Application in marketing

Marketing is the process by which goods are sold and purchased. The aim of marketing is to acquire,
retain, and satisfy customers. Modern marketing has evolved into a complex and diverse field. This field
includes a wide variety of special functions such as advertising, mail-order business, public relations,
retailing and merchandising, sales, market research, and pricing of goods.

Businesses, and particularly the marketing aspect of businesses, rely a great deal on the use of
computers. Computers play a significant role in
 inventory control,
 processing and handling orders,
 communication between satelite companies in an organization,
 design and production of goods,
 manufacturing, product and market analysis,
 advertising,
 producing the company newsletter,
 and in some cases, complete control of company operations.

In today's extremely competitive business environment businesses are searching for ways to improve
profitability and to maintain their position in the marketplace. As competition becomes more intense the
formula for success becomes more difficult. Two particular things have greatly aided companies in their
quests to accomplish these goals.

They are the innovative software products of CAD/CAM and, last but not least, the World Wide Web.

An important program has aided companies all over the world. Computer-aided design and computer-
aided manufacturing (CAD/CAM) is the integration of two technologies. It has often been called the new
industrial revolution. In CAD, engineers and designers use specialized computer software to create
models that represent characteristics of objects.

These models are analyzed by computer and redesigned as necessary. This allows companies needed
flexibility in studying different and daring designs without the high costs of building and testing actual
models, saving millions of dollars. In CAM, designers and engineers use computers for planning
manufacturing processes, testing finished parts, controlling manufacturing operations, and managing
entire plants. CAM is linked to CAD through a database that is shared by design and manufacturing
engineers.

The major applications of CAD/CAM are mechanical design and electronic design. Computer-aided
mechanical design is usually done with automated drafting programs that use interactive computer
graphics. Information is entered into the computer to create basic elements such as circles, lines, and
points. Elements can be rotated, mirrored, moved, and scaled, and users can zoom in on details.

Desktop manufacturing enables a designer to construct a model directly from data which is stored in
computer memory. These software programs help designers to consider both function and
manufacturing consequences at early stages, when designs are easily modified.

More and more manufacturing businesses are integrating CAD/CAM with other aspects of production,
including inventory tracking, scheduling, and marketing. This idea, known as computer-integrated
manufacturing (CIM), speeds processing of orders, adds to effective materials management, and
creates considerable cost savings.

In addition to designing and manufacturing a product, a company must be effectively able to advertise,
market, and sell its product. Much of what passes for business is nothing more than making connections
with other people. What if you could passout your business card to thousands, maybe millions of
potential clients and partners? You can, twenty four hours a day, inexpensively and simply on the World
Wide Web. Firms communicate with their customers through various types of media. This media usually
follows passive one-to-many communication where a firm reaches many current and potential
customers through marketing efforts that allow limited forms of feedback on the part of the customer.
For several years a revolution has been developing that is dramatically changing the traditional form of
advertising and communication media. This revolution is the Internet, a massive global network of
interconnected computer networks which has the potential to drastically change the way firms do
business with their customers.

The World Wide Web is a hypertext based information service. It provides access to multimedia,
complex documents, and databases. The Web is one of the most effective vehicles to provide
information because of its visual impact and advanced features. It can be used as a complete
presentation media for a company's corporate information or information on all of its products and
services.

The growth of the world wide web (WWW) has opened up new markets and shattered boundaries to
selling to a worldwide audience. For marketers the world wide web can be used to creat a client base,
for product and market analysis, rapid information access, wide scale information dissemination, rapid
communication, cost-effective document transfers, expert advise and help, recruiting new employees,
peer communi- cations, and new business opportunities. The usefullness of the Internet or WWW
depends directly on the products or services of each business. There are different benefits depending
upon the type of business and whether you are a supplier, retailer, or distributor. Lets examine these in
more detail.

