VMEdu Welcomes You to the Post-Capitalism Era

It has been said that we are exiting the post-capitalism era, and we weren’t even aware of it. We can thank this monumental shift to advancements in technology. Many terms have been thrown around in regards to what sort of economy we have ventured into—such as the sharing economy or frictionless economy—but what path are we really following?

In a recent article we discussed what exactly the frictionless economy is. The frictionless economy centers around companies that provide platforms on which suppliers and buyers can do business directly. Uber, Etsy, and Fiver are just a few of the hundreds of companies that have sprung up in the last decade offering people the ability to be a “self-entrepreneur.” 

According to Alex Chriss, vice president and general manager at Intuit, “What we find so exciting about this trend is it’s solving what has traditionally been the number one challenge any entrepreneur or small business owner faces: finding customers. We’ve seen millions of small businesses struggle to find their next customer – and this struggle has set a bar, a hurdle for entrepreneurs to jump over. Technology is lowering this bar.”

But what about the sharing economy? Companies such as Airbnb and City CarShare allows owners to rent out something that they are not using. This has generally been sharing a house, car, or bike, but the only constant in technology is change, so this sharing could expand to new avenues. Each sharing-economy styled company provides users with ratings or reviews, so that trust is built on both sides of the transaction.

So, which economy are we really entering? One thing that we have learned from technology is that there are no limits. So, why would we limit ourselves by believing that we are entering just one sort of new economy? It seems to be that we are entering various economies that will create branches rather than one straight path. VMEdu gives professional trainers and educators the ability to be a part of both the frictionless AND sharing economy, with its Learning Management System (LMS). The VMEdu Authorized Content Partner (V.A.C.P.) program is one of the finest adult learning platforms available. The V.A.C.P. program is for anyone looking to create online adult learning courses for any subject and in any language. 

As a partner, you can create and upload your courses with the user-friendly VMEdu Course Builder. You can also run the courses on your website for free. Course materials can include videos, test questions, flashcards, glossaries, case studies and more. 

Once your courses are uploaded via the VMEdu Course Builder you have the option to sell them to the VMEdu network of more than 750 Authorized Training Partners (V.A.T.P.s) in 50+ countries. Having the support of such a strong network will help you reach a larger number of potential consumers in a shorter amount of time. 

The V.A.C.P platform gives you the ability to sell your own courses, do business directly with customers that have been provided for you, and be your own boss in addition to hosting your courses on your own website to share with your contacts. This program equips you for whichever future economy becomes our reality.

You can find more information on the VMEdu V.A.C.P. program at www.vmedu.com/Benefits-of-VACP.asp

Get the SMstudy, not Nuts

When creating a brand for your company do not use an American celebrity to shoot chocolate bars at innocent bystanders. Apparently Mars, the company who produces Snickers chocolate bars, did not get the memo.

In July of 2008, Snickers UK launched a commercial starring Mr. T, an American actor and one determined (and brave) speed walker. In the commercial, Mr. T crashes through a building, in what appears to be a supped-up pickup truck, and pulls up alongside a young man wearing tight yellow shorts. Mr. T proceeds to open fire with what appears to be a Gatling gun, pelts his victim with Snickers bar “bullets” and yells, “Speed walking?! I pity you fool. You a disgrace to the man race. It’s time to run like a real man.”

The commercial was pulled after just one week.  The Human Rights Campaign, the largest LGBT civil rights advocacy group, criticized Mars for spreading, “the notion that violence against LGBT people is not only acceptable, but humorous.”

Mars could have avoided this marketing failure by taking a look at Marketing Strategy, book 1 of the SMstudy Guide®. According to the book, “Brand perception refers to how prospective and current customers react to seeing or hearing about a company’s product or brand and how the company is perceived within the market. Leading organizations across industries realize that a powerful brand is one of their most important business assets, so they work hard to maintain a positive brand perception as it helps to increase sales and improve profitability.”

This was the second commercial in a three-part campaign entitled, “Get Some Nuts.” Mars had envisioned Mr. T as the face of the Snickers brand, but instead they were branded the company with the face of homophobia. Snickers could have avoided this issue by performing surveys as explained in Marketing Strategy. “Brand perception can be measured using a variety of approaches, but it is mainly measured via research surveys that question participants about the perceptions of the company and/or its products. Surveys typically gather quantitative and qualitative data. They are conducted to help companies understand how their brands are viewed in the market and to identify the brand attributes that are preferred by customers.”

The intention of the “Get Some Nuts” campaign was to target men and their masculinity. In order to be a real man you need to be tough and aggressive like our good ole pal Mr. T. Mars could have avoided yet another blunder by sticking to Marketing Strategy. As stated in the book, “Once a company has identified all market segments, explored the competition, and then compiled the details of competitive products, it should then analyze the various segments and the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats faced by the company in order to identify the target segments in which the business would be most competitive. This process involves identifying the type of customers a company plans to target and the product categories under which it intends to create products.”

