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

Levels of Sales and Marketing Strategy

A company enjoying a good reign must possess an assortment of umbrellas.

Beneath the wide umbrella of Corporate Strategy exists a smaller umbrella known as Corporate Marketing Strategy, which covers Business Unit and Geographic Strategies. Those, in turn, are further divided into particular Product or Brand Strategies for each product or brand.

This figure illustrates the relationship between the various strategies:

The Corporate Marketing Strategy is defined at a corporate level and outlines the overall marketing goals for the company. These general marketing goals drive more specific marketing strategies for each of the company’s business units or geographies. Each business unit or geography defines its own goals, which become relevant inputs for each area’s particular product or brand marketing strategies. Each product or brand marketing strategy defines sales and marketing objectives for each product or brand, which drive specific tactics that align with and often rely on other Marketing Aspects identified in theSMstudy® Guide (Marketing Research, Digital Marketing, Corporate Sales, Branding and Advertising and Retail Marketing).

Here is an example of Levels of Sales and Marketing Strategy:

Land Development Company

• Corporate Level—A land development company wants to grow to be among the top three land development companies in its state.
• Business Unit/Geographic Level—The land development company operates two business units: residential and retail. A goal of the residential business unit is to grow that unit by 12 percent within one year; a goal of the retail business unit is to grow that unit by 10 percent within the same time period.
• Product/Brand Level—Within the residential business unit, the company sells three products: condominiums, town homes and singles. The singles Product Marketing Strategy identifies an objective to grow the sale of single units by 15 percent. To achieve this objective, the teams responsible for building strategy within the various Aspects of Marketing establish specific objectives that are designed to support the overall product objectives and to align with one another.
• Marketing Aspect Level­—The company’s greatest strength is the fact that it is an award-winning leader in green sustainable development. Therefore, the branding and advertising team builds specific tactics that incorporate an increase in reach of its messaging around sustainable development. One specific tactic is to leverage billboard and newspaper advertising with the objective of increasing reach of green messaging by 30 percent. The digital marketing team incorporates tactics to support the objective of increasing the green sustainable development messaging, stressing the importance of this trend and positioning the company as a leader in the industry through the use of various social media channels. One specific tactic is to leverage blogs and online public relations with the objective of increasing the company's rankings in online searches related to keywords such as “sustainable development.” The tactics of each Marketing Aspect are aimed at achieving their own specific objectives; however, both support the overall singles Product Strategy objective of achieving a 15 percent growth in sales for this product line.

When seeking sustained success, a company should equip and adhere to a comprehensive Corporate Marketing Strategy. That umbrella has you covered.

Should You ask Permission to Market?

Everyone despises commercials. It’s true, don’t even try to deny it! There is not one single person who would rather listen to a commercial than jam out to a new song. But we put up with them. Sort of.

Some people turn the volume down while a commercial is on the radio or take out the trash while they wait for their favorite television show. Yet, this form of conventional mass media marketing actually works. People hear a commercial about Tide laundry detergent, they may tune it out, but when they go to the grocery store, they select Tide because they have heard the name.

As defined by Marketing Strategy, book one in the SMstudy® Guide, conventional mass media marketing is “print advertising (newspaper, magazine, insert, or run of paper), mass mailers, television (network, cable, or syndicated), radio (national, local, satellite, or podcast), and out of home advertising (billboards, street furniture e.g. bus shelters, transit, alternative, e.g. stadiums).”

Conventional mass media marketing is also referred to as interruption marketing, or put more simply, marketing that interrupts.

But we have stepped into a new age, the age of the internet, which has given rise to fragmented new age marketing. “Since the late 1990s, with the increasing popularity of the internet and, more recently, smartphones, many options now exist for advertisers to reach a global audience using digital media marketing methods such as mobile phone apps, Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, QR codes, gamification, and proximity marketing (e.g. Foursquare),” states SMstudy.

Fragmented new age marketing is also referred to as permission marketing, or put more simply, where people have to give you permission to market to them.

According to Krista Neher, content marketer for Boot Camp Digital, “Most online marketing is permission marketing, where people have to give you permission to market to them. People choose to follow you on Twitter, subscribe to your email or visit your website. They make the choice to connect with you (and allow you to market to them) because you provide great content. You must be interesting or useful for people to agree to your interruption marketing, or they will just ignore you. Permission marketing is about providing value so that people choose to view your marketing.”

