Experimental Marketing in IT Sector

     The importance of Experience in Marketing cannot be ignored. For centuries poets and lovers tried to explain the celestial feeling of being in love, but failed. They ultimately concluded that to fathom the depths of love you’ll have to fall in love. The five powerful acts of sense, feel, think, act and relate, together form what we call experience. Man never believes anyone more than himself. It is much easier for him to learn from his own wisdom than from others.

     The right Brain Stimulating Act of Experiencing feelings, comfort and bliss and avoiding, discomfort and discontentment is employed in capturing customers in what new age marketers call “Experimental marketing.” To be very accurate, in this media saturated world, the customer’s attention span is too short to retain one’s glance effect. The question then arises as to what can be done to get him to know the product. The simplest answer would be to let him EXPERIENCE the product. This will in turn ensure complete transparency and full customer satisfaction. The pioneers of management call this metamorphosis as the journey from brand identity to brand experience.

     Experimental marketing is more than just about the products of a company. It is about the essence that the brand carries. As the smell of freshly baked pan cakes stimulated the appetite, in the same way an experience can even generate that desire to possess in the customers. The amazing thing about this form of marketing is its universal acceptance and applicability across all the verticals and realms of modern market.

     The Information Technology Sector can be easily termed as the most critical dynamic sector today. The Indian IT sector began its journey in 1990 and in 17 years there has seen comprehensive shift in its structure and kinetics. However the products and the services have been commoditized and competition is increasing day by day. This has adversely affected their margins.

     In response the marketing strategies have undergone a paradigm shift. They are shifting from the conventional value and profit based norms to what is Experimental Marketing. Say for example, Mcafee and Kaspersky giving trial versions of antivirus and firewall, downloadable from the net. Google, Yahoo, Email@mobile, Etc. providing free access to emails on mobile phone. These free products are aimed at generating a customer experience which may lead to sales conversion. The free versions act as teasers for the customers to try and finally lure them into buying the paid editions. Another reason may be getting the customer habituated to their use

     The main limitations for IT products and services in adopting experimental marketing strategies are: Lack of differentiation between products and services: Information technology products and services are highly undifferentiated offerings. The element of copying is prevalent in the market space and the competitive advantage is very short loved. Hence a slight inkling about the product can attract followers immediately, which can take away the competitive advantage within no time at all.

     For instance, when email@mobile launched the facility of creating and accessing free mobile email IDs from the ordinary mobile phone, it immediately caught attention of millions of mobile professionals who have the need to access their emails but do not have a P.C. For email access they are either limited to their office PC or Cyber Cafes. Similarly students studying far from their homes, professionals working in different towns and the senior/retired citizens who want to share their feelings with their family or friends can do so with the new offer by email@mobile

      Secondly Security and Privacy are the 2 major factors which are to be considered before the deployment. Last but not the least Exclusivity of the Product and service plays an important role in reaching a wider market. IT majors round the globe are experimenting with experimental marketing. A bird’s eye view of some of the interesting and innovative techniques adopted by them will clear the picture.

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