In this case, the campaign did not just humiliate homosexual men, which makes up 1.8 percent of the male population, but also men perceived to be “wimpy”. The campaign only targeted men that are rugged and tough, which does not help a company when it comes to forming target segments.

Companies can benefit from providing their employees with the knowledge that can be found in the SMstudy Guide®. If only Mars had been aware of what a Sales and Marketing certification can do for its company, they may have eluded a very big marketing fail.

For more information and resources about Sales and Marketing visit SMstudy.com.

There is Always Room for Improvement

When faced with a difficult task, do you instinctively fight or flight? If you lean toward fighting, you are considered to be a member of the population with a “Growth Mind-set,” a term coined by Carol Dwerk in her 2014 TED Talk, The Power of Believing You Can Improve.

Dwerk defines the “Growth Mind-set” as people who see an error and attempt to fix it. People that believe “abilities can be developed, they engage deeply and process the error, learn from it and correct it.”

Sales professionals are constantly facing new challenges  In order to address them, they must tackle them head on, and at the same time, learn from the process, whether the outcome is a success or failure.

Training is a key element of Corporate Sales. It is essential for the corporate sales team to be thoroughly trained in their job function and be very knowledgeable about the products or services they are selling. This is required in order to capitalize on sales opportunities, capture the maximum value for sales, and maintain positive relationships with customers. Corporate selling relies heavily on person-to-person relationships, and well-trained sales personnel are better equipped to initiate opportunities, communicate the value of a product or service and close sales.

In order to be considered a sales professional, there are two styles of training that must be mastered: Sales and Negotiation Training and Product Training.

The focus of sales training is to generate gains in individual sales. Sales training covers the entire range of processes, tools, and skills required—from prospecting to closure. Negotiation training helps the sales teams understand the dynamics of the negotiation process, minimize conflicts, and arrive at mutually beneficial outcomes. Effective negotiation can promote lasting relationships between a company and its customers.

Product training is equally important for the corporate sales team. Product training equips the team with the skills to effectively address customers’ technical concerns, communicate the value proposition, assess needs and answer questions. Product training transforms the corporate sales team from simply sales representatives to solution providers or consultants for the customer.

The two styles of training are defined as:

Sales and Negotiation Training- In this form of training process, the sales team is trained in the sales process, from prospecting to closure of the sale. The team is also equipped with the necessary skills to negotiate the sale to arrive at mutually beneficial outcomes.

Product Training- In this form of training process, the sales team is trained on the various products and services of the company in order to effectively communicate the value proposition, answer customer inquiries, and provide ongoing support to customers.

Training is important for existing corporate sales team members as well as new recruits. However, it is particularly important for every new member of the corporate sales team to undergo thorough training before being fully inducted into the sales team. 

Just because you have yet to learn the skills needed to excel in the professional world of corporate sales does not mean it’s time to engage your flight response. Keep your focus on the word “Yet.” You are not there yet. But with the help of SMstudy, you can learn how to process an issue, learn from it, and correct it. It’s all about the fight.

To read more articles about sales and marketing, visit http://www.smstudy.com/articles

Sources:

Carol Dwerk, “The Power of Believing you can Improve,” 2014. https://www.ted.com/talks/carol_dweck_the_power_of_believing_that_you_can_improve?language=en#t-338450

Paying Attention: A New Metric for Advertising on Mobile

Since the demise of newspaper’s great hegemonic grip on advertising, news media minds have been banging their big brains together, trying to come up with ways that not only monetize their content, but also generate some of the sweet ad revenue they used to have the luxury of enjoying. This is, of course, much harder in the infinite space and freedom of the internet. (limited space and information gatekeeping was a true friend to print news)

It’s been a bit of a slog and news outlets have been in “trial and error” mode for a while and still haven’t quite gotten it fully figured out. That being said, over the last year or so, user trends have been offering great nuggets of insight that are changing the way marketers and news sites are adapting to trends in mobile news consumption.

The landscape for mobile news outlets was important enough to make it to the front page of The Pew Research State of the Media 2015. What was the big deal? That 39 out of 50 legacy news outlets get more traffic from mobile devices than from desktop computers!  

Full list (stats provided by comScore)…http://www.journalism.org/media-indicators/digital-top-50-online-news-entities-2015/

In the digital-only “newsscape,” a similar trend was noted.

The report states, “similar to the larger list of top 50 digital news entities, just a minority of these digital-only sites, 11 in all, had audiences that spent more time with them via a mobile device than a desktop.”

Here’s the complete list of digital native sites... http://www.journalism.org/media-indicators/digital-top-50-digital-native-news-sites-2015/

This preference for mobile news consumption is only mildly tempered by the fact that longer times were spent on news sites when being read on desktop computers.

Nevertheless, it matters.

Believe it or not, tracking consumer behavior has been one of the main problems with news outlets and marketers alike when considering ad dollars for mobile. Now we know that people are preferring their mobile devices for their news both while in on-the-go situations as well as in the down time of “Netflix and chill” moments.

