@value2020 & posts

Hello all

You can follow me on Twitter @value2020.
Also you can read my posts at: http://value2020.wordpress.com/

Please keep in touch!

Farming Analogy to startups

If you're still trying to make sense of why some start-up firms really take off, some don't make as much money as they should and some become a part of your DNA...here goes - it's all to do with farming. A practice nearly as old as humans (except hunting, sex and prostitution), farming is where the answer lies. Or so believes Varun. Nice article. 
Read Varun's article here.

Keep up with the Blog please

Hi all

I know the final papers are in for all. Thanks to all who've been actively writing on this blog. This is a request to all of you to keep contributing to this blog...please keep writing. It's a great way of collectively cull info, share it and get others' views on it too.

I'm going to try...hope you will too.

Thanx again


Anuj

Are Consumers Ready for Mobile Marketing?

Smart phones means that marketers can develop a wider range of pull strategies. For example Smartphone applications such as Amazon price check and Google Shopper allow consumers in a physical retail to access promotional offers, reviews and price comparisons. With the use of Bluetooth and location based marketing there are real opportunities to improve the consumers shopping experience and it’s more timely and relevant for consumers. This helps to reduce “search costs” for the consumer. However, do all consumers want this?

Recent research in Canada on consumer attitudes to mobile marketing via Smartphones found:

-          Consumers want some level of control over the interaction. Consequently brand trust and consumer control via permission are necessary conditions of consumer acceptance. The more control consumers have the deeper the involvement. It should be a mutually beneficial relationship without being intrusive.

-          Younger consumers (18-24) are more open to receiving several marketing messages per day, regardless of whether incentives are provided or not. The majority would proceed cautiously and spend only small amounts (about $20) on mobile purchases.

-          Consumption patterns differ across age groups. Consumers 13-24 use their smart phones more for texting, taking photos, social networking and viewing videos. Older consumers 35-54 use their phones for email, maps, news and banking.

-          Not all consumers want discounts and are less price sensitive, some are more brand conscious and do not value price comparison information. Some consumers are impulsive and don’t care about reviews and price comparison information. Price sensitive consumers will find comparison shopping more beneficial.

Recognizing these differences will help to develop a more informed marketing strategyand applying many time tested marketing segmentation and targeting principles.

Persaud, A and Azhar, J (2012), “Innovative Mobile Marketing via Smartphones: Are Consumers Ready?” , Marketing Intelligence and Planning, Vol 30. Iss: 4

Sentiment Analysis of Internet Opinion

The past few years have seen an increase in the "sentiment analysis" industry, which is made up of different types of internet companies who specialize in tracking, monitoring, analyzing, and reporting internet activities, popular topics of the moment, key opinion leaders, as well as opinion trends over time. This type of information is valuable for companies concerned with managing the perceptions of their brand(s), for public relations and advertising firms, as well as for politicians and even for countries to gauge news and popular sentiment.

This Forbes article highlights how recent advances allow for more real-time monitoring of current sentiment, such as by monitoring activity on Twitter. Another recent article argues that businesses need better sentiment analysis. One of the challenges of sentiment analysis is training internet crawlers and bots to understand language tonality as well as nuance. In mining all the enormous amounts of data on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, news comments, blogs, etc, a great deal of interpretation takes place which may not be easy for a computer program to easily decipher.

Marketing Attribution -- assigns value to each channel

In our course we learnt about many online and offline channels to market. Number of channels keeps growing and marketing is becoming more and more complex. When a conversion happens which marketing channel gets the credit? For example, a consumer who is in the market to buy a camera, s/he viewed few TV commercials of Nikon, viewed few times display ads while reading Yahoo email, searched Google to research for Nikon models and clicked on few links and advertisements and discussed with friends on Facebook and saw advertisements on Facebook and then bought it on Amazon. For this sale, how to attribute which channel(s) influenced consumer sale? There is no accurate way to come up with an answer. But when we look at these data points across more customers, we can derive patterns of influence and attribute value to the channels. In the industry different attribution models and techniques are evolving to solve this complex problem. Using market attribution techniques marketers can optimize usage of their budget for greater ROI. I will give an example just to give a flavor of how a simple marketing attribution model works. In this simple example, say we have only 5 customers who converted and got exposed to four different channels that the product got advertized. In this table value 1 indicates customer has seen the advertisement in that channel and value 0 indicates customer hasn’t exposed in the channel. Here by looking at this table, which channel you give most credit? Most likely we say Google as most converted customers exposed to Google.

	TV	Google	Facebook	Display Ad
Customer 1	1	0	0	1
Customer 2	0	1	0	1
Customer 3	0	1	1	0
Customer 4	0	1	1	0
Customer 5	0	1	1	0
Total	1	4	3	2

Table-1: Converted Customers only data points

In Table-1 we just looked at converted customers data points. In table-2 we combine all people who are exposed to the advertisements. Just to simplify say we have only 10 people who are exposed to the advertisements and 5 of them converted customers that we already looked in Table-1 and 5 non-converted. When you see both the records, now which channel advertisement you think has more influence in buying our product?

