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) 

impulse items

               One topic we could write about was impulse buying. An example of this is the items at the checkout counter. I see items like this all the time. As we stand in the long checkout lines we see the candy, chips, and cold sodas. As we stand there we impulsively want these sweet, salty, and cold items. Which most of the time never have a price tag on them. 20 ounce sodas in my area are $1.79 each, but if I were to visit the drink isle, a whole 2-liter soda is only $1.00. The same with the chips the medium sized bags are $1.49 but a whole huge bag is only $2.50. Often times there are more than just food items there. I have noticed that lately there are toys and coloring books for kids. Some isles even have the latest TV infomercial items. 

             

Capitalizing on an experience

            I picked 'write about an experience and how you can capitalize on it', as my topic. An experience that I have had several times that I think I could capitalize on is the experience at Subway and other similar restaurants. I would be very interested in changing the whole dynamics of the sub-sandwich market. Today's world is so fast paced that I feel like walking into a sandwich shop is too time consuming. Although I am not sure I think it effects sales. I have never been in a sandwich shop that was crowded. In fact its always the opposite, I might be the only one inside. 
         If I had the resources I would open one of these shops with a drive-thru window. I would also add on a Sonic like experience with a pull up and order service. But with customizable screens where customers can pick which topping to add to their sandwich and how much of each. Which includes an automated screen which shows the customer what their sandwich will ultimately look like. I am not sure why this idea hasn't been invented already.
 

Focus Groups

                 I picked the topic of how a focus group can help with marketing. I think a focus group should be part of any marketing plan or idea. I think focus groups help to understand and know your target market. Focus groups can help determine what is or isn't working for your product. Also what is appealing to certain age groups or demographics.
            I think that having a focus group can save money in the long run. A focus group allows time to be put into research and development. It would be detrimental to a company to launch a product or service without some type of focus group. What if all the money was spent on the product and branding it and marketing it but none on research. Then the product is just asking to fail and money gone down the drain.
          We have all read or heard about the stories of McDonald's using focus groups for new items. Some of which where homeruns and are still on the menu today and others that were total flops. With all that being said a focus group can not 100% determine what the product will do when it hits the market but it should be a step in every marketing matrix. Even McDonald's has suffered when focus groups have liked certain items then when they hit the market the item doesn't do so well. I do fell like it is a necessary risk that every company should take.

Where I keep my ideas

           I definitely have a journal where I keep all my million dollar ideas. I got the idea from a class that I took in my first semester of college. The class focused on successful inventors and people of that nature and how they had several ideas. How they would carve out time to do nothing but think in a quiet room for 30minutes a day. It talked about how famous inventors we know such as Thomas Edison to Bill Gates and lesser know people had several failed attempts before and after they created the inventions they are well known for. The class taught me so much, mainly never to give up. There was one inventor who jotted down something and it didn't work 10 years later when looking at the journal it still didn't work for what he needed but turned into something else the invention was the sticky note and the glue for it. The class also taught me to periodically look back at the journal to see if there is any new way I can tweak an idea. I learned that the best way to come up with an idea or creation is first to look at a service or product and figure out what's wrong with it. So for instance I could look at the laundry detergent pods that are all the craze now and see how I could better fix or tweak the product by looking at how they don't work in my life or in my friends life.
             Now I do take out the 30  minutes everyday and write ideas in my journal. I go through life now looking at how to change it or make it better. There have been times I have been away from my journal so I ill jot an idea down in my phone, and save it for when I get home, and transfer it over. I have also taught my son how to use and I encourage him to write in his creative journal everyday. I know that somewhere in there I have already created the next best thing!

     Marketing then vs Marketing now  

           After researching ads and doing some reading on the topic, marketing has come a long way since its early days. Depending on how far back we look early marketing involved things like an ad in local newspaper, or an ad on the radio at prime time. In early days especially pre-internet days, marketing was much more localized. Consumers could open a newspaper and see an ad for a local grocery store or a local good and or service. Even into the early 90s when not everyone had a computer in their home or if they did it was the slow dial up internet. Catalogs were very popular. This gave consumers access to products worldwide. I even remember tearing out the order form and mailing it in and having to wait 6-8 weeks for a product! I also think that in the previous decades of marketing, that the target audience was the mother and or father of the home.

         Now that the makeup of what constitutes a family has changed, marketing has followed suit. Television ads are geared more towards kids and teens, whom studies show have a tremendous effect on their parents spending, and trends. Marketing has become more mainstream. I noticed a new trend about a year ago. It seems that all the ads whether tv, radio, or print all have hip hop or urban music attached to them. Many ads include several different races of people. But everything seems to have urban vibes and settings to it. I caught my grandmother singing a song and when I inquired where she had heard it she had to think and replies "its always on the tv, I didn't even realize I was singing it, frankly I hate the commercial". Marketing now is big, loud, bright, and its everywhere! Nevertheless I am excited to see where marketing will be in 5 or 10 years. Where do we go next and will we finally be able to advertise on our flying cars?

          

Marketing ad

               Let me fist say with all the photo shopping that is available today I am not really sure if this is an actual sigh. But assuming that it is, how did no one catch this? The position of these two signs is awful. The top one is promoting health and discouraging childhood obesity, even by suggesting that the Food Stamp program may help. I can only assume by providing families with money for fresh fruits and vegetables, instead of fast food. Then directly below is a sign for McDonald's one of the biggest fast food chains in America. We know that too much fast food has been linked to obesity. This is a marketing fail. Whomever rents these signs should have a clause so this sort of thing will not happen. These two signs should be nowhere near each other.

              

marketing gone wrong

           

           This is a marketing ad that I found online. It is so wrong on so many levels. What is meant to be ad promoting equality among all races, was horribly messed up. The weird part is, is that all advertising ads have to be approved by many different people at different levels. How was this not caught by someone? I could only think that the "normal" refers to the Caucasian child. Ever race is normal. I hate that this ad was produced and even seen by one eye. I hate that somewhere someone assumed that normal refers to the Caucasian race. We are all normal, we are all Gods kids and we are all equally the same regardless of color or race.