In addition, we appear to be in a “mobile ad desert” where despite a rapid increase year over year in mobile advertising spending, there’s still a gap between advertising dollars spent on TV and other marketing channels and those spent on mobile. It seems that marketers haven’t quite picked up on the huge leap mobile viewership has taken. As an example, Adobe Digital Index reported in July 2015 that media has risen by two hours a day over the last five years, but advertisers have been slow to respond.

The article states, “Just as internet advertising once experienced a lag between the number of unique users and advertising spend, a gulf now exists between the growing amount of time consumers spend viewing content on mobile devices and the relatively small investment brands are making in the channel. But it’s just a matter of time until the numbers match.”

When confronted with new information, a new approach is often required. And this positive mobile news usage data begs for new solutions.

One of the more interesting examples of calculating an accurate measure was put forward by the Financial Times. The FT has switched to a time-based metric, one that places attention front and center in their value assessment. Other news outlets are also recognizing the truer value of an attention-based metric, as well. I’ve begun calling this the “after the fold” ad as it appears when I’ve stayed on a story long enough to show I’m committed. This strategy bets squarely on the contents ability to hold attention. And so far, so good.

Although various solutions abound, no silver bullet has yet been discovered (and perhaps never will). Serious impediments to accurate metrics (and hence, the flow of ad dollars) include bots that inflate the numbers and the easy accessibility to, and preference for, ad-blocking. This trend is particularly noted among millennials. 

But even so, a new approach based on time as opposed to volume (number of clicks) could be the way forward for news outlets. Getting a handle on what they have to offer marketers may be the thing to lead news outlets out of the red and back into the black.

For more on sales and marketing, visit smstudy.com.

Sources:

The Pew Research State of the Medial 2015 http://www.journalism.org/2015/04/29/state-of-the-news-media-2015/

“How mobile metrics fall short for news outlets and advertisers,” James Breiner, July 13, 2015 https://ijnet.org/en/blog/how-mobile-metrics-fall-short-news-outlets-and-advertisers

“Is Digital Advertising Ready to Ditch the Click?”  Michael Sebastian. September 29, 2014. http://adage.com/article/media/digital-advertising-ready-ditch-click/295143/

"ADI: Advertisers Must Prepare To Follow Increasing Eyeballs On Mobile Video,” June 21, 2015. http://www.cmo.com/articles/2015/6/21/adi-advertisers-must-prepare-to-follow-increasing-eyeballs-on-mobile-video.html

“When Will Mobile Marketers Move Beyond Basic Measurement?”  June 15, 2015 http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Will-Mobile-Marketers-Move-Beyond-Basic-Measurement/1012600?ecid=NL1001#sthash.B8b4GxdM.dpuf

Reach New Heights with Your SEO: 2016 Trends and SMstudy Guidance

There are, on average, 12 billion web searches conducted in the United States EACH month. This ginormous figure highlights (and underscores) the importance of where your online content appears in search engine results and what can be done to improve a site’s ranking on search engines such as Google, Yahoo, etc.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of modifying online content to improve its “searchability”. The SMstudy Guide®, Digital Marketing book describes SEO as an optimization of a website through editing, tagging or coding pages in order to improve online traffic.

The book states, “The objective is to ensure that the site appears in search engine results for the keywords that are most relevant to the business. SEO also involves removing any barriers that would prevent search engines from indexing the site, as well as promoting the site to increase the number of backlinks or inbound links.”

Since its rise to prominence in 2010, Search Engine Optimization has been evolving at a brisk clip and 2016 will be no exception. As we close out the first month of the new  year, two important SEO trends are beginning to come into focus.

Trend #1

In 2016, the lines will blur (even more) between social media content and traditional web content. As social media content is now being indexed by the search engines Google, Yahoo and Bing, the chances of social media content coming up in search engine results has greatly increased. This is good news for marketers, but it will require greater focus on incorporating SEO best practices into social media marketing. 

Brian Honigman, CEO of Honigman Media explains “Today, links are mainly achieved through developing original content that is in turn, shared across social media. Links to your content on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, YouTube and other social networks help the search engines understand what websites are credible and should be ranked for what keyword phrases.”

Trend #2

Consider these two statistics regarding mobile use:

1. Four out of five consumers use smartphones to shop.

2. 70% of mobile searches result in an online action (such as a purchase).

With the continued increase of smartphone use, it’s no surprise that the latest Google algorithm update nudges mobile-friendly sites to the top of its search results. This is a clear indication that focusing on optimizing mobile content is now just as important as optimizing web content.

In more general terms, SMstudy’s Digital Marketing suggests optimizing website responsiveness to ensure easy viewing on mobile devices. The book goes on to suggest, “Maintain a separate mobile site since mobile users prefer websites in which content can be consumed on a smaller screen and on the go; provide only relevant content: and maintain a light mobile site to ensure faster loading the mobile site.”

For more articles on sales and marketing, visit smstudy.com.