	TV	Google	Facebook	Display Ad
Customer 1	1	0	0	1
Customer 2	0	1	0	1
Customer 3	0	1	1	0
Customer 4	0	1	1	0
Customer 5	0	1	1	0
Not Converted	1	0	0	0
Not Converted	0	1	0	0
Not Converted	0	1	0	0
Not Converted	0	1	1	1
Not Converted	1	1	0	0
Total exposed to Customers	1	4	3	2
Total exposed to non-customers	2	4	1	1

Table-2: Converted and non-converted customers data points

Answer is Facebook, because even though only 4 customers got exposed to Facebook ad, out of 4 three of them got converted. So facebook advertisement seems to have more influencing in converting the customers than other channels based on these data points. So we attribute more value to Facebook channel than other channels.  

In real world the marketing attribution problem is much more complex and data intensive and there are products specialized in solving complex attribution problems. These products use complex modeling techniques to calculate attribution to different channels and helping marketers optimize their usage of budget and gain higher ROI. 

For more details you could refer to

http://www.inc.com/casey-szulc/why-you-should-care-about-marketing-attribution.html

http://www.visualiq.com/wave-report-pdf-download  

brands discuss mother's day marketing on facebook

http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/brands-discuss-mothers-day-marketing-facebook-140049

1800-flowers.com took the opportunity to learn more about what their customers want on facebook.

With that data, 1800-flowers.com created a "Make Moms Proud" photo contest on facebook that asks users to vote on user-submitted photos of consumers with their moms.

I think it is a creative way to engage with the customer and build more traffic for the site. 

How to Keep Your YouTube Channel Relevant

Having recently created a YouTube channel for my Company, this post on iMedia Connection contains some helpful hints for starting a successful channel.  It also illuminates the fact that YouTube is not about the Company, it is all about the brand - and what can the brand do to keep customers coming back to your channel (and ultimately buying your product/service/offering).  

Social Profiling?

Several recent articles bring to light the gray areas and issues that emerge as technology advances forward at such a speed that leaves society and privacy regulations and guidelines playing catch up.

One interesting article, in Wired, explores how Klout scores influence job hunters, and another article, in Forbes, focuses on one retailer's data mining that can determine, with uncanny precision, who is expecting a baby (in order to send discount coupons for baby items in the hopes of a long relationship and CLV -- in some cases, coupons were sent before expectant parents had a chance to share the good news with friends and family).

A Washington Post blogger also probed into these and other cases to explore data mining and its collision with privacy.

In class we had discussed privacy of PII on the Internet, and the preference for industry self regulation.  When cases such as these emerge, we need to as an industry be prepared to track, evaluate and respond to  these challenges. 

Cross platform optimization and a good viewing experience across diverse screen sizes,key ingredients for successful mobile marketing

With the number of people viewing emails on a mobile device expected to shortly exceed the number of email views on a desktop, it becomes imperative for marketers to put special emphasis on mobile marketing. The plethora of devices, mobile operating systems and screen sizes, combined with the lack of any uniform mobile content viewing/publishing standards, makes mobile marketing a complex field. The returns though, once properly integrated as part of the overall marketing plan are there for the taking. It makes sense to give this emerging communication medium the attention it deserves.
For more details, please read this article-
http://www.marketingvox.com/email-marketing-mobile-will-overtake-web-based-email-this-summer-051031

Internet Marketing Strategies: Mobile Devices

Google Glasses Due This Year

http://noypistuff.blogspot.com/2012/04/google-glasses-to-change-way-we-see.html

http://www.csmonitor.com/Innovation/Horizons/2012/0223/Google-glasses-due-this-year-turn-seeing-into-searching

Projections indicate that mobile web users will exceed the number of desktop Internet users by 2014. Forrester predicts that one billion people will have a smartphone by 2016. Companies obviously need to find out what their consumer mobile needs are and meet them. Optimizing their websites is just scratching the surface. The marketing potential is huge when you combine websites, text messages and applications. Social medias such as Facebook have grown so much that they almost leap out of a simple application status into an integral part of the mobile device. In a society of instant gratification, many people don't want to wait to get to their home or office to get something they want, whether it be a service or a product. Well thought out applications and carefully planned websites meet consumers needs instantly. Businesses would be wise to keep studying their metrics and watch the data regarding how many consumers are accessing the company through mobile devices. The data gets larger and larger and the metrics get more sophisticated as we move forward. Facebook alone is compiling a huge amount of data. When your company creates mobile web related services that are easy to use and engaging, they meet their customers needs instantly. Now that is sound marketing and great customer service.