Finding new clients and new client bases is not always an easy task. This process involves a careful
market analysis, product marketing and consumer base testing. The Internet is a ready base of several
million people from all walks of life. One can easily find new customers and clients from this massive
group, provided that your presence on the internet is known. If you could keep your customer informed
of every reason why they should do business with you, your business would definitely increase. Making
business information available is one of the most inportant ways to serve your customers. Before people
decide to become customers, they want to know about your company, what you do and what you can
do for them. This can be accomplished easily and inexpensively on the World Wide Web.

Many users also do product analyses and comparisons and report their findings via the World Wide
Web. Quite frequently one can find others who may be familiar with a product that you are currently
testing. A company can get first hand reports on the functionality of such products before spending a
great deal of money. Also, the large base of Internet users is a principle area for the distribution of
surveys for an analysis of the market for a new product of service ideas. These surveys can reach
millions of people and potential clients with very little effort on the part of the surveyors. Once a product
is already marketed, you can examine the level of satisfaction that users have received from the
product. Getting customer feedback can lead to new and improved products. Feedback will let you know
what customers think of your product faster, easier and much less expensively than any other market
you may reach. For the cost of a page or two of Web programming, you can have a crystal ball into
where to position your product or service in the marketplace.

Accessing information over the Internet is much faster on most occasions than transmissions and
transfers via fax or postal courier services. You can access information and data from countries around
the world and make interactive connections to remote computer systems just about anywhere in the
world. Electronic mail has also proved to be an effective solution to the problem of telephone tag.
Contacting others through email has provided a unique method of communication which has the speed
of telephone conversations, yet still provides the advantages of postal mail. Email can be sent from just
about anywhere that there is an Internet service or access so that businessmen or travelers can keep in
touch with up to the minute details of the office.

Another benefit of the World Wide Web is wide scale information circulation. We can place documents
on the Internet and instantly make them accessible to millions of users around the world. Hypertext
documents provide an effective technique by which to present information to subscribers, clients or the
general public. Creating World Wide Web documents and registering your site with larger Web sites
improves the availability of the documents to a client base larger, and cheaper, than the circulation of
many major newspapers and/or television sMedias. You may not be able to use the mail, phone system
 and regulation systems in all of your potential international markets. With the World Wide Web,
however, you can open up a dialogue with international markets as easily as with the company accross
the street.

The Web is also more cost-effective than conventional advertising. Transferring on- line documents via
the Internet takes a minimal amount of time, saving a great deal of money over postal or courier
services which can also suffer late deliveries, losses or damage. If a document transfer fails on the
Internet, you can always try again since the cost of the transfer is exactly the same. Current or potential
clients are not lost due to late or absent documents.

Beyond product and market analysis, there are a great number of experts on the Internet who make
their presence widely known and easily accessable. Quite often you can get free advice and help with
problems you might have from the same people you may otherwise pay highly for their consulting
services to large organizations, magazines, and other periodicals. Researchers and business
executives alike have attested to the fact that much of their communications over the Internet are with
others in their line of research or field of work. Communicating with peers allows the sharing of ideas,
problems and solutions among themselves. Often people find that others in their field have already
created solutions for problems similar to their own. They are able to obtain advice on their own
situations and create a solution based upon this shared knowledge.

Many businessmen and conpanies are continuously on the look-out for new and innovative ideas as
viable business ventures. Internet users are continuously coming up with such new ideas because of
the available research the Internet offers and also because of the cooperative atmosphere that
surrounds the internet. In addition, the Internet has many job lists and resumes online for prospective
employers. New resumes are constantly posted to the Web to inform companies of the availability of
new skills.

As competition intensifies in the business world, consumers are faced with more and more products and
services to choose from. The future of business is being decided right now in the minds and wallets of
customers. The successful business and marketing approach utilizes everything possible to insure that
the choice the customer makes is to choose their product or service. Computer technology is by far the
most important and impressive means by which to insure a company's success. Computers play a
significant role in every aspect of a company's survival, from product design and manufacturing, creating
client databases, inventory control , market analysis, advertising and sales, and even total company
operations.