Sources

SMstudy Guide, Digital Marketing, pgs. 77-78.

“Eight Ways Social Media Affects SEO”, Brian Honigman, Sept. 11, 2013. http://blog.sumall.com/journal/8-ways-social-media-affects-seo.html#ixzz3yTSPgOWt.

“From Brick-and-Mortar to Mobile Click-and-Order: Which Retailers are Carving Out Space in the M-Commerce Market?”, Sarah Radwanick Lead Corporate Marketing Manager, Sept. 19, 2012. http://www.comscore.com/Insights/Press-Releases/2012/9/Retailers-Carving-Out-Space-in-the-M-Commerce-Market.

“70% of mobile searches result in an online action…within one hour”, Ahmed Ahmed, Dec. 20, 2012. http://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/70-mobile-searches-lead-action-within-1-hour-infographic.

“Search Engine Optimization Stats,” Hubspot.com, http://www.hubspot.com/marketing-statistics.

The importance of product positioning to the marketing strategic planning

Product positioning is a very important tool for an effective marketing strategic planning. Product positioning creates an image of the company’s products in the mind of consumers, highlighting the most important benefits that differentiate the product from similar products in the market. Product positioning involves identifying points of parity and points of differentiation that enable a company’s product to both meet market standards while offering consumers additional value on key dimensions such as quality, innovation, price, leadership, and functionality, among others.

Product positioning starts with identifying the specific, niche market segments to target e.g. not just working professionals but single working professionals of age group 25-30 years, having an annual income of $50,000-$60,000, and enjoy adventure activities. After segmenting the target market by demographic and psychographic attributes, marketers must understand customer needs. With well-defined target segments, product positioning enables a company to meet very specific needs of a particular market segment, offering value that may not be provided by competitors.

Marketers must keep an eye on the competitiion while considering positioning elements of their marketing strategy. An effective positioning must convey a message to customers why this company’s product should be preferred over the other competitor’s products of similar nature. In other words, the company should not go by the flow of the market i.e. copying what the competitors are doing rather they need to stand out from the crowd by offering distinguishing or differentiated product attributes and other value added services.

The next stage is how to communicate the differentiated offerings to the identified niche market segments. This is possible by selecting the appropriate communication channels that are tailored to connect with their identified target audience when they will be most receptive to these messages. Say for example, a sports car manufacturer position their products through communication via television advertisements during sports events like formula one. They also use print media by running full page high resolution color ads in sports magazines.

It is important that the business incorporate the product positioning across all facets of the business, including manufacturing and customer service in order to ensure consistency of the positioning from the consumer’s standpoint. Further, the positioning must not only align with other divisions and with the current corporate objectives, but also provide long-term sustainability and remain relevant for product variants and for future market scenarios. Using strong product positioning is a key component to the success of the Marketing Strategy and to meeting overall corporate objectives.

To learn more about the product positioning, visit SMstudy.com.

SMstudy : Your Way Up

When you leave the sales floor, where do you want to go?

Some people will just head to the lounge for a cup of coffee, but others will advance to new positions in marketing and management. What will make the difference?

Recently, the U.S. Department of Education began finding ways to encourage, facilitate and fund student participation in “alternative certifications.” As America and the global community moves to meet the needs of twenty-first century business, this is seen as a move to help training schools and companies that prepare students for professional certifications. The move is toward certified professionals that business and industry can trust.

There are many certifications available to programmers, project managers, automobile mechanics and more. Now there are certifications designed for professionals in sales and marketing. These certifications and complementary training come from VMEdu, Inc., the global training company that has trained more than 400,000 students worldwide. Through its association with SMstudy it offers a range of certifications in six Aspects based on the six most common and often distinct career fields related to Sales and Marketing.

For those who want to move into helping companies develop plans for making their products and services dominate the marketplace, SMstudy offers four certifications in Marketing Strategy. SMstudy says that marketing strategy makes the difference between startups that last beyond the start and those that falter a few steps down the track. These certifications lead to management-level careers and opportunities.

For those who have the desire to harness the power of the Internet and social media, SMstudy offers certifications in Digital Marketing.

And for those who like to know the inner workings of what makes people buy what they buy, there’s a path from a Marketing Research Associate certification to Marketing Research Expert.

Training and certifications are also available in Corporate Sales, Retail Marketing and Branding and Advertising.

More than 30 percent of the American workforce and similar percentages worldwide are involved in sales and marketing either directly or indirectly. It is an exciting field that drives every industry, business and profession. Training and certification organizations such as SMstudy can help retail clerks become sale professionals.

For interesting articles about Sales and Marketing, visit www.SMstudy.com/articles

The Office Turntable Puts a New Spin on Music Promotion

It’s the age old question for rock bands everywhere: how do you get jaded, hardened music critics and advertisers to listen to your jams when many (in fact, most) CDs and MP3s submitted will immediately be allocated to the circular file (a.k.a the trash can)?

In a brilliant play to persuade the taste makers to take a listen, the German electronic music label Kontor Records utilized mobile technology and a whole lot of groove to promote one of their artist’s latest singles.