-David Langone

References:

http://www.mobilitytechzone.com/lte/news/2011/10/18/5864468.htmhttp://businessonline360.com/best-facebook-marketing-strategies-for-2012.html

http://www.esacramentomarketing.com/facebook-and-twitter-will-dominate-mobile-advertising

http://www.hebsdigital.com/blog/hotelier’s-2012-mobile-marketing-must-dos-and-don’ts/

http://www.v3im.com/2012/02/mobile-marketing-1-billion-smartphones-by-2016/#axzz1u7gIJ2YL

Facebook faces massive discussions on privacy issues in Europe

With Facebook's IPO on its way, I would like to share some information about the ongoing discussion about the social network's privacy issues from a European perspective.

European countries like Germany and Austria are known for its very strict data protection laws. This of course is also true for any other country that belongs to the European Union. Because of these strict laws, a firm is very limited in the use of its users’ data, especially when it comes to use the data for marketing purposes. To address the growing concerns about privacy, the European Commission has implemented an additional layer of protection through its European data protection law as well as a Data Protection Commissioner (DPC). The DPC is legally responsible for privacy for all users within the European Union.

Countries that are members of the European Union have created their individual and local data protection laws, which are based on the European Union’s Data Protection Directive of 1995. The member states of the European Union have very differently implemented this set of rules, which resulted in “divergences in enforcement”.

It is important to point out that under “EU law, personal data can only be gathered legally under strict conditions, for a legitimate purpose. Furthermore, persons or organizations which collect and manage your personal information must protect it from misuse and must respect certain rights of the data owners which are guaranteed by EU law.” Thus the user has to explicitly agree to any use of his data and also has to be informed about how the data might be used.

In an effort to further strengthen the protection of personal data, the European Commission recently proposed “a major reform of the EU legal framework on the protection of personal data. The new proposals will strengthen individual rights and tackle the challenges of globalization and new technologies.” The European Commission considers the protection of personal data to be a fundamental right. Because the way a user’s data is collected, accessed and used has profoundly changed within the past few years, this comprehensive reform of the European Unions’ data protection rules of 1995, has become a necessary step. The goal is to also unify the currently very differently implemented data protection laws within the European Union to one single law. “A single law will do away with the current fragmentation and costly administrative burdens, leading to savings for businesses of around €2.3 billion a year. The initiative will help reinforce consumer confidence in online services, providing a much needed boost to growth, jobs and innovation in Europe.”

As you can imagine these laws make it more difficult for companies like Facebook to enter the European market and comply with the rules. Companies can’t just run their business the same way as they are used to within the US. Especially Facebook has recently been confronted with major privacy concerns and is under investigation by the DPC. A small group of Austrian students has recently formed an initiative called “Europe versus Facebook” and filed a total of 22 complaints (!) about the US-based company for violating the data protection laws within the European Union. The following statement from the initiative “Europe versus Facebook” shows how difficult it must be for Facebook to comply with the rules of the European Union: “In a first report the Irish DPC has listed numerous measurements Facebook has to comply with in order to improve its compliance with the Irish and European law. At the same time we think that this only brings Facebook in line with the law for maybe 10%. We are right now fighting for the other 90%.”

If the European Commission decides that Facebook is indeed violating its rules, it could become a major problem for the US-based company. The necessary changes that are currently in discussion could force Facebook to implement major changes in its technological backend that seriously could limit its functionality in one of its most important markets. It is very interesting for me that I have not read a single word about this ongoing investigation and its potential threat to Facebook in any US publication so far. The Facebook public relations team is obviously doing a great job in keeping potential investors happy, before the highly anticipated IPO takes place. I guess that Facebook will have a lot of work to do to satisfy the European Commission and in order to not be penalized like other US companies before (in 2004 Microsoft had to pay a fine of almost 800 million USD in the Microsoft antitrust case). But what are 800 million USD when you can afford to buy Instagram for one billion USD ...

Nike's new marketing mojo unleashed a digital revolution

With the UEFA European Football Championship just around the corner (it takes place from the 8th of June to the 1st of July 2012 in Poland and the Ukraine), it is very interesting to take a look at the marketing strategies of the leading brands in the sports equipment industry.

I recently read a very interesting article in FORTUNE magazine (yes, the traditional printed version) about "Nike’s new marketing mojo". The article reports about a top secret division at Nike's headquarters that has been created with one ultimate goal in mind: to engineer a revolution in marketing. And this revolution takes one of the "world's greatest marketers" that has always had a massive presence in traditional media channels like print and TV, to a new and very online focused marketing approach.

As discussed in class, companies are shifting larger stakes of their marketing budget into online marketing. In this regard it is noteworthy that Nike has cut back its spending on TV and print advertising in the U.S. by 40% in three years, even with its total marketing budget reaching a record high of 2.4 billion USD in 2011. In 2010 the company spent almost 800 million USD on nontraditional advertising (including SEM, SEO and social media), a number believed to grow in 2011.

