Second dot-com bubble crisis?

3 tips for smart marketing strategy help you conquer it!

Everyone desires to be the next Facebook or Google. Millions of online business starts in a year. Are we going through a second dot-com bubble crisis? Most of the start-up looks at the successful billion-dollar acquisition of Instagram, and the stunning IPO process of Facebook. But on the other hand, most of them end up with zero revenue or less profits.

The question is: how to succeed? Or should we ask: how to market your online business?

The answer would probably lie on how you understand your customers, and what you define as the best way to approach them? Many of us put most of the efforts on online marketing because it is the battlefield where we think we are in. On the other hand, some may argue that we can never underestimate the power of offline marketing, such as posters and direct mails. These two opinions don’t need to be either right or wrong. It just depends on what your product is and how you communicate with your consumers.

Here are 3 tips for you to initiate an effective marketing plan:

1.     Know who your customers are: It’s not just about who they are, but also where you can find them and what kind of issues they care. I mean, to REALLY UNDERSTAND them.

2.     Be contextual: After you know where to approach your customers, remember to make your communication message be contextual with the environment. Making it contextual so that people want to look at them.

3.     Show the benefit: Address the benefit directly and make it relevant to your customers. They want to know how your product would help! The best reason for them to be interested in your product is to show that you are the right solution for them. Show them why they should care. 

      

      Casey Lin is a Medill IMC Graduate student at Northwestern University. She is very enthusiastic about marketing, especially in technology industry. Follower Casey on Twitter  @Caseylin_NW.

Phones: not just for talking, now for shopping

Groceries & clothes, sporting goods & furniture, with a slide of the finger and a tap of a button, users are going to their phones for these purchases. Think it’s not your product their shopping for? I would think again.

Last time I spoke about the strength of eCommerce for retailers and the benefits it serves to the customers. However, we can’t stop at the desktop; it’s now time to move to the hand. And, seeing that 5.9 billion out of the 7 billion people (87%) worldwide already have mobile phones, it makes clear sense to start going mobile.  Not to mention, mobile commerce is expected to experience significant growth by 2015 from the six previous years — jumping 99-fold from $1 billion in sales in 2009 to more than $100 billion. 

In a recent study, 59% of smartphone users believe that it is as least somewhat important to be able to buy something using the device. So, let’s help them! Let’s take the shopping online. There are apps for coupons, comparison shopping, and apps that allow users to shop from your store through a different community and people are using these, addictively! Pair your mobile shopping experience with the apps that are already on the phones, and watch the sales come-in. In addition, 77% percent of people use their phones for searching, and 9/10 of those searches result in an action, i.e., in-store visit, purchase, etc. I want to make sure those actions are taking place with your company.  

Last week I highlighted three key steps to creating a leading website shopping experience from the computer, and many of those rules stand for mobile shopping, as well. But, people don’t want to shop on their phones from your computer based website, so there need to be adjustments. Below are three simple steps you can take, to make sure customers are shopping from you all the time.

1. The most important first step is to create a mobile-friendly shopping website. Your goal is to make the mobile version of your website as inviting and easy to use as your regular site, while taking into account the constraints of mobile devices. More info here

2. Products: To add to user experience and satisfaction, the mobile version should also offer them other features such as full product specs with quality photos included. More info here

3. Mobile Checkout: Because mobile Web transactions are often done in public, people feel even less secure about entering credit card and other personal information. Integrating a professional checkout service that stores this data online can make a big difference. More info here

Your shoppers are on their phones: playing games, checking Facebook, text messaging friends—why not take advantage of the addiction to the smartphone and make a sale. Implementing a thoughtful mobile shopping experience is not only going to benefit the customer, it will in turn benefit your ROI and you will look smart doing it.

Annie Kessler is a graduate student in the Northwestern Medill IMC marketing program and has a passion for digital and interactive advertising and marketing. Annie will be graduating in December 2012. Annie can be reached on twitter using the handle @asugark 

How to secure the leading position in technology industry?

Market the future concept to show ambition and know the consumers more. 

Technology industry is now competitive than ever. Innovations happen every moment. Biggest challenge for marketers in technology industry: how to help a brand to secure its leading position in the industry? Show the ambition and understand your customers.

