Marketing

Marketing

                   In this weekly blog post I want to discuss how employers can benefit from marketing by posting job openings. An employer has to educate themselves on the right type of marketing to target the right type of employee. For instance if an employer advertises a job opening on Instagram, one could argue that their target audience is young between 18-30. Just as an employer who advertises on Monster or Indeed might have a better chance of reaching an older audience. If an employer wants to reach an older and broader audience, they could use the old fashioned print method. Also targeting other non-job related sites could be equally successful. I have seen Job postings at the bottom of Walmart.com and Amazon.com. A firm can benefit greatly by hiring the right marketing professionals that knows all these tricks and tips.

Guerrilla Marketing

Guerrilla Marketing

           

            The definition of guerrilla marketing is innovative, unconventional, and low-cost marketing techniques aimed at obtaining maximum exposure for a product. Recently big and small business have used guerrilla marketing. Although it is a technique historically associated with small businesses. If a small business can execute it well, it can be low cost but reach a high percentage of a targeted audience. Some examples of successful guerrilla marketing campaigns are The producers or the Blair Witch film, they created so much buzz about the movie. Then created a website and fictitious story line for the character The Blair Witch. They were just 4 college students who created this movie. Another successful guerrilla marketing campaign is Coca-Cola's Happiness campaign where the video was shot at St. Johns University, where cameras were hidden, to catch the reactions. The machine dispensed more than cokes. In fact the Happiness Campaign has been so huge for Coca-Cola that they are still using it now.

           The point is although guerrilla marketing can be a great way to gain brand recognition for small businesses, if big businesses use this type of marketing they stand a greater risk of a bigger failure and they have more to lose. They could lose billions for a campaign gone wrong. Whereas smaller business that get less exposure can quickly bounce back from a bad campaign. And even a bad campaign might still get their name out in the public for being so bad. I think big business should leave the guerrilla marketing to smaller business that do not have such a high marketing budget. 

 

Public Relations

               This weeks topic is public relations and how it relates to marketing. While researching the topic I learned that many businesses refer to PR as free advertising. This is not true because of the following reasons. Public relations is not advertising, and it is not free mainly because of the time consumption of it, it is actually very costly. PR uses intermediaries to influence and communicate with the target audience. Another key difference between PR and marketing is PR is personal. Normally in advertising there has been focus groups formed and or market research. But in dealing with PR, businesses deal with individuals and so the audience is anonymous. Instead of the mas communication that marketing uses, PR focuses more on icicles that deal with common interest.
              PR is precise but also less predictable than marketing. www.INC.com states "the reason for this is due to having to get the intermediary to comprehend your important message points and reiterate them in his/her messages. This means cautiously aligning them with the intermediary's messages. It will mean knowing his needs and your audiences needs and where your business and its messages fit within that environment."   

E-Marketing

               E-Marketing refers to any marketing done online through websites. There are many ways that a company can use e-marketing. Some companies use several different e-marketing strategies most often depending on their goal or their target audience. Some of these methods are social media, Facebook, Instagram,.etc. Also through the use of newsletters, text messages, and or pay per click ads or banners. 
               Also when engaging in e-marketing a few things are essential. Statistics have shown that a company should first have an online presence. This presence can be achieved via a website, an e-store, or a blog. This helps to navigate potential customers or the target market to your brand. This helps to explain the brand, give contact information, and make it easy for online customers to do business.  
                  