So, should you stop putting marketing dollars towards interruption marketing? No, because as previously stated, it does work. But by putting an emphasis on permission marketing a company can ensure that their time and money is not being wasted. Conventional mass media marketing is not a sure deal, while fragmented new age marketing is.

Neher provides some guidelines to follow so you can successfully incorporate permission marketing into your marketing strategy.

• Change your mindset: Stop thinking about selling, and start thinking about how you can create value for the people that you want to reach (in a way that links to your business and marketing strategy).
• Change your message: Your message can’t be so advertising-ish. Your message must be something that people actually want to read (again, while at the same time growing your business).
• Evaluate all of your channels: What is interesting is that even traditional marketing works better when it meets the difficult bar of both selling your product and being interesting to your customers.

This is an exciting time to be a marketer. The possibilities are endless as long as you follow one simple rule, show them, don’t tell them. But don’t forget conventional mass media marketing in the process. There is still a use for it. Interruptive and permission marketing can run parallel, it’s all about how you position your brand.

As noted by SMstudy, “With all of these options, many marketers find it beneficial to use an integrated approach to marketing by leveraging the strengths of various types of media.” Good luck fellow marketers, it’s a brave new world.

For more interesting articles visit http:://www.SMstudy.com

Sources:

Krista Neher, “Permission Vs. Interruption Marketing,” content writer at Boot Camp digital. http://bootcampdigital.com/permission-vs-interruption-marketing/

What Did You Do When You Were Supposed to be Sleeping?

Sleep Cycle is an app that tracks your sleep cycle. Seems pretty simple, but looks can be deceiving. In November of 2015, just a few short months ago, the app was released to the public and the vote is in. Everyone loves it.

So, here’s what you do. First, download the app. Before you go to sleep set the alarm programmed in the app and the sleep cycle device will activate. Place your phone screen side down on your nightstand, plug in your charger, and, hopefully, have a great night of sleep.

When you wake up in the morning, the app provides you with a line graph that depicts how many hours you were in bed and how your sleep varied throughout the night from awake, sleep, and deep sleep.

I tried out the app for the first time last night and it appears as if I am a champion sleeper, but I moved 1,267 times. I am a champion sleeper that thrashes.

But that’s not all! The trends tab on the app is available to premium members, and it provides you with several different charts that display sleep quality, what time you went to bed, the amount of time in bed, and what time you woke up at for the week. It also gives you a percentage in regards to sleep quality. Did you sleep poorly because you ate dinner too late? Or did you wake up refreshed because you hit the gym the day before? The app will tell you. It also lets you know if your sleep quality was affected by air pressure, weather, or if you are a thrasher like me.

You get all of this information for a large fee of 83 cents a month (This is not a typo).

Sales and marketing professionals can learn a thing or two from Sleep Cycle. We, as people, are fascinated about sleep. We can’t study our own sleep patterns, considering we are sleeping, so it was all too fascinating to find out that I sleep the majority of my night in a deep sleep. I would have never known that. That’s how they get us in. It’s all a marketing ploy. And then for just 83 cents a month I can not only learn how I sleep, but I will learn how I can sleep better. Who doesn’t want to know that?

83 cents a month is nothing for us fortunate enough to be living in a first world country. We see the advantages for the app, sign up, and never unsubscribe because it is only 83 cents, even though we never use the app anymore and it has been long forgotten. And the money is just rolling in for Sleep Cycle.

(Applause for Sleep Cycle)

So what did they do right? First of all, it is a very big gamble to charge such a low monthly fee. But according to Marketing Strategy, book one in the SMstudy® Guide, it was a very calculated move with the help of secondary marketing research. “Secondary marketing research involves the use of content and information that is currently available within the company or in the market through primary research that has already been conducted and is readily obtainable through company reports, trade journals, industry publications, and/or the Internet.”

The very popular Fitbit will track your sleep, but it can cost upwards of 200 dollars. Fitbit sold nearly 11 million devices last year, so the market was there. From looking at information that was right at their fingertips, Sleep Cycle was able to build a sales and marketing plan that was destined to succeed.

I was pulled in by a marketing ploy and I didn’t even see it. That’s how you know a company is doing its job well. I look forward to going to sleep tonight, I have a competitive streak, so I want to beat last night’s amazing performance.

Give it a try, you know you want to.

For more information and resources about sales and marketing visit SMstudy.com.