E-mail marketing is a form of direct marketing which uses electronic mail as a means of
communicating commercial or fundraising messages to an audience. In its broadest sense,
every e-mail sent to a potential or current customer could be considered e-mail marketing.
However, the term is usually used to refer to:

 sending e-mails with the purpose of enhancing the relationship of a merchant with its
current or previous customers, to encourage customer loyalty and repeat business,
 sending e-mails with the purpose of acquiring new customers or convincing current
customers to purchase something immediately,
 adding advertisements to e-mails sent by other companies to their customers, and
 sending e-mails over the Internet, as e-mail did and does exist outside the Internet

Advantages

E-mail marketing (on the Internet) is popular with companies for several reasons:

 An exact return on investment can be tracked ("track to basket") and has proven to be high
when done properly. E-mail marketing is often reported as second only to search marketing
as the most effective online marketing tactic. [2]
  Advertisers can reach substantial numbers of e-mail subscribers who have opted in (i.e.,
consented) to receive e-mail communications on subjects of interest to them.

Disadvantages

A report issued by the e-mail services company Return Path, as of mid-2008 e-mail
deliverability is still an issue for legitimate marketers. According to the report, legitimate e-
mail servers averaged a delivery rate of 56%; twenty percent of the messages were rejected,
and eight percent were filtered.[5]

Companies considering the use of an e-mail marketing program must make sure that their
program does not violate spam laws such as the United States' Controlling the Assault of
Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act (CAN-SPAM),[6] the European Privacy and
Electronic Communications Regulations 2003, or their Internet service provider's acceptable
use policy.

Opt-in e-mail advertising

Opt-in e-mail advertising, or permission marketing, is a method of advertising via e-mail

whereby the recipient of the advertisement has consented to receive it. This method is one of
several developed by marketers to eliminate the disadvantages of e-mail marketing.[7]

Opt-in e-mail marketing may evolve into a technology that uses a handshake protocol
between the sender and receiver.[7] This system is intended to eventually result in a high
degree of satisfaction between consumers and marketers. If opt-in e-mail advertising is used,
the material that is e-mailed to consumers will be "anticipated". It is assumed that the
consumer wants to receive it, which makes it unlike unsolicited advertisements sent to the
consumer. Ideally, opt-in e-mail advertisements will be more personal and relevant to the
consumer than untargeted advertisements.

A common example of permission marketing is a newsletter sent to an advertising firm's

customers. Such newsletters inform customers of upcoming events or promotions, or new
products.[8] In this type of advertising, a company that wants to send a newsletter to their
customers may ask them at the point of purchase if they would like to receive the newsletter.

With a foundation of opted-in contact information stored in their database, marketers can
send out promotional materials automatically -- known as Drip Marketing. They can also
segment their promotions to specific market segments.[9]

Application in stock markets

Stock trade computer technology has been growing in popularity over a number of years.
This is basically a program designed to predict trends in the stock market, alerting you of
them so that you can trade accordingly. Here is how a stock trade computer program can
enable you to earn money in the stock market even if you haven't had much experienced
trading before.
A stock trade computer program works using mathematical algorithms which essentially take
advantage of the fact that the market moves in patterns and analyze successful trend data of
the recent and distant past, specifically the factors which led to those trends to form. They
compile a working database of this information, then apply it to current, real time market data
to find similarities with which to further investigate. When all is said and done and the
program has found what it deems as being a profitable, high probability trade, it notifies you
of this information so that you can trade essentially ahead of the curve. 

Because a stock trade computer system relies exclusively on algorithmically crunched market
data and nothing more when generating its picks, no emotions or anything of the like factor
into your trades. And you don't need to know anything about analyzing market data to begin
with because all of the work is done for you. All you've got to do ultimately is enact the
corresponding generated trades as they are sent to you. 

The best stock trade computer programs focus on penny stocks exclusively, and the reason
that these programs are preferable is because penny stocks are lower risk stocks in general,
but carry just as much profit potential as other trades. It's not uncommon for one of these
stocks to quickly rise in value in which they double or triple in value in short bursts before
dropping again. It's just a matter of identifying these stocks and investing accordingly.