Released on April 4^th, Google’s “Project Glass” shows its ambition of future technology. It has already generated 14 million views. Is it a good timing to market the unfinished product – say even a conceptual product? For most of us, as marketers, what we really want to figure out is what does Google want from this marketing campaign? The answer is simple: Consumer feedback and brand image enhancement.

Google is not the only one to pursue this strategy. Microsoft and Samsung unveiled their own conceptual video as well – Microsoft in 2019 and Samsung 2015. Find anything in common among these three cases? Yes, they are all leading companies in the industry. The goal above the line is to show off the company’s capability and creating a blueprint of future life to consumers. Companies want to show to the consumers that they own the industry and is capable to offer the consumers a better future life.

Is there any hidden goal behind the campaign? Those leading companies can look deeper into consumers’ response through this kind of campaign. Project Glass has already generated 14 million views and both positive and negative comments. From all the comments, Google can understand more about the consumers’ imagination towards the future life and see whether the company’s future blueprint will fit or not. By understanding the negative comments, Google is able to identify which kind of technology is unrealistic for consumers and drop it in their future plan.

Marketing in high-tech industry, what can we take advantage from Google’s Project Glass?

1.     Brand image enhancement: If you want to impress the consumers and strengthen your brand image as a leading brand, unveiling your blueprint is not a bad way. Take the inventor spot as quick as you can to impress the consumers.

2.     Creative idea is a must: If you are a marketer, it’s time to come up creative ideas by leveraging the future technology. Get the sense about what consumers expect and how you can utilize the technology as marketing tools.

3.     Take advantage from consumers’ feedback: Listen to the consumers is always the key. Show them your ambitious and listen carefully to what they respond. It would help you to readjust your blueprint.

      Casey Lin is a Medill IMC Graduate student at Northwestern University. She is very enthusiastic about marketing, especially in technology industry. Follower Casey on Twitter  @Caseylin_NW.

Market Data Studies: Not a Problem Any More.

Obtain Cheaper and Faster Results.

Google has revolutionized us again? Traditional market research is an expensive and long process. We know that many of our interviewees don’t want to answer long surveys and/or answer in an inappropriate way. Google has made an important change in how data is been collected. With Google’s new tool, you can create online surveys and have answers in a very fast and easy way about your clients. With Google’s tool business decisions are made faster and with the same accuracy as with old methods.

Benefits

Market research is now easier; you don’t need to hire a lot of people for the research since Google provides you with the templates, finds your interviewees, and aggregates the data. With Google Consumer Surveys you will be able to produce timely and cost-effective results while still maintaining much of the accuracy of pre-existing surveying techniques. This new method will help you to gain insights about your customers, save time, and take more efficient and effective business decisions by analyzing aggregate data.

This tool provides both a new way to perform Internet surveys and a new method for publishers to monetize their content. Therefore, this new tool involves three different groups of users: researchers, publishers, and consumers. According to Google, “Consumer Surveys provides a new way for researchers to perform Internet surveys, for publishers to monetize their content and for consumers to support publishers.”

How it Works?

According to Google, companies create an online survey with existing templates. Then, customers complete questions to access premium content. Google Consumer Surveys runs multi-question surveys by asking people one question at a time. This results in higher response rates (15-20% compared with an industry standard of 0.1 - 2%), more accurate answers, and respondents may be more representative due, to the short survey length. Consumer Surveys infers approximate demographic and location information using the respondent’s IP address and DoubleClick cookie. Then, publishers get paid as their visitors answer. And finally, companies get aggregated and analyzed data.

Stop losing you time and money, and talk with your market research team. As soon as this new tool is incorporated to your market research, you will start receiving the benefits. I encourage you to visit http://bit.ly/I2v8Tt and http://bit.ly/J5ccZJ to learn how to use this new tool. Remember, it will help you to know more about your customers, reduce your costs, and increase business decisions’ accuracy, regardless of the size of your company. So, what are you waiting for? 


Paula Fuentealba is a graduate student in the Northwestern Medill IMC program and is specializing in digital marketing and e-commerce.  Paula will be graduating in December 2012.  Paula can be reached on twitter using the handle @PaulaIMC.