In 2015 Electronic music artist Boris Dlougosch’s single arrived in offices as a vinyl album, which in itself gets high marks on the cool scale. But it gets better. The album arrived with its own 2-D cardboard player and instructions for downloading an app that allows the listener to play the album with their smartphone. Yes, you read that correctly…the vinyl album is played with a smartphone! A virtual needle allows listeners to skip through the track just like on a real turntable.

Check out the video…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Xg1pzEF3HTw

As the Office Turntable shows, mobile apps can be used in highly creative ways. But mobile apps of varying creativity levels and other personal devices are a large part of a company’s digital marketing strategy.

Digital Marketing, book 2 in the SMstudy Guide® states that since an increasing percentage of consumers use the Internet on-the-go, having a mobile version of a website helps a business reach out to consumers across all devices connected to the Internet.  

Novelty in marketing is a tried and true way to grab attention and create interest in a company’s product or service. TheSMstudy Guide®, Digital Marketing book supports this idea when discussing innovative internet-enabled business models.  It says, “The growing popularity of the Internet, smartphones and digital media provides opportunities for a company to not only use fragmented new-age marketing effectively to promote existing products, but also to come up with innovative business models where product demo, customer acquisition, and order fulfilment can also take place online.”

 In the case of Back to Vinyl: The Office Turntable marketing campaign, old school vinyl and new school technology come together to give a truly novel music experience that also allows for careful tracking on engagement. According to Kontor, of the 900 mailers sent out, they’ve had a 71 percent activation rate, which they claim is a 64 percent increase above their average. Sounds like they’re on a roll.

In a League of Their Own: The Snapchat Story

When creating an online presence, one of a marketing team’s initial steps is to explore the various digital marketing channels available that will maximize the reach of their products or services. Given the nature of the online world, which is constantly evolving, new channels are developing with greater frequency, and audiences are continuously exploring new sources of online content. Knowing this, marketers must continually assess digital marketing channels for their effectiveness.

To identify the most effective marketing channels for an organization’s products or services, marketers spend a considerable amount of time identifying and understanding the dynamics of all available digital marketing channels and evaluating these channels relative to their company’s overall organizational goals and objectives.

When first moving into the digital marketing realm, it is common for a company to veer towards Facebook and Twitter, considering their global reach. And if so many companies before them have done the same, why not follow the crowd, right? Wrong!

Snapchat is the place to be. Seriously. And here’s why…

According to Adage, “Snapchat entered into a niche that's so forward because it's catered towards a generation even its creators didn't understand. It's not that the user interface is complicated, it's that the user interface doesn't even exist. It makes assumptions about its users preemptively and doesn't care if it's shutting out an entire generation.”

The niche generation Adage refers to is the Millennials. If Millennials are your target market, which by the way, they should be considering a recent piece by Entrepreneur stating that 89 percent of Millennials use social media, then exploring Snapchat should definitely be considered.

In the initial stages of researching digital marketing channels, a company’s marketing team identifies target customers in the digital space to understand their likes, dislikes, perceptions of the company’s brand, its major competitors, their digital needs related to the brand, and how the brand may fulfill these needs. All of this information, along with Documented updates of current trends in digital marketing, should be recorded for future reference. But, how does this data lead to a successful ad campaign directed at a target audience? Exploring the many social media platforms that can engage a target audience is a good start.

Snapchat offers brands the opportunity to create their own account allowing them to be followed by their customers, but the app has also paved the way for Snapchat influencers to have great sway over their followers. Influencers, in general, are people that have extremely large social media followings and are paid by companies to advertise their brand. The use of influencers has proven to be a smart move, since, as noted by Jay Baer, president of Convince & Covert “only 33 percent of people in America actually follow brands”

In the end it’s all about reach. The more people you can reach in your target audience the better, so it is important for a company’s digital marketing team to explore all options. Maybe even if that means stepping out of their comfort zone and focus on a new avenue for social media marketing. Based on the low level of online brand loyalty, companies like Snapchat have thought outside the box to offer innovative ways to reach target audiences without a company having to push to gain followers.

For more interesting articles visit SMstudy.com

Sources:

“To Big Brands, From a Millennial: Snapchat Filters Are Where It’s At,” Jillian Hausmann, March, 28 2016. http://adage.com/article/digitalnext/steps-brands-sponsor-snapchat-filters/303288/

“The Real Generation Gap: How Adults and Teens Use Social Media Differently,” Kathleen Davis, August 26, 2013. https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/228029

“11 Shocking New Social Media Statistics in America,” Jay Baer. http://www.convinceandconvert.com/social-media-research/11-shocking-new-social-media-statistics-in-america/

Targeted Advertising using Facebook

Sales and Marketing has evolved significantly over time going from the Barter System of 1000 years ago to Traditional Marketplaces, Seller’s Marketplaces, Conventional Mass-media Marketing, Fragmented New-age Marketing to today where Internet enabled business models have helped marketing evolved further.