With a series of newly introduced products – like the performance-tracking wristband called "FuelBand" –  that enhance the sports experience through collecting and providing the user with data on his workouts, the world's largest sports company (sales reached 21 billion USD in 2011) has access to a vast amount of data about its users, enabling the company to interact with its consumers through personalized websites and mobile apps more closely than ever before. The company is replacing its one size fits all traditional advertising campaigns with a "repertoire of interactive elements that let Nike communicate directly with its consumers". At recent global events like the 2010 Football World Cup the firm debuted its legendary ads not on TV but launched the films on Facebook and other websites, generating a viral effect with global impact.

The already mentioned "FuelBand" is another good example for Nike's new approach: While I have not seen any traditional commercials about the new "FuelBand" yet, Nike's efforts in the digital world made me watch this short-film that was inspired by the product's claim "Make it count". The film instantly went viral on Facebook and already has more than 5 million views on Youtube. What a great way to introduce a product and generate buzz about this new Apple-style gadget.

From my point of view, it makes a lot of sense for Nike to focus on the digital channels because it gives one of the biggest consumer brands a personal touch again. To be able to interact with a brand on a customized level will be one of the most important parts of future marketing plans.

Companies quit blogging. How about targeting Millennials?

Recently I have read an article in USA Today “More companies quit blogging, go with Facebook instead”[1]. The article revealed that more and more companies tend to quit using blogs as one of their marketing tools at the favor of traditional social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter or Tumblr.

As indicated in the research of the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth[2] the number of top companies being involved in blogging activities dropped from 50% in 2010 to 37% in 2011. The study further reveals that only 23% of Fortune 500 companies kept up with a blogging in 2011. On the contrary, this number was steadily rising in previous years. 2011 was, thereby, the first year when the figure remained flat. The reasons why blogging does not seem to appeal as a useful marketing tool to businesses include dropping consumers’ interest in blogging at a favor of social media sites.

The Pew Research Center[3] revealed in their study that in 2010 the percentage of adults between 18 and 33 (Millennials!) interested in blogging dropped by 2 points in comparison to 2008. OkCupid, for instance, whose blog has been graded as one of the 25 top ones by Times magazine[4] stopped updating its content in April 2011. Thus, companies tend to shift from blogging towards social media sites as they believe they can reach more customers there. For instance, a spokesperson of Bank of America, T.J. Crawford stated that they stopped using blogs as marketing tools since they preferred to focus on their social media strategies as the company “(…) want to be where our [Bank of America] customers are”. Customers are reached faster there and more data on them is obtained.

Companies have a tendency to fail making blogs attractive to consumers as, as indicated by Lou Hoffman, CEO of the Hoffmann Agency, and information displayed there tends to be dull as they attempt to use blogs for informative purposes rather to create a band community. Such an approach is a missed opportunity for some companies who could use blogging for (1) generating leads or (1) creating more brand loyal consumers especially from the Millennial Generation.

Millennial Generation, called by Nick Shore[5]  in his 2012 MTV study “Generation Innovation”, are people born between 1980s and 2000s. Born with the presence of the Internet, these are creators, entrepreneurs and innovators that have a deep desire to connect with their fellows through forums, festivals, happenings, co-working spaces and others to fulfill their relatively strong need of belonging and sharing ideas. They are tech-savvy and impatient. In the interview, Shore mentioned that they “have a lot of emotional heft”. The way to market them is to create messages which are “meaningful, quick and shiny”[6]. Indeed, social media addresses all these aspects. Since the Millennials are aging, they are likely to get jobs with higher disposable income which makes them more affluent and more valuable to businesses as they can spend more on their goods[7]. With Millennials of being a part of a group, blogs pose opportunity for marketers. This is as blogging could further feed these consumers with emotional data (emotional marketing, so e.g. anything related to causes) to create a brand community which they would value and become loyal to. This, however, could be of a benefit if the content of such blogs would be indeed meaningful and shiny to them.

References:

---

[1] Yu, R., 2012. More companies quit blogging, go with Facebook instead. USA Today. Available at: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/story/2012-04-19/corporate-blogging/54419982/1 [Accessed on May 5, 2012]

[2] University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, 2012. Latest news. Available at: http://content.usatoday.com/topics/topic/University+of+Massachusetts+Dartmouth [Accessed on May 5, 2012]

[3] Keeter, S., Taylor, P., 2010. Millennials: A portrait of Generation Next. Paw Research Centre. Available at: http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/files/2010/10/millennials-confident-connected-open-to-change.pdf [Accessed on May 5, 2012]

[4] McCracken, H., 2011. The Best Blogs of 2011. Time. Available at: http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2075431_2075447_2075478,00.html [Accessed on May 6, 2012]

