of these dissertations and theses have opted to publish as open access and make their research available for free on the open Web."

Thursday 29 November 2012

Public Adminstration


Administration is concerned with ‘what’ and ‘How’ of the government. The what is the subjectmatter, the technical knowledge of afield which enables the administrator to perform his tasks. The ‘How’ is the technique of management according to which co-operative programmes are carried to success.”

1.      n.) The act of administering; government of public affairs; the service rendered, or duties assumed, in conducting affairs; the conducting of any office or employment; direction; management.

2.      (n.) The executive part of government; the persons collectively who are intrusted with the execution of laws and the superintendence of public affairs; the chief magistrate and his cabinet or council; or the council, or ministry, alone, as in Great Britain.

3.      (n.) The act of administering, or tendering something to another; dispensation; as, the administration of a medicine, of an oath, of justice, or of the sacrament.

4.      (n.) The management and disposal, under legal authority, of the estate of an intestate, or of a testator having no competent executor.

  1. (n.) The management of an estate of a deceased person by an executor, the strictly corresponding term execution not being in use.

Public administration houses the implementation of government policy and an academic discipline that studies this implementation and that prepares civil servants for this work. As a "field of inquiry with a diverse scope" its "fundamental goal... is to advance management and policies so that government can function." Some of the various definitions which have been offered for the term are: "the management of public programs"; the "translation of politics into the reality that citizens see every day"; and "the study of government decision making, the analysis of the policies themselves, the various inputs that have produced them, and the inputs necessary to produce alternative policies."

Public administration is "centrally concerned with the organization of government policies and programmes as well as the behavior of officials (usually non-elected) formally responsible for their conduct" Many unelected public servants can be considered to be public administrators, including heads of city, county, regional, state and federal departments such as municipal budget directors, human resources (H.R.) administrators, city managers, census managers, state [mental health] directors, and cabinet secretaries.[  Public administrators are public servants working in public departments and agencies, at all levels of government.

In the US, civil servants and academics such as Woodrow Wilson promoted American civil service reform in the 1880s, moving public administration into academia. However, "until the mid-20th century and the dissemination of the German sociologist Max Weber's theory of bureaucracy" there was not "much interest in a theory of public administration." The field is multidisciplinary in character; one of the various proposals for public administration's sub-fields sets out six pillars, including human resources, organizational theory, policy analysis and statistics, budgeting, and ethics

 

The functions and impact of Theories of Public Administration as follows:

These seven types of functions which shows the impact in Public

Adminstration theories are as follows -

1. ‘P’ stands for planning

2. ‘O’ stands for organization

3. ‘S’ stands for staffing.

4. ‘D’ stands for Directing.

5. ‘Co.’ stands for Co-ordination.

6. ‘R’ stands for Reporting

7. ‘B’ stands for Budgeting

1. ‘P’ stands for Planning -

Planning is the first step of Public Adminstration. i.e. working out the broad outline of the things that need to be done.

2. ‘O’ stands for organization -

It means establishment of the formal structure of authority through which the work is sub-divided, arranged and co-ordinated for the defined objective.

3. ‘S’ stands for staffing -

It means the recruitment and training of the staff and maintenance of favourable conditions of work for the staff.

4. ‘D’ stands for Directing -

It means the continuous task of making decisions and embodying them in specific and general orders and instructions, and thus guiding the enterprise.

5. ‘Co’ stands for Co-ordination -

It means interrelating the various parts of organization such as branches, divisions, sections of the work and elimination of overlapping.

6. ‘R’ stands for Reporting -

It means informing the authority to whom the executive is responsible as to what is going on.

7. ‘B’ stands for Budgeting -

It means accounting, fiscal planning and control.

Evaluation -

POSDCORB Perspective about the impact and functions in Public Adminstration is limited and narrow. It stressed on the tools of Public Adminstration. It does not show the substance of administration. It is a technique oriented perspective, not a subject oriented.

Reference

Nigeria (2001) National Office of the Information Economy, Government Online, Online Survey Results, March 2001.

 Michael (1992) Breaking Through Bureaucracy: A New Vision for Managing in Government (Los Angeles: University of Ibadan Press).

 Michael (2001) The New Public Management: Improving Research and Policy Dialogue (Berkeley: University of Ibadan Press).

Bellamy, Christine and Taylor, John A. (1998) Governing in the Information Age (Buckingham: Open University Press).

Caiden, Gerald E. (1982) Public Administration, Second Edition (Pacific Palisades: Palisades Publishers).

Tuesday 20 November 2012

Introduction to Communications in Marketing


Introduction to Communications in Marketing

What are communications in marketing?