Pricing above the market

              Pricing above the market is an pricing method that some companies use. A company might choose to use this method for all of their products. Or they could focus on one product particularly. Examples of companies that use this pricing is Tiffany's. Everyone one generally knows that when you see Tiffany's signature blue box, not only do you know where the product came from. You also know that the product is expensive, which in consumers minds leads to a superior product. Tiffany's has achieved this with not only a single necklace, or a single watch but their whole jewelry line. Another example of this would be the car Ferrari. Even though Chevrolet makes very affordable cars to the top of the line Ferrari. Everyone knows when they see a Ferrari just how fast and expensive the car is. So the company has created brand recognition as long as pricing above the market. If we look at similar sports cars such as the Chevrolet Camaro these cars both have the same manufacture but offer two different experiences. Even though in 2016 most cars come with Bluetooth, reverse camera, daytime running lights, and a sunroof. Even if we put all the top of the line amenities into a Camaro it still would not compare to a unloaded Ferrari. Chevrolet can price a Ferrari above the market because they know they have a superior product and consumers are willing to pay for the superior high performance product.
          One thing I have noticed in my research is that brand recognition, brand loyalty, and pricing above the market go hand in hand.  If consumers have brand loyalty they will purchase a product regardless of the price. Such as the fans of Nike Jordan's. Obviously the shoes wont make you walk, run, or jump any better but consumers are willing to pay an above market price for these goods. Another example would be the grocery store Publix's. Publix's is known to offer an "experience". The store is well lite, clean, cool, and employees go above and beyond to be friendly. Consumers want to experience this, so they don't mind paying high prices for goods as opposed to Walmart. So in short if a company knows that it has a superior product or offers a superior service, they will be successful pricing above the market. But the minute that pricing does not equal quality consumers will no longer be wiling to pay the high prices. So companies must focus on always keeping their goods or service top of the line

Branding

          Branding is a big deal in marketing. Often times consumers might even forget the product all together but remember the pitch or the celebrity whom endorsed it. I have noticed the trend with retired athletes, celebrities, and even ones still working. Of course one of the biggest names that immediately comes to mind is Michael Jordan, and his shoes. Research shows that the Jordan brand grossed over $100 million dollars in 2015. This is just off the sale of his very popular shoes, not including his clothing and or his athletic gear. When those figures are added in Forbes estimates Jordan's' brand at over $1 billion dollars.
         Jordan's branding includes his icon logo of himself jumping with a basketball in hand. Now although Jordan did not invent shoes or clothing. He necessity that people must have, clothes and shoes, and capitalized on it big time. His deal to partner with Nike was the biggest deal in its time Nike offered Jordan a record $500,000 a year for 5 years and put many stipulations on this deal. Jordan would eventually over come all of the stipulations and become the household name that he is now, and arguable one of the most recognized brands in the world. Not only does he had record sales he has also created a 'cult' following with consumers lining up to get each new pair of his shoes ad 'collecting' them. 
        So if every company could follow Jordan's every move marketing and branding would be all a company needed. But there is no 'playbook' to Jordan's success. Some say it is simply everything he touches turns to gold.

Inventions before there time

             An idea that has been on my mind is inventions that were ahead of there time. I read about how many years ago Apple had the idea for the Ipad tablet. As I researched this, some reports say that apple had invented an Ipad prototype some 10 years before the Ipad first hit the market! Its hard to say when the right time is to release a product. I know there is research, study groups, and surveys that can be conducted. But how does one fully know when is the right time? I think if you have a great marketing team and flood the market with the product it could be successful. I can relate this to the idea of Tide Pods. Tide was the first company to invent the pods. They marketed it to not only women but men. Their slogan was "take the guess work out of laundry". They successfully convinced audiences that anyone could do laundry just add one tricolor pod and it had all the detergent, the pre-treater, and the stain remover in one and add it to  the laundry. I remember when they first hit the market we even received a small 5 pack sample in the mail to try along with a coupon for $4 or $5 off. (Of course now it would be unheard of to find a coupon for $5 off. But Tide hung in their and had great sales. I think partly due to the fact that the target audience was male and female. After some time of being the only pods on the market. Now when I walk down the laundry isle nearly every brand has pods. Nearly each brand offers a liquid, a powder form, and the new pod forms of their detergent brand. Five years ago who would have ever guessed that we would simply throw a small pod into a load of laundry and walk away? But Tide's research and development team did. Then they had a great marketing strategy.  Even now I still see the Tide pods advertised everywhere. This invention followed our new busy lives. The washing machine and dryer have become one touch and energy efficient and the laundry detergent has become one drop. Now if we could just get someone to market a way to fold the clothes! (which is my least favorite part of laundry)