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

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

Levels of Sales and Marketing Strategy

A company enjoying a good reign must possess an assortment of umbrellas.

Beneath the wide umbrella of Corporate Strategy exists a smaller umbrella known as Corporate Marketing Strategy, which covers Business Unit and Geographic Strategies. Those, in turn, are further divided into particular Product or Brand Strategies for each product or brand.

This figure illustrates the relationship between the various strategies:

The Corporate Marketing Strategy is defined at a corporate level and outlines the overall marketing goals for the company. These general marketing goals drive more specific marketing strategies for each of the company’s business units or geographies. Each business unit or geography defines its own goals, which become relevant inputs for each area’s particular product or brand marketing strategies. Each product or brand marketing strategy defines sales and marketing objectives for each product or brand, which drive specific tactics that align with and often rely on other Marketing Aspects identified in theSMstudy® Guide (Marketing Research, Digital Marketing, Corporate Sales, Branding and Advertising and Retail Marketing).

Here is an example of Levels of Sales and Marketing Strategy:

Land Development Company

• Corporate Level—A land development company wants to grow to be among the top three land development companies in its state.
• Business Unit/Geographic Level—The land development company operates two business units: residential and retail. A goal of the residential business unit is to grow that unit by 12 percent within one year; a goal of the retail business unit is to grow that unit by 10 percent within the same time period.
• Product/Brand Level—Within the residential business unit, the company sells three products: condominiums, town homes and singles. The singles Product Marketing Strategy identifies an objective to grow the sale of single units by 15 percent. To achieve this objective, the teams responsible for building strategy within the various Aspects of Marketing establish specific objectives that are designed to support the overall product objectives and to align with one another.
• Marketing Aspect Level­—The company’s greatest strength is the fact that it is an award-winning leader in green sustainable development. Therefore, the branding and advertising team builds specific tactics that incorporate an increase in reach of its messaging around sustainable development. One specific tactic is to leverage billboard and newspaper advertising with the objective of increasing reach of green messaging by 30 percent. The digital marketing team incorporates tactics to support the objective of increasing the green sustainable development messaging, stressing the importance of this trend and positioning the company as a leader in the industry through the use of various social media channels. One specific tactic is to leverage blogs and online public relations with the objective of increasing the company's rankings in online searches related to keywords such as “sustainable development.” The tactics of each Marketing Aspect are aimed at achieving their own specific objectives; however, both support the overall singles Product Strategy objective of achieving a 15 percent growth in sales for this product line.

When seeking sustained success, a company should equip and adhere to a comprehensive Corporate Marketing Strategy. That umbrella has you covered.

Importance of understanding and evaluating Digital Marketing Channels

When creating an online presence, one of the initial steps for an organization is to determine the targets as defined by the Marketing Strategy and then explore the various digital marketing channels available to achieve those targets. Organizations typically market their products or services to targeted audiences that differ in demographics such as age, sex, education, marital status, geography, and income. Implementing digital marketing tactics allows a company to target very specific audiences and measure each tactic effectively.

Given the volatile nature of the online world, new channels are emerging with greater frequency, and audiences are continuously exploring new sources of online content—digital marketers must regularly assess and reassess 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 and effort 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.

The digital marketing team analyzes the Internet behavior patterns of its target audience and identifies all possible online media that are used by those consumers being targeted. It observes macro trends that might impact the way in which the organization markets and sells a product or service to consumers. As a result of this process, the organization gains a better understanding of the digital landscape and learns how it can develop and implement its marketing strategies to be effective.

A company must understand the pros and cons of each digital marketing channel as well as the situations in which a channel is most effective or ineffective. For example, when a company wants to promote an important achievement or milestone, the use of social media forums is a good option because of the possibility of a viral effect and mass exposure, which may raise awareness of the company. When promoting a discount offer, the use of e-mail marketing is beneficial because of the fast results it can bring. On the other hand, if the company wants to inform customers about an expected delay in service (e.g., due to a scheduled routine maintenance, delay due some unavoidable circumstances), it is usually enough for the company to use e-mail or their website to notify customers, rather than initiating a social media update. Negative comments often spread faster in social media leading to loss of brand value and image. Therefore, understanding different channels is important in order to evaluate their usefulness.