In electronic financial markets, algorithmic trading or automated trading, also known as algo
trading, black-box trading or robo trading, is the use of computer programmes for entering
trading orders with the computer algorithm deciding on aspects of the order such as the
timing, price, or quantity of the order, or in many cases initiating the order without human
intervention. Algorithmic Trading is widely used by pension funds, mutual funds, and other
buy side (investor driven) institutional traders, to divide large trades into several smaller
trades in order to manage market impact, and risk. Sell side traders, such as market makers
and some hedge funds, provide liquidity to the market, generating and executing orders
automatically. A special class of algorithmic trading is "high-frequency trading" (HFT), in
which computers make elaborate decisions to initiate orders based on information that is
received electronically, before human traders are capable of processing the information they
observe.

Strategies

Trend Following

Trend following is an investment strategy that tries to take advantage of long-term moves that
seem to play out in various markets. The system aims to work on the market trend
mechanism and take benefit from both sides of the market enjoying the profits from the ups
and downs of the stock or futures markets. Traders who use this approach can use current
market price calculation, moving averages and channel breakouts to determine the general
direction of the market and to generate trade signals. Traders who subscribe to a trend
following strategy do not aim to forecast or predict specific price levels; they simply jump on
the trend and ride it.

Pair Trading
The pairs trade or pair trading is a market neutral trading strategy enabling traders to profit
from virtually any market conditions: uptrend, downtrend, or sidewise movement. This
trading strategy is categorized as a statistical arbitrage and convergence trading strategy.[12]

Delta Neutral Strategies

In finance, delta neutral describes a portfolio of related financial securities, in which the
portfolio value remains unchanged due to small changes in the value of the underlying
security. Such a portfolio typically contains options and their corresponding underlying
securities such that positive and negative delta components offset, resulting in the portfolio's
value being relatively insensitive to changes in the value of the underlying security.

All these are done with the help of computers .

Computer-driven trading puts stock exchanges at risk

Every day, hundreds of billions of dollars of financial transactions are driven completely
autonomously by computer algorithms. The fate of corporations and nations rests on bits of
computer code sent out by their makers to do battle in a high-stakes trading war. And when
something goes wrong, it can go spectacularly wrong.

When you think of stock exchanges you probably have a quaint notion of a paper-strewn
room full of stressed-out traders yelling to be heard over each other while watching big
screen monitors that cover every square inch of the walls. Or maybe you have a more modern
picture of an army of white collar workers barricaded in their caves of steel intently staring at
computer displays, waiting to pounce on the right news or slightest movement by executing a
quick buy or sell order.

In reality, today’s markets are largely driven not by bellicose bombasts or educated elites but
by algorithms written by programmers like you and me. Programs that are set free to wreak
profit (or havoc) in the innards of the world’s electronic cyber-market. According to the
Financial Times, program trading accounts for about 30% of the total daily activity on the
New York Stock Exchange, and a whopping 60-70% of the activity on other markets such as
the Nasdaq. In 2008, the total world derivatives market was estimated at nearly $800
*trillion* dollars.

Unsatisfied by the decision speeds of mere humans, huge banks have turned over the keys to
the vault to programs to do the trading of stocks and derivatives for them. The idea has a
certain appeal: Put in a few billion dollars, push a button, and walk away while the computer
does all the work. When you come back, if all goes well, you’ve made a nice profit. “Leave
the driving to us,” as the slogan goes. Even a monkey could do it. Right?

Well, if you’re not a developer and you’re reading this, please take heed. Computers make
mistakes, because they just do what their programs tell them to do, and all programs have
mistakes lurking in them. “Bugs,” we call them. Much of the craft of computer programming
is concerned with reducing the number of bugs. When a program controls something really
important, like say an X-Ray machine, a fighter jet, a space craft, or a nuclear power plant,
extreme efforts are put into eliminating as many bugs as humanly possible. But as a number
of high profile cases have proven, it’s impossible to detect them all.