In the past through our blogs, we’ve touched upon this evolution. In this blog, we will focus on the internet enabled modes of marketing specifically Facebook Marketing. With most customers now continuously spending their time online, businesses globally have understood the value of targeting them through the online mode. While the traditional methods of targeting i.e. TV, Radio, Newspapers etc. help is reaching to a larger audience fast, they are ineffective in terms of targeting a specific segment of the audience.

If a business wants to target a specific audience segment, you need to create a customer persona and then set-up filters to target and find the relevant audience. To target relevant audiences, Facebook helps you segment your audiences using these filters:

• Location: Reach customers by City, Country, even Postcode
• Demographics: Target people based on demographics like age, gender, relationship status, education, workplace and more
• Interests: Define your ideal audience by their interests, hobbies and Pages they like on Facebook. This may be based on their listed interests, activities, education, job titles, Pages they like or groups to which they belong.
• Behaviours: Reach people based on their purchasing behaviour, device usage and other activities

Besides these regular segments, Facebook has two advanced filters known as Custom Audiences and Lookalike Audiences.

Custom Audiences: Custom Audiences let you reach customers you already know with ads on Facebook. If you have a customer list or data from your site, such as purchaser email addresses, you can upload a list of email addresses or phone numbers of at least 100 people to get started. You can also build audiences from the people that visit your website or from people who use your mobile app. You can create a maximum of 10,000 Custom Audiences for those from your website or mobile app.

Lookalike Audiences: Lookalike Audiences helps you create new audiences based on traits from one of the following sources:

• Custom Audiences: Upload a list of your existing customers using Custom Audiences. Then use Lookalike Audiences to find people who resemble that audience.
• Website visitors: Install a Facebook Pixel on your site. Then create Lookalike Audiences based on people who've visited specific pages on your website.
• Page fans: Use Lookalike Audiences to create an audience based on people who like your Page.

One Step Ahead of the Game

The goal is to never go out of business, right? But how do you ensure your company stays in the black? Sure, it may take blood, sweat, and tears, but the to ensure you don’t go under to notice market trends and be willing and able to flow with them.

“I wake up every morning and think about how I can put myself out of business,” says Gary Vaynerchuk, CEO of VaynerMedia. What Vaynerchuk means is that every day he puts himself in his competitor’s shoes and thinks, “How could VaynerMedia be put out of business?” And the answer is simple really, be one step ahead of the game which is possible by performing a market trend analysis.

According to Marketing Strategy, book one in the SMstudy® Guide series, “A market trend analysis is an analysis of past and current market behavior and dominant patterns of the market and consumers. An important aspect of conducting a trend analysis for an organization is to obtain insight into the market scenario, consumer preferences, and the macroeconomic environment.”

Vaynerchuk stated that companies such as Uber and Airbnb should never have even been created. Not because there was no market for them, there was and we all know it, but because taxi and hotel companies should have capitalized on the market shift first before Uber and Airbnb has the chance to swoop in and snatch up a healthy chunk of their respective markets. By performing a market trend analysis, companies such as Hilton and Yellow Cab would have seen where the market was headed and could have predicted and evolved with the market.

Taxi companies blame Uber for putting their companies out of business, but they failed to do what Vaynerchuk does every day —look for trends in the market and adapt to them.  

Jon Nordmark, co-founder of iterate, singled out the online retailer Amazon as a good example of an innovative company that has evolved with the continuing development of technology. Not only have they surpassed other American online retailers by sixfold as of 2015, but they have also nudging into Fedex’s turf thanks to their Amazon Prime delivery options.

Since its Inception, Amazon has become complete lifestyle. It is a one-stop-shop for not only retail items, but they have also moved up to number eight on Forbes “The World’s Most Innovative Companies” list due to Echo, a wireless speaker and voice command service first launched in 2015.

Echo has it all: it plays music, answer questions, orders pizza from Domino’s, manages home security devices and air conditioning through voice control and will even request an Uber. Summing up Echo, CNET stated, “The Echo may be the closest thing we’ll have to a Star Trek computer at home.”

It may be nice for a company to feel comfortable, but it can lead to complacency. Instead companies should be looking forward to what is coming next. You never know if and when some college student in San Francisco might create the next best thing that fits just right in this evolving market and an existing company might miss its chance!

For more interesting articles visit SMstudy.com

Sources:

Forbes, “The World’s Most Innovative Companies,” 2015. http://www.forbes.com/innovative-companies/list/3/#tab:rank

Gary Vaynerchuk, “Uber and Airbnb Never Should Have Happened the Way They Did,” May 13, 2016. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/uber-airbnb-never-should-have-happened-way-did-gary-vaynerchuk?trk=hp-feed-article-title-channel-add

Jon Nordmark, “Amazon Ecosytem Lock-In = Prime + Echo+ 2lemetry,” May 12, 2016. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/amazon-ecosystem-lock-in-prime-echo-jon-nordmark?trk=prof-post

Mac v. PC: Distinct image, Distinct Choice

When purchasing a computer, a person will most likely ask themselves; Mac or PC? Well, in 2006 Apple released a series of commercials addressing that very dilemma. The “Get a Mac” campaign made the answer to that question crystal clear. The commercials starred Justin Long as a laidback Steve Jobs look alike personifying a hip Mac computer. The Mac (aka Justin Long) paints the picture of a PC as a nerdy and awkward member of a cubicle farm, but in a nice way.