To learn more about digital marketing channels, visit SMstudy.com

The Truman Show: A Reflection on Product Placement

In the 1998 film The Truman Show, a man named Truman Burbank, played by comedian actor Jim Carrey, stars in the ultimate reality show. At the film's onset we learn that Truman is the first person to be adopted by a corporation and that since the time of his babyhood, Truman has been used, unbeknownst to him, as the star of his own real-life reality show, a show that entertain millions of viewers worldwide  as it unfolds in real time.

But there are other stars with whom he unknowingly shares the show; the ceaseless parade of products cleverly woven into the artificial tapestry of the stage set Truman calls home.  

With no way to break for commercials, since the show is live 24/7, product placement is the obvious choice for advertising. Snatching at any opportunity to slip in a plug for gardening sheers or vegetable peelers, Truman’s family and friends (all actors) awkwardly discuss the merits of wares and services within the program. Everyone is “in the know” on the embedded product “advertisements”, everyone except Truman. He moves through his staged world unaware of the exaggerated enthusiasm with which his “friends and colleagues” discuss a certain beer or truck.

The film’s director, Peter Weir, uses the film as an opportunity to turn the camera on itself and satirically question the part product placement plays in Hollywood. In The Truman Show, Weir is clearly reflecting the reality of the ascent of product placement in films in the 1990s, because although product placement has been seen in film since the early 20th century, the golden age officially began with the release of Spielberg’s ET in 1982. Anyone remember Reece’s Pieces?

It’s been observed that over the last few decades we’ve seen an increase in the amount of product placement in both films and television according to Dr. Mary Lou Galician.

In her book, Handbook of Product Placement in the Mass Media: New Strategies in Marketing Theory, Practice, Trends, and Ethics, Galician states, “What is most important regarding the evolution of product placement is the increasing number of high-involvement placements found during the 20-year period of the study. These high-involvement appearances nearly doubled from 1977 to 1997, further indicating that product placement has become an integral aspect of making Hollywood movies.”

So, what does this mean for marketing strategy? 

As Dr. Galician points out in her findings, which cover a 20-year analysis of Hollywood films, product placement is on the rise. This will mean continued opportunity, but also continued competition and possibly threat. The SMstudy Guide, Marketing Strategy book states that opportunities and threats should be determined before embarking on a marketing campaign. In considering product placement as a marketing option, opportunities may include reaching a larger or more responsive segment of the market. Threats may include negative backlash or a company may simply find they are priced out of that particular avenue for marketing their product.

Additional opportunities may arise in the growing opportunities for other film-related product marketing. Dr. Galician notes that there has been a rise in product “tie ins” and “cross promotion” creating more marketing opportunities and greater integration between film and consumer products and services.

As stated in Marketing Strategy, first book of the SMBOK (or SMstudy Guide), potential innovation should always be considered when planning a marketing campaign. New and innovative ways to integrate a product with a film or television show are in continual research and development.

Importance of understanding and evaluating Digital Marketing Channels

When creating an online presence, one of the initial steps for an organization is to determine the targets as defined by the Marketing Strategy and then explore the various digital marketing channels available to achieve those targets. Organizations typically market their products or services to targeted audiences that differ in demographics such as age, sex, education, marital status, geography, and income. Implementing digital marketing tactics allows a company to target very specific audiences and measure each tactic effectively.

Given the volatile nature of the online world, new channels are emerging with greater frequency, and audiences are continuously exploring new sources of online content—digital marketers must regularly assess and reassess 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 and effort 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.

The digital marketing team analyzes the Internet behavior patterns of its target audience and identifies all possible online media that are used by those consumers being targeted. It observes macro trends that might impact the way in which the organization markets and sells a product or service to consumers. As a result of this process, the organization gains a better understanding of the digital landscape and learns how it can develop and implement its marketing strategies to be effective.

A company must understand the pros and cons of each digital marketing channel as well as the situations in which a channel is most effective or ineffective. For example, when a company wants to promote an important achievement or milestone, the use of social media forums is a good option because of the possibility of a viral effect and mass exposure, which may raise awareness of the company. When promoting a discount offer, the use of e-mail marketing is beneficial because of the fast results it can bring. On the other hand, if the company wants to inform customers about an expected delay in service (e.g., due to a scheduled routine maintenance, delay due some unavoidable circumstances), it is usually enough for the company to use e-mail or their website to notify customers, rather than initiating a social media update. Negative comments often spread faster in social media leading to loss of brand value and image. Therefore, understanding different channels is important in order to evaluate their usefulness.

