Choice: Customers are beginning to realize that they don't have to be ‘stuck' with standardly offered products or service if it only meets part of their need. Choice is becoming more of a market differentiation resulting in a competitive edge. Marketing leaders must realize that company growth through targeted niche markets includes finding ways to provide customized choices. And do so to a variety of customer demographics in a cost effective and highly competitive manner. Technology can greatly assist this issue.

Value-adding: Price pressures will continue to mount for your company's products and service. Reject becoming low price quote through aggressive discounting unless you can really be low-cost producer such as Dell or Wal-Mart. Use advances in technology to add value to your product or service. Intelligently adding features and value (which could be as easy as changing delivery pricing policies or inserting programs that make customer order status more real-time ) will keep margins in tact, while retaining accounts. Your customer is assaulted with competitors daily that claim richer product features, with better prices and faster delivery. Know your customer well. CRM (customer-relations-management) or SFA (Sales-Force-Automation) tools help skilled sales force to more quickly adopt and respond to changes in customer accounts. Seek ‘value-added' features in your new product development. Don't allow R&D to add features without a customer verified value given to that feature.

Yes, a significant paradigm shift occurred and continues to assault way most companies operate. Capitalism has a brutal way to deal with those who miss change and therefore are ill prepared to take advantage of opportunity - they go out of business! Creating shareholder wealth is trickier than ever, but not impossible for marketing ‘dude' with visions, flexibility, risk orientation and ability to execute in market place.

Frank Williams is a marketer. With many post graduate courses in management, leadership, marketing and technology to his credit, Williams is a widely respected speaker, author and technologist. He has significant knowledge in marketing strategies and is the founder and CEO of Global Marketing, Inc. - a leader in business, marketing and sales consulting

Look and feel – The overall composition of marketing materials, design.

Matte finish – A dull or non-shiny finish to paper, similar to when a woman has powder on her face.

Mock-up – A preliminary brochure that is printed in colors to be used, cut, folded and put together to show what brochure will look like when it is printed.

Offer – The proposal.

One-color – Printed using only one color, usually black.

Opt-in e-mail – E-mail that is explicity requested by recipient.

Opt-out e-mail – E-mail that is sent to a recipient unless he requests NOT to receive it.

Payoff panel – The panel of a brochure that reader sees first when he opens a brochure. It generally follows up on what cover has discussed or answers whatever question was posed there.

PDF – Portable document format; file format for documents viewed and created by Adobe Acrobat Reader, Acrobat Capture, Adobe Distiller, Adobe Exchange, and Adobe Acrobat Amber plug-in. This technology has succeeded in standardizing format of documents used and transferred on Internet. One of benefits of using Acrobat and PDFs is that it doesn't matter whether you're a corporate guy using Microsoft Office products, an engineer using a computer aided design(CAD) program, or an art director using desktop publishing software—you can quickly deliver business documents to a colleague or to entire company without having to recreate them in other applications.

Perishable data – Information that will go out of date quickly.

Permission-based lists - Marketing lists centered around obtaining customer consent to receive information from a company.

Plain-text e-mail – E-mail that contains no graphics or special formatting.

Plug-in (a.k.a. add-on software) – A software program that extends capabilities of your browser in a specific way, giving you, for example, ability to play audio samples or view movies on your computer screen.

Privacy policy - A statement used on many Web sites to explain how a company protects privacy of information it aggregates about its users. It discloses how site collects, uses, and shares your personal information.

Rush charges/Premium charges – Additional service charges that are required because not enough time was given to vendor to complete project without working overtime or rushing.

Score – To make a very slight incision along fold of a brochure so that it folds easily and can be folded without cracking ink.

Self-mailer – A brochure that is designed with a mailing panel included so that it can be mailed without an envelope.

Sound bite – A brief statement or bit of information that describes a person’s business; also known as his 30-second introduction or elevator speech.

SPAM - An e-mail message sent to a large number of people without consent, also known as junk e-mail. Spam is usually sent to promote a product or service.

Stylebook – A book giving rules and examples of usage, punctuation and typography.

Subject line – The line on an e-mail message that says “subject.”

Tagline – An often-repeated phrase associated with an individual, organization, or commercial product; a slogan.

Target – To concentrate on ideal prospective client or group. Target audience/Target market – The ideal prospective client or group.

Three-color – Printed using three colors, such as yellow, red and black or red, green and blue.

Trifold brochure – A brochure, generally 8.5” x 11”, printed on two sides, that is folded into three, thereby creating a six-panel brochure.

Two-color – Printed using two colors, such as red and black or blue and green.

Varnish – A special finish that is applied to printed brochures that works like varnish on a table, preventing chips, scratches and smudges.

Viral marketing - Marketing phenomenon that facilitates and encourages people to pass along a marketing message.

White space – The area on a brochure or ad that doesn’t have printing or graphics on it.

You’ll find an even bigger list of terms in our ebook, Marketing Plan Essentials: Online & Off. For more details visit http://www.marketingideashop.com and while you're there, sign up for Brainy Tidbits, my free weekly ezine with tons of marketing and PR information.