E-CRM pluses and minuses at a glance

in this moment I’d like to explain the benefits and disadvantages of personalization, community building, and direct email in e-crm.

Personalization

(+)  customer friendly, emotional marketing, cater to personal preferences, on target, direct

(-)  expensive to maintain, customization level is very high, high understainding of each customer required

Community Building

(+) Social Activities, Broad Target, Active group feedback

(-) Expensive and difficult to maintain, involves a lot of parties, events held for community are sometimes expensive

Direct Email

(+) Cheap, direct, low level of message customization

(-) Can be ignored, considered as a spam, not-read by the potential target

Marketing Strategy in XBOX 360

Xbox is a well known game console ever. I'm going to explain a little bit about marketing strategy in xbox 360.
while it has to be competed with Playstation 3 and Nintendo Wii. Here is my perspective :

The key elements of Microsoft's marketing strategy for the Xbox 360
revolve around a direct to the consumer approach.  Unveiling the new
hardware to consumers on a primetime MTV special was a radical
departure from past practices, where game console manufacturers
debuted new hardware to industry insiders at the Electronic
Entertainment Expo.  Instead of relying on industry analysts to act as
evangelists for the new console until shortly before its launch,
Microsoft opted to attempt to freeze the market by making
consumers aware of its offering six months in advance.

The direct to the consumer approach is very different from past
industry practices.  Furthermore, by leading the industry into the
next generation of consoles instead of being a laggard, Microsoft is
seeking to compress the console product lifecycle and put pressure on
its competitors to innovate more rapidly.  Since Sony is currently the
category leader, but also has the oldest hardware in the marketplace,
Microsoft's strategy is especially geared toward beating Sony to the
next generation of consoles.  Microsoft has a much lower share of the
market and is much more interested in succeeding in the next
generation consoles than it is in the current one, so hurting its own
sales of the original Xbox is of little importance if it can
significantly decrease sales of PlayStation 2 and attract new
customers before the launch of PlayStation 3.

Microsoft also targeting women who live with male gamers.  By doing
this, they appear to be emulating Nintendo's strategy to broaden the
appeal of consoles to nontraditional demographics.

Microsoft was a very successful marketer in the 1980s and 1990s in
many respects because it was able to convince corporations that its
less technically capable and less innovative products than those
produced by others, such as Apple and UNIX, were nonetheless the best
choice for businesses operating personal computers.  Microsoft also
successfully convinced businesses to frequently upgrade software even
in the absence of major innovations.  On the other hand, more recently
the company has fallen into disfavor as its anti-competitive practices
became widely known and companies and consumers have become more aware
of its shortfalls.

To combat the impression that it is not an innovative company,
Microsoft is seeking to use the Xbox 360 as a means of changing the
public's impression of the company.  Whereas historically Microsoft
has let other companies develop new markets, such as Internet
browsers, graphic user interfaces, and gaming consoles, and then
entered late, the company is now seeking to lead the gaming console
industry.  The company also needs to diversify beyond PC sales into
gaming and other markets to regain its historically rapid growth.  Its
next-generation operating system has been significantly delayed, and
PC sales are growing very slowly.  Furthermore, consumers and
businesses are increasingly resisting upgrading its products every
couple of years.

Although gaming is a rapidly growing market, Microsoft's ultimate goal
is to provide the hardware and software "brains" for delivery of all
types of entertainment through consumer electronics.  Producing a
console with many capabilities that is viewed as being highly
innovative is critical to gaining consumers' trust so that they will
rely on Microsoft for more than just gaming and PC operations.  In
this regard, Microsoft's strategies fit well with the future issues it
is likely to encounter of continuing slow growth in PC sales and a
need to increase its growth through both gaming and receiving a
greater share of consumers' home entertainment expenditures.