To learn more about digital marketing channels, visit SMstudy.com

The Truman Show: A Reflection on Product Placement

In the 1998 film The Truman Show, a man named Truman Burbank, played by comedian actor Jim Carrey, stars in the ultimate reality show. At the film's onset we learn that Truman is the first person to be adopted by a corporation and that since the time of his babyhood, Truman has been used, unbeknownst to him, as the star of his own real-life reality show, a show that entertain millions of viewers worldwide  as it unfolds in real time.

But there are other stars with whom he unknowingly shares the show; the ceaseless parade of products cleverly woven into the artificial tapestry of the stage set Truman calls home.  

With no way to break for commercials, since the show is live 24/7, product placement is the obvious choice for advertising. Snatching at any opportunity to slip in a plug for gardening sheers or vegetable peelers, Truman’s family and friends (all actors) awkwardly discuss the merits of wares and services within the program. Everyone is “in the know” on the embedded product “advertisements”, everyone except Truman. He moves through his staged world unaware of the exaggerated enthusiasm with which his “friends and colleagues” discuss a certain beer or truck.

The film’s director, Peter Weir, uses the film as an opportunity to turn the camera on itself and satirically question the part product placement plays in Hollywood. In The Truman Show, Weir is clearly reflecting the reality of the ascent of product placement in films in the 1990s, because although product placement has been seen in film since the early 20th century, the golden age officially began with the release of Spielberg’s ET in 1982. Anyone remember Reece’s Pieces?

It’s been observed that over the last few decades we’ve seen an increase in the amount of product placement in both films and television according to Dr. Mary Lou Galician.

In her book, Handbook of Product Placement in the Mass Media: New Strategies in Marketing Theory, Practice, Trends, and Ethics, Galician states, “What is most important regarding the evolution of product placement is the increasing number of high-involvement placements found during the 20-year period of the study. These high-involvement appearances nearly doubled from 1977 to 1997, further indicating that product placement has become an integral aspect of making Hollywood movies.”

So, what does this mean for marketing strategy? 

As Dr. Galician points out in her findings, which cover a 20-year analysis of Hollywood films, product placement is on the rise. This will mean continued opportunity, but also continued competition and possibly threat. The SMstudy Guide, Marketing Strategy book states that opportunities and threats should be determined before embarking on a marketing campaign. In considering product placement as a marketing option, opportunities may include reaching a larger or more responsive segment of the market. Threats may include negative backlash or a company may simply find they are priced out of that particular avenue for marketing their product.

Additional opportunities may arise in the growing opportunities for other film-related product marketing. Dr. Galician notes that there has been a rise in product “tie ins” and “cross promotion” creating more marketing opportunities and greater integration between film and consumer products and services.

As stated in Marketing Strategy, first book of the SMBOK (or SMstudy Guide), potential innovation should always be considered when planning a marketing campaign. New and innovative ways to integrate a product with a film or television show are in continual research and development.

Brand Loyalty

Brand loyalty is a metric associated with brand perception in marketing. Brand perception refers to how prospective and current customers react to seeing or hearing about a company’s products or brands and how the company is perceived within the market.

Brand loyalty is reflected by how many customers purchase a brand repeatedly. It indicates the commitment that customers have towards a brand irrespective of the price offered by competitors of similar products and is the basis of a strong relationship between the brand and its customers. The underlying metrics for brand loyalty may be the percentage of repeat customers out of total customers, the frequency of repeat purchases, and the degree to which other brands are also purchased along with the brand under consideration. A high degree of purchase of other brands reveals a low brand loyalty for the brand under consideration. Another way to measure brand loyalty is to examine customer response to situations where a product variant is unavailable. If customers are loyal to a brand, they will either wait until the product becomes available or buy another product variant of the same brand.

Let’s illustrate the idea with some example. Some retail chains use payback / loyalty card to measure brand loyalty by frequency of a customer’s repeat purchase of products from their stores. As part of the loyalty program, these retail companies incentivize the loyal customers by offering cashbacks, payback points and other personalized discounts over and above the listed discounts. Some luxury car manufacturers have strong brand loyal customers who are ready to pay a premium price for a luxury car due to its perceived uniqueness and status. These set of customers are so brand loyal that they book their vehicles well in advance and are willing to wait several months for their order to be fulfilled and they will not accept substitutes.

To learn more about other brand perception metrics, refer Marketing Strategy, the first book of the SMstudy® Guide.

http://smstudy.com/Article/Brand-Loyalty