[5] Katz, J., 2012. Exclusive Interview with MTV Insights on Generation Innovation with Nick Shore, Future Trends LinkedIn Group. Post from April 24, 2012. Full interview available at: http://megamashup.tumblr.com/post/21713959127/exclusive-interview-generation-innovation-with?utm_source=LI&utm_medium=NMM&utm_content=BL&utm_campaign=MMMFT04242012 [Accessed on April 24, 2012]

[6] Millennial Marketing, 2012. To engage Millennials, Be Meaningful, Quick and Shiny. Available at: http://millennialmarketing.com/ [Accessed on May 5, 2012]

[7] Brand Amplitude LLC, 2012. Look Who’s A Millennial Now. Marketing to Millennials. Available at: http://www.brandamplitude.com/blog/item/look-who-s-a-millennial-now?category_id=18 [Accessed on May 5, 2012]

Clorox leveraging mobile marketing to target Moms

Mobile marketing has four unique factors that make it a powerful tool to attract new users and to drive purchase behavior- immediacy, relevance, utility and spatial. More and more shoppers at brick and mortar stores are using their smartphone as part of their purchasing process- with the benefit of knowing where the consumer is (for example McDonalds in Finland emails a mobile coupon when a customer is near a outlet, with click to directions to the restaurant), and when the customer is near a location, a relevant promotion with a clear and easy call to action, can have a high conversion rate.
To see how Clorox is doing this, please read-
http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1009021
  

Data Privacy: Cloaking Your Internet Presence

The recent New York Times article "How to Muddy Your Tracks on the Internet" is timely in connection with last week's lecture on data protection and privacy policies.

If you happily live and breathe in the giant apps and features world of Google and Facebook and have no concerns about staying logged in as your activity is tracked, this article is not for you.

If you have any privacy concerns about protecting your digital footprints in the form of your email, search, browsing/purchase behavior or large data transfers, this article addresses current options we have, some of which are free and easy to implement. 

Advice ranges from the simple such as switching up providers (e.g., use Google for search and another provider for email) to setting up your own domain name with email or your own email server.  You can also use free browser add-ons such as Ghostery that block tracking data, use search engine “duckduckgo” which does not track or ‘bubble’ you, or pay to shield your IP address and encrypt data transfer using VPN services or the free but slow option Tor.

In the end, people are knowingly or unknowingly providing furtively collected electronic data that the author states can “be stored, analyzed, indexed and sold as a commodity to data brokers who in turn might sell it to advertisers, employers, health insurers or credit rating agencies.”  There may be no widespread concern today, but the article ends on the note that companies like Google “may have the best of intentions now, but who knows what they will look like 20 years from now, and by then it will be too late to take it all back.”

Your thoughts?

Companies struggle to manage customer feedback on Twitter, Facebook

Though companies realize the potential of social media marketing (SMM) in the acquisition, conversion, retention and growth in customer lifetime value (CLV), in reality most corporations are able to only respond to 20% of their customer's/ prospects dialogue. As a result, the true potential of SMM is not being realaized. Some of the causes are- being inundated with comments/feedback, not having an effective way to sift through the noise and get to the "meat" and/or having no process to collect, categorize and respond in a timely way.
For more details, please read-http://www.bizjournals.com/houston/blog/socialmadness/2012/04/houston-seminar-to-help-companies.html?ana=e_du_wknd&s=article_du&ed=2012-04-21

In my opinion, this is a good business niche for a company to utilise technology to automate this critical function and to monetize its collation, review and response technology. Some companies in Austin like Social Dynamx and Socialware have taken up this challenge. I am sure that we will see some more entrants take a step in this direction- Onward & Upward.

 Social Networks in Costa Rica

Costa Rican businesses are increasingly relying on social networks to gain visibility, attract potential customers, and engage those who are already their customers even more.  Social networks have become relevant.    

According to Latinpyme (http://www.pymesdecostarica.com/2011/08/7-claves-para-sacar-provecho-de-las-redes-sociales/)  businesses should keep in mind seven strategies when using social media:

 1) Interact. Social interaction should be fed by answering messages, leaving comments, uploading pictures of your product, and share information about coming events. This will create visibility and encourage potential customers to like your products.

 2) Keep your contact list updated and available in the cloud. An organized list is important to foster effective business relations.

3) Create online exclusive promotions to make your visitors/fans/followers feel that they really matter.  This will help creating visibility to your product/service and building loyalty in the long run.

4) Use the “create event” and calendar free tools to promote campaigns, and make the target population feel more. attracted to your product/service.

5) Accept criticism. - A prominent feature of social networks is that they are living things. Users can and should have a say at all times; therefore, it is necessary to learn how to tolerate criticism, and treat comments with the greatest respect.

6) Avoid becoming a “spammer”. Spamming is disrespectful, damaging and will make you lose credibility and respect. (Check: 5 ways to avoid becoming a spammer (http://www.businesscomputingworld.co.uk/5-ways-to-avoid-becoming-a-spammer/.

