Affichage des articles dont le libellé est marketing. Afficher tous les articles
Affichage des articles dont le libellé est marketing. Afficher tous les articles
jeudi 31 mai 2012
5 Branding Tips for Your Launch
1. Logo and