Communications in Marketing is a subset of the overall subject area known as marketing. Marketing has a marketing mix that is made of price, place, promotion, product (know as the four P's), that includes people, processes and physical evidence, when marketing services (known as the seven P's).

How does communications in marketing fit in? Marketing communications is 'promotion' from the marketing mix.

Why are communications marketing 'integrated?' Integrated means combine or amalgamate, or put simply the jigsaw pieces that together make a complete picture. This is so that a single message is conveyed by all marketing communications. Different messages confuse your customers and damage brands. So if a TV advert carries a particular logo, images and message, then all newspaper adverts and point-of-sale materials should carry the same logo, images or message, or one that fits the same theme. Coca-Cola uses its familiar red and white logos and retains themes of togetherness and enjoyment throughout its marketing communications.

Communications in Marketing has a mix. Elements of the mix are blended in different quantities in a campaign. The marketing communications mix includes many different elements, and the following list is by no means conclusive. It is recognised that there is some cross over between individual elements (e.g. Is donating computers to schools, by asking shoppers to collect vouchers, public relations or sales promotion?) Here are the key of the marketing communications mix.

Communications in Marketing - Meaning and its Process

communications Marketing  is essentially a part of the marketing mix. The marketing mix defines the 4Ps of marketing and Promotion is what marketing communications is all about. It is the message your organization is going to convey to your market. You need to be very particular about different messages you are going to convey through different mediums.
Traditionally printed marketing was the whole sole method of conveying the messages to the consumers. However, in recent times, emails, sms, blogs, television and company websites have become the trendy way of conveying the organization’s message to the consumers. It is important though that the message you give in one medium should tally with the message provided in other medium. For example, you should use the same logo in on your website as the one you use in your email messages. Similarly, your television messages should convey the same message as your blogs and websites.

For the above reason, people controlling the marketing communication process are very important for the company. These executives make it an integrated marketing communication process. You would now understand why it has to be ‘integrated’. The reason is that the messages to be conveyed through different mediums should be the same.

Let us now look at the communication in marketing process. It is very important to have a process in place because then your advertising will reap proper benefits. There is an old advertising joke “I know my advertising works, I don’t know which half.” That’s why if the marketing communication process puts a tab on advertising because companies cannot bear to lose dollars on wrong type of advertising. Things have to be well-defined and integrated to get maximum revenues. Your communication in marketing process would look like:

The communication in marketing process identifies where the investments are being done and what is bringing more return on investment. Therefore, you can alter the advertising campaign to reap maximum benefits.

The process begins at the strategic development stage. You start by creating a communications in marketing program. At this point, you decide what all will fall in your advertising bracket. At the next stage, you capture responses of your consumers. These responses are then recorded and maintained as advertising data. The executives then analyze and evaluate the collected data. They generate the all important reports which will help to allocate the integrated and communications in marketing budget.

The integrated communications in marketing is a data-driven approach which identifies the consumer insights and develops a strategy with the right combination of offline and online channels which should result in a stronger brand-consumer relationship. It has grown manifolds in recent years due to several shifts in the advertising and media industry. This is the reason why it has developed into a primary strategy for the developers. Some examples of shifts are from media advertising to the multiple forms of communication, from general focus advertising to data based marketing and so on.

Selecting the most important communications elements is crucial for the success of company’s business. The advertising campaign should be effective across all platforms. Once the integrated marketing process is set, the company can reap rich dividends from it. These days, there are companies that specialize in creating the communications in marketing process for you. So you can either do it on your own or take their services. But an effective communication in marketing process is the order of the day!

The Importance and effectives of Communication in Marketing

Communication in Marketing is easily overlooked, but the ability to communicate effectively is necessary to carry out the thoughts and visions of an organization to the people. The importance of speech and words whether through a paper or a voice is a communication medium to convey directions and provide synchronization. Without communication, there is no way to express thoughts, ideas and feelings.

There are many ways to provide communication from the organization to the people of your community. Whether through a phone, fax, email, letter, website, instant message softwares, social networking websites (facebook, twitter, myspace) and etc… you are able to communicate your organization to the world. Things can be expressed, ideas can be shared, and thoughts can be joined.

The ability and the importance of communication in Marketing become much more crucial when you are on a mission or need to fulfill a goal. Without a means to communicate, your organization will become isolated. The ability to effectively communicate is very important when it is usually underestimated and overlooked.

Communication in Marketing is a necessity as we use it to network, spread ideas, and promote. Communicate effectively through well known mediums and convey it simply and precisely. The importance of communication is crucial to the success of your organization because you need to reach out in order to fulfill your mission.