 7) Risk. - You do not have anything to lose in social networks. The only requirement is spending some time.  Communicating with your customers from social networks can be done without spending money. There are many effective free social media tools available that can be useful to implement your marketing strategy.

When used correctly, social media tools will help your business acquire new customers, help maintain current customers and improve customer loyalty, develop and improve brand awareness, increase leads, sales, and ultimately profit.

4 Google Analytics updates you should know

Now that we are in  process of getting done our Internet marketing project and the we have to think and work about the metrics that we have to use to measure the success of our campaigns I found this article very interesting about Google Analytics.  The article shows the latest changes done by Google to the tool.  Improvements? maybe. Or maybe more confuse? yes that could be too. But what is more important they updated the tool to show how important is advertising, the real time results, the SEO insights and even better integration with Google +.  What a great move... or is it? Now they can handle almost all data related with our site...

To check the 4 updates in detail go to 4 Google Analytics updates you should know
Enjoy

Mobile is expected to overtake web-based email this summer

With predictions of more people viewing and reading their emails on mobile phones than on computers, marketers who want to leverage this growing communication medium have to create marketing content specific for mobile devices- it is not enough to have a website which can be viewed on a mobile phone, as the content, layout, formatting and images will not display correctly. Savvy marketers will specifically design, create, test and optimize their mobile websites, mobile emails and videos differently than they would for their online communication as the form factor is totally different. The way we consume media on a mobile device is different to the way one consumes it over a desktop or laptop- as a result, the approach of creating once and publishing on multiple devices and in multiple formats, may not yield the anticipated results.
Read complete article here-
http://www.marketingvox.com/email-marketing-mobile-will-overtake-web-based-email-this-summer-051031/?utm_campaign=newsletter&utm_source=mv&utm_medium=textlink&utm_term=continuereading

For Brands, Social Media shows returns but Measurement Hurdles Remain

As expected when companies' give an avenue to their customer's to provide feedback and engage with its products using social media like Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare, they see market share gains and improvements in sales and marketing efforts. The lack of a standardized measurement metric, though makes it diffucult to quantify the specific gains in brand value and ROI when one integrates social media marketing as a component of one's overall internet marketing plan.
http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1009011&ecid=a6506033675d47f881651943c21c5ed4

Apple next move towards total market domination

Apple has just released that they are interested in starting their own mobile network.

http://www.knowyourmobile.com/blog/1350431/apple_looking_to_build_its_own_mobile_network.html

This is something to look into as Apple's marketing strategy has always been - many products, one umbrella.  That it has the ultimate monopoly/control over the products and the market.  Apple's previous move like this was the iCloud campaign to link up all of its products with one cloud server - so its laptops, ipods, iphones and ipads can all communicate with each other seamlessly.  Now, this might be the next move to asset itself as the true technology titan that has developed a modern form of vertical integration.

New Call of Duty Revealed

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=kqOjoYRgnHs

One of the most successful gaming franchise in the history - Call of Duty, has just released its new edition.  With already a serious following, CoD (as what players call it), has taken up a new direction - more futuristic theme.  Would this affect the already disgruntled fan base that has been criticizing last year's Modern Warfare 3 release? I know many players still has not bought last year's release, because of the unsubstantial improvements in game play and fun factors. 

But what CoD has, is a great marketing team that really feeds off the holiday frenzy every year, by amping up the hype in the summer and releasing the game in mid-November. (right before Christmas).

Want to Create an Infographic?

I haven't tried this free service, but if you're interested in publishing infographics, you might give it a try.  http://create.visual.ly/

TV viewers increasingly interact with social media

A recent Accenture study amongst 1,000 American TV viewers over the age of 18 showed that 64% of US consumers recall seeing social media symbols which watching TV. They recall seeing Facebook "Like" symbols (42%), QR codes (28%), Twitter Hashtags (18%) and Shazam symbols (9%). A smaller portion of 33% of audience took a step further and interacted with the symbols while watching TV by "liking" the TV show on Facebook (20%), scanning a QR code (11%), searching the Twitter hashtag (7%) or scanning the Shazam symbol (5%).

Young people have a lot more interaction (18-24 years - 63%) compared to the older generation (55-64 years - 24%), which is somewhat expected. For 74% of those who interacted with social media their expectations were met.

So what does this mean? I think to a large extend these results are caused by a higher percentage of the population using social networks. As they are familiar with them they connect social media to other areas of their lives. According to Robin Murdoch from Accenture "This has huge revenue growth potential as social media applications build program viewer loyalty and drive online advertising opportunities." I think as the boundaries between TV and Internet streaming video continue to blur there are opportunities for developing richer media to simplify interactivity while watching TV. Visions of tapping on the shirt of your favorite actor and immediately ordering it have existed for a while and are still a bit far fetched. However, the direction is clear that people enjoy the interactivity when it is easy, as they find it adds value to their lives.