The commercials were very funny and cute, but were also aggressively competitive. The kind-hearted Mac always turned out to be the good guy, letting the poor sad PC know that even though he was better when it comes to pictures, video, and music, you know… “iLife,” he does confess that PC still has a great app… its calculator.

According to Marketing Strategy, Book 1 of the SMstudy® Guide when forming a brand, a company should, “create a distinct image of a product or range of products in the customer’s mind.” Apple stepped out of the box to provide the public with not only an image, but a personality as well. Mac is a hip young man that promises to be reliable and live up to his promise. Apple took it a step further by also creating an unflattering image for their competition, a drab looking computer that will most likely malfunction or freeze at any point in time.

Prior to the “Get a Mac” campaign, Apple’s sales were on a steady decline while PC’s dominated the market. Apple noticed that while its sales were low, they were voted higher in an American Consumer Satisfaction Index survey. . So, the company decided to play to their strengths, and PC’s weaknesses.

According to Marketing Strategy, Book 1 of the SMstudy® Guide, “The image communicates the promise of value the customer will receive from the product or products.” The image of Justin Long promised creative freedom as well as reliability because that is exactly what Mac computers are known to be. The majority of PC users are aware of the malfunctions that often occur, but Apple wanted to drive the message home to the general public in order to promote its brand. One of the biggest issues with PC’s is their lack of creative control, which is something that Mac’s excel in.

This created an instant increase in sales of 12 percent in the first quarter and by the end of the fourth quarter sales had increased by 39 percent. In fact, sales increased so much that Microsoft launched a rebuttal commercial, thinking that they could use the same format of commercial and be just as successful. Unfortunately for the company it wasn’t the commercial that sold the product, it was the product itself. 

For more interesting articles about Sales and Marketing, visit - www.SMstudy.com/articles

VMEdu Cloud LMS Lets You Create and Host Your Online Courses for Free

The state-of-the-art platform from VMEdu is disrupting the Learning Management System (LMS) market. As part of the VMEdu Authorized Content Partner (V.A.C.P.) program, VMEdu is allowing anyone to create and host their courses with zero upfront investment and no requirement for technical expertise. Not just that—it provides content experts with the option of hosting their courses on their own website and provides them with their own high quality mobile app too.

Following are some of the key benefits of the VMEdu Authorized Content Partner (V.A.C.P.) Program:

1. Best Student Experience – Online, Mobile and Classes: VMEdu Cloud Learning Management System (LMS) is, by far, one of the best adult learning platforms globally. It has been built over a period of 7 years, with several millions of dollars of investment – and tested thoroughly by launching multiple courses and websites, which have now become global leaders in their fields. Using the VMEdu LMS allows V.A.C.P.s to offer their courses on their own websites - either online or through their mobile apps. VMEdu also supports physical classroom training options for some high-demand courses. Moreover, VMEdu’s strong back–end capabilities helps its partners easily manage their relationships and training requirements with VMEdu Inc. VMEdu LMS is hosted in a very scalable cloud infrastructure; and already hosts hundreds of courses, with more than 50,000 learning resources including videos, questions, case studies, simulated exams, flashcards, study guides etc. Anyone can join for free and launch their free course in few minutes/hours on their own website.

2. Zero Setup and Maintenance costs - No technical knowledge or infrastructure required: Unlike on other traditional LMS platforms, one does not have to pay any licensing fees, buy expensive hardware, or hire expensive software professionals to launch their online courses and mobile apps. There is no cost associated with creating or uploading the courses. Unlike traditional LMS platforms which usually have negligible support for mobile apps, VMEdu creates the best-in-the-industry mobile apps at zero-cost for Android Phones (if more than 1 hour of video courses uploaded) and $ 250 for IPhone. One can save more than 90% of your current LMS expenses by using VMEdu LMS – and also have significantly more capabilities than those offered by traditional LMS platforms.

3. Additional Revenues – Courses can be sold to VMEdu partner network of 750+ V.A.T.P.s: Courses created by V.A.C.P.s can be made available and sold through VMEdu’s fast-growing partner network of 750+ Authorized Training Partners (A.T.P.s) in 50+ countries. This makes their course available to a huge network of companies, colleges, universities, training companies, and individual trainers/experts. No other traditional LMS platform helps content providers with customer acquisition.