The Importance of Effective Communication in Marketing.

We communicate all the time. Verbally, nonverbally, in person, in the media, through documents, via the internet, in our heads, with our families, with our neighbors, co-workers, people, with God.

We are constantly sending out a message or receiving one. But for the sake of keeping to MY topic, lets talk a little bit about the importance of effective communication when you are  through media.

Here are 3 things you must keep in mind when you get the “spotlight” opportunity:

Image- Do worries about how you look. This will be to really put yourself out there and thousands of people will see you and make a judgment about you and it is safe to say that more than 50 percent of that judgment will be based on how you look. Unfair? Maybe, but really it’s just how it is. Now by image I don’t mean you need to fit a certain standard. No. You have to look sharp! Get a trendy haircut, go get a facial so that your face is glowing and on the day of the interview. Make sure your makeup is done properly. With colors and tones that suit you. Do you wear glasses? Are they boring and old fashion? Consider getting a more “trendy” pair. Women, get the eye brows and nails done. I once saw a woman on T.V. with chipped off nail polish talking about . It was distracting and hard to see her as the expert that she was when she looked so undone. So really polish yourself up and aim at looking your best on that interview.

Voice Modulation-One of the most important things I do as a Media Coach is teach people how to modulate their voice. Some people either speak in a very low voice or a very high voice. Some tend to start off just right and then die out towards the end of what they are saying. Learn to speak in a tone of voice that is consistent, clear, and leveled. And it may sound easy. But it takes practice. So start recording yourself and listening to how you sound. And we always hate our own voices so have someone critique it or hire a Media Coach to help you modulate that voice.

Talking Points-You would think that if someone was trying to get on the media they would know what they wanted to say. Well, think again. It is so taken for granted. Figure out what your main point is and come up with 4 or 5 key points that you can communicate in quick sound bites. When you are on-air you only have a couple of minutes if not seconds, depending on the type of media venue you are appearing on, to say what you have to say. So be prepared to condense all your knowledge into simple to understand points.

Remember that ultimately what you want is to gain the trust of the public. Would you trust a sloppy, unprepared, whisperer? Probably not. So go that extra mile and really pamper yourself to look and expose the sassy expert that you are!

Establishing Total Marketing communications Budget

Personal communication is often more effective than mass communication, mass media might be the major means of stimulating personal communication. Mass communications affect personal attitudes and behavior through a two-step process. Ideas often flow from radio, television, and print to opinion leaders from these to the less media-involved population groups.

This two-step flow has several implications. First, the influence of mass media on public opinion is not as direct, powerful, and automatic as supposed. It is mediated by opinion leaders, people whose opinions are sought or who carry their opinions to others. Second, the two step flow challenges the notion that consumption styles are primarily influenced by a “trickle-down” or “trickle-up” effect from mass media. People interact primarily within their own social groups and acquire ideas from opinion leaders in their groups. Third, two-step communication suggests that mass communicators should direct messages specifically to opinion leaders and let them carry the messages to others.

One of the most difficult marketing decisions is determining how much to spend on promotion, John Wanamaker, the department store magnate, once said I know that half of my advertising is wasted but I don’t know which half.

Industries and companies vary considerably in how much they spend on promotion. Expenditures might be 30-50% of sales in the cosmetics industry and 5-10% in the industrial-equipment industry. Within a given industry, there are low and high spending companies. How do companies decide on the promotion budget? Four common methods are: the affordable method, percentage-of-sales method, competitive parity method, and objective-and-task method.

Affordable method:

Many companies set the promotion budget at what they think the company can afford. The affordable method completely ignores the role of promotion as an investment and the immediate impact of promotion on sales volume. It leads to an uncertain annual budget, which long range planning difficult.

Percentage-of-sales:

Many companies set promotion expenditure at a specified percentage of sales (either current or anticipated) or of the sales price. Automobile companies typically budget a fixed percentage for promotion based on the planned car price. Oil companies set the appropriation at a fraction of a cent for each gallon of gasoline sold under their own label.

Supporters of the percentage-of-sales method see a number of advantages. First, promotion expenditures will vary with what the company can “afford. This satisfies financial managers, who believe that expenses should be closely related to the movement of corporate sales over the business cycle. Second, it encourages management to think of the relationship among promotion cost, selling price, and profit per unit. Third, it encourages stability when competing firms spend approximately the same percentage of their sales on promotion.

Reference

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http://www.citeman.com/3097-establishing-total-marketing-communications-budget.html#ixzz2Cm506664, May 1, 2008