[1] 2012 - U.S. Consumers Receptive to Social Media Appearing on Their TV Screens, According to Accenture Study, Retrieved from http://newsroom.accenture.com/news/us-consumers-receptive-to-social-media-appearing-on-their-tv-screens-according-to-accenture-study.htm

Groupon as an Internet Marketing Tool

The rise of Groupon has been a real blessing for a lot of companies trying to establish themselves in their local markets; especially family-owned businesses that are trying to establish their brand and increase sales.

As Professor Roberts has mentioned in lecture, it is important for a company or business to establish visibility of their products and services in order to get the results they’re looking for. Until and unless your target market is aware of what you are offering and how that may benefit them, you will not succeed as a business.

Even in this day and age, where everything revolves around the Internet, most small businesses would put off going online with their business until they’ve established themselves. This is primarily due to the costs associated with launching a website and maintaining your online presence. As a consumer, I believe first impressions on the web matter a lot. If I go online and find that the website for a business is poorly maintained and doesn’t add value, I would be put off by it and probably wouldn’t visit the site again. From a business standpoint, I believe it’s a lot harder to fix or cleanup a bad website than it is to launch a proper user-friendly website from scratch.

So how would a small business that doesn’t have an online presence get the word out that it exists and offers a valuable product or service? You could go the conventional route of advertising in newspapers and magazines or airing television and radio commercials. But how effective would that be? And, more importantly, how cost-effective would that be for a small business with limited resources?

For small businesses, or new businesses in general, the goal is to establish your brand, to get the word out and increase traffic at your store, restaurant, etc. Even if a company decides to go online right away, designing and launching a good website may take several months and cost a business thousands of dollars. So what can it do in the short-run to get the word out, increase traffic and start making money to get the company off the ground? Enter Groupon.

Firstly, what is Groupon? “Groupon features unbeatable deals on the best stuff to do, see, eat, and buy in your city. By promising businesses a minimum number of customers, we secure discounts you won't find anywhere else. We call it "collective buying power"! “. [1]

In a concise manner, Groupon explains how it benefits both businesses and consumers from its service. Groupon offers online coupons that provide consumers with discounts to various retailers, restaurants and services that are normally hard to find anywhere else. Consumers can enjoy a host of things from authentic Italian food to a Chinese massage to flight lessons all within your neighborhood and all offered at deep discounts. For businesses offering these discounts, Groupon guarantees a minimum number of customers within a reasonable timeframe, which would result in increased sales for that business.

There are two distinct benefits small businesses get that use Groupon:

1. Increased visibility: as mentioned above, it is imperative for a business to make aware its target market of what products and services the business offers and how that will benefit potential customers.
2. Increased sales/market share: by offering deep discounts on its products and services, the business can still ensure it realizes a profit but will surely increase sales, thereby increasing profits, and be able to capture a larger market share.

Increased visibility is crucial for a small business to increase its customer base. Whether it’s a small restaurant offering fine dining or a local mechanic offering skilled labor for a fair price, the business cannot succeed until and unless it establishes itself in the market and continually gets new customers. New customers are the lifeline of any new business and the quicker it can establish that the more success it’ll enjoy over time. By offering deals on Groupon the business is tapping into over 115 million subscribers worldwide.[2] Of course, for a small business, they would be reaching their local market. Nevertheless, that number would still be much more significant than what it could reach through other mediums. Not to mention Groupon guarantees a minimum number of customers, which would make it much easier for the company to measure the response they received from any given Groupon deal.

The second benefit received by using Groupon is the ability to increase sales and market share. By offering deep discounts the company is more likely to attract new customers to try out its products and services. Take a new restaurant for example. It is often hard for high-end restaurants to get new customers unless it’s by word of mouth or positive reviews, on Yelp for example. But a new restaurant offering dinner for two at half the price it normally charges will get more customers to dine there and try what they have to offer. The restaurant can then retain those customers by offering good service and good food. A one-time discount can get more customers to try out your products and give the business the opportunity to make a strong case for itself and ensure they keep those customers.

Increased market share is another big benefit often overlooked. Take two equally priced and quality restaurants in the same neighborhood. One restaurant has been around for ages while the other is trying to establish itself. It would be mighty hard for the new restaurant to capture some of the market share until and unless it provides an added benefit. The consumer needs something to make up for the uncertainty of what he or she may get at the new restaurant versus going to an established eatery where they may have gone several times. Offering a deep discount through Groupon would solve that problem and allow the new business to capture some of the market share quickly.

Groupon has helped numerous businesses over the years and as a Groupon subscriber I can admit that I’ve come across a lot of local businesses I wouldn’t have known about otherwise.

For a small business starting out new or trying to establish a brand, Groupon can be a great business partner and help the company promote its products and services.

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[1] 2012. Groupon – FAQ. Retrieved from: http://www.groupon.com/faq#3.