4. Leader in Global Education: VMEdu is a global leader in adult education through its multiple brands and partner eco-system. VMEdu has taught more than 500,000 students from 150 countries and 3,500+ companies; and have a huge A.T.P. partner network of 750+partners in 50+ countries. It is funded by Sequoia Capital which is the leading Private Equity/Venture Capital firm in the Silicon Valley – and has funded innovative global companies such as Apple, Google, Cisco, LinkedIn, Oracle, WhatsApp, etc.

To learn more about the VMEdu Authorized Content Partner Program, visit www.vmedu.com/Overview-VACP.asp

Content Marketing Pt.1: Marketings New Weapon of Choice

It’s official! Traditional “interruptive” advertising (both online and television) isn’t so hot nowadays. On the other hand, content marketing is emerging as the weapon of choice for brands who are in it to win it. Over a series of posts, we will explore the ins-and-outs of smart story-driven marketing, what it looks like when it’s done right and its importance in the social media landscape.

First, let’s mull some basic statistics that will illustrate how bad it really is for interruptive advertising. For television, the prospects are grim: one third of millennials already report not watching broadcast TV (originally reported by the New York Times in October 2013) with the numbers of people willing to break up with television at an astonishing high rate of 16 percent year over year (YOY).

And then there’s digital. Recent data show that online (and mobile) advertising isn’t on fire, either. According to the Contently Playbook, banner ad click- through rates (CTR) come in between .10 and .04 percent, some of which most likely represents some bot activity. They also state that ad recall (banner ads specifically) is abysmal with 86 percent of consumers unable to recall the last ad they saw. 

To drive the sorry state of digital ads home, Contently states, “You're more likely to survive a plane crash or join the Navy SEALs than click on a banner ad.”

Ouch. So much for the bad news.

Ready for the good news? Content marketing is a very attractive alternative to interruptive advertising and recent findings offers the numbers to back up its current lofty status in the marketing community. Business2Community reported content marketing driving traffic with 68% of consumers. In addition, they noted that “up to 55% of consumers are not only attracted to custom content but most would buy the products or services of the content provider.”

If these numbers persist, the future of content marketing looks quite rosy, indeed. There are, however, a few things to be aware of when venturing into a content marketing strategy.

One important issue with content marketing is the emergence of Peak Content, a phenomenon we reported on in February. At the time, we quoted author Kevin Anderson’s 2014 definition: “Peak Content is ‘the point at which this glut of things to read, watch and listen to becomes completely unsustainable.’” As of March 2016, we are still noting the trend.

The unprecedented rate at which people are posting content online is one quick example of Peak Content. Taken from the infographic, 24 Hours on the Internet, it’s reported (and this was in 2012) that 2 million blog posts are published every day. That’s 720,000,000 blog posts a year. With numbers like these we quickly see why quality is paramount to rise to the top of the content pile.

Additional evidence comes from the marketing data company TrackMaven that reported social media channels are suffering from lower engagement. They acknowledge low quality content is contributing to the decline.

The report states, “Most content fails at the content creation stage. Smart content can overcome bad distribution, but smart distribution cannot save bad content.”

Marketers either already know, or are catching on quickly, that high-quality content is the way to achieving greater engagement, including increased CTR, sales and all the other good stuff a company or brand likes to see.

In a nutshell, all signs point to the need to bring your A game when embarking on content marketing. 

Now that we know it’s working, how is it being done? More to the point, how is it being done well? In regards to content creation, options vary. A company may decide to use experts in a given field, hire freelancers, create an in-house team or create a unique cocktail of creation options that work with the brand’s needs and resources.

In our next post we’ll explore the growing “virtual newsroom” where content marketing is “beat” based and provides the space and structure for the highest-quality journalism-style content marketing…and the growing relationship between journalists and content marketing.

Stay tuned.

For more articles on sales and marketing, visit smstudy.com.

Photo courtesy of Florian Klauer, Unsplash.

Sources:

“Third of Millennials Watch Mostly Online Video or no Broadcast TV” Andrew Beaujon, Oct. 10, 2013, Poynter. http://www.poynter.org/2013/third-of-millennials-watch-no-broadcast-tv/225528/

“24 Hours on the Internet,” digtalbuzz blog, March 13, 2012 http://www.digitalbuzzblog.com/infographic-24-hours-on-the-internet/

“Marketers Are Creating More Content, but They’re Not Sure Why,” Natalie Burg, March 8, 2016, Contently https://contently.com/strategist/2016/03/08/marketers-creating-more-content-not-sure-why/

“The Ultimate Content Strategist Playbook No. 1: Evangelizing Content and Setting Yourself Up for Success,” Contently,https://contently.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/150303_Playbook.pdf

“Your Social Content is Failing. So now what?” Kara Burney, Feb. 5, 2015. http://trackmaven.com/blog/2015/02/data-backed-proof-that-social-media-content-is-failing-and-what-you-can-do-about-it/

“8 Hard-to-Ignore Content Marketing Benefits (Infographic),” Jomer Gregorio, Oct. 20, 2014, Business 2 Community. http://www.business2community.com/infographics/8-hard-ignore-content-marketing-benefits-infographic