[2] 2012. The Realtime Report. Groupon Doubles Subscribers in 2011. Retrieved from: http://therealtimereport.com/2011/08/12/groupon-doubles-subcribers-in-2011-but-only-20-have-made-purchases/. 

How Social Media Can Help Small Businesses

Most, if not all, large companies use social media as an Internet marketing tool. There are clear advantages of doing so and large companies make a conscious effort in maximizing those benefits to give them a competitive advantage.

A lot of small companies, on the other hand, haven’t realized the potential of social media and how it can help them grow and sustain their business. Two of the main social media outlets today are Facebook and Twitter. Each is different in its own way and offers unique benefits to businesses. Following are top 3 reasons why every small business should utilize these social networks to help their business.

Facebook allows companies to set up a fan page where they can present the company to millions of Facebook users and show off their products and services. With a little bit of time and effort a company can setup their Facebook page and enjoy the following benefits:

1. Helps drive traffic to your website: a fan page on Facebook allows your company to share news and promotions about upcoming products or services you’re offering. An active fan page with daily updates helps you keep your target market interested and engaged. Facebook encourages companies to share their website’s link on the fan page for easy access. This helps fans and other visitors on your page to be able to visit your company’s website with ease and explore what you have on offer. Even if your business gets a small portion of the daily Facebook traffic to visit your website, you’ll be able to increase your current webpage traffic. With increased traffic, you’ll be able to establish your brand of products and services more effectively and increase sales, which is any business’ end-goal.
2. Better search results: a Facebook fan page is like having a secondary website for your company. It also means that there’s a better chance of your content being found on search engines. Search engines such as Google and Yahoo often look for content on social media that may match a user’s query. If your website doesn’t show up through a search on Google directly but your fan page does, it’ll help you drive that traffic over to your website. Furthermore, Google has introduced Social Search[1], which is designed specifically to search social media like Facebook for content a user may be looking for. Your fan page would be included in such a search and will allow your business more visibility on the web.
3. Customer service: in an earlier blog I wrote about the importance of customer reviews and how positive reviews can help a company sell more product. I also mentioned the importance of handling negative reviews effectively since failing to do so can result in lost customers, both existing and potential. Maintaining such a feature on your own website is costly. Namely, having a discussion board or feedback page can result in more work in not only maintaining such a page but also following up on the traffic you get there. With a Facebook fan page, half of the problems and costs simply disappear. Although I would still personally recommend allowing customers to leave feedback or rate products and services on your website, a fan page can help you engage with your customers at another level. A Facebook fan page allows visitors to leave comments on your wall, upload photos and videos and share your content with their friends – all done at no cost to the company! By allowing such access to your fan page you’re able to connect more effectively with your customers. This can help you attain feedback on promotions, products, services and the overall customer experience. Such feedback could lead to new ideas and offers that can help you boost your sales and overall customer satisfaction.

Like Facebook, Twitter has a lot to offer businesses of all sizes. Twitter allows you to connect with your customers and business partners more actively by sending and receiving updates as they happen. It’s the perfect compliment to a Facebook page and provides the following benefits:

1. Establish relationships with your customers and business partners: a Twitter account can help you connect with your customers and business partners and establish a relationship that would otherwise be hard to do. With millions of people already a part of the social network your company’s presence would be an open invitation to all who may be interested in what you have to say. A business can easily tweet about product announcements and promotions it may have to keep customers up to date. Or it may share news and updates with business partners to keep them informed of new developments. It allows the company to be able to constantly communicate with its followers and establish a relationship that can be converted into sales.
2. Cost-effective approach: Twitter offers a company the opportunity to share information on the go without limitations. You may have hundreds of tweets per day sharing information about the company and its products. Any other avenue of sharing such information would definitely cost a lot more than a free Twitter account. Not to mention it may not have the same outreach as Twitter does. The only cost to the company would be the dedicated personnel overlooking their company account and making sure they remain up to speed with their account activity.
3. Driving more traffic online: like Facebook, Twitter allows companies to drive more traffic to their website. But unlike your Facebook fan page, you could share updated links on your Twitter feed as regularly as you like. You could also direct traffic to specific parts of your website, for example, if a special promotion was taking place for one product you could share the link to that product’s page on your website and increase traffic there. With increased traffic you’re more likely to increase sales of that product or service. And with the available online tools you could easily measure the effectiveness of your tweets and how much traffic they’re driving for any given promotion. The ability to share links with your followers and drive traffic to your website would certainly help increase sales and overall success of the company.

For the reasons mentioned above, it is clear that social networks such as Facebook and Twitter can really benefit a company reach out to a larger market and establish a brand more effectively.

With a little effort and some creativity, small businesses should introduce themselves online and utilize social media as an Internet marketing tool to realize their potential and achieve their goals.

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^1.       2012. Google Official Blog. Introducing Google Social Search. Retrieved from: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/10/introducing-google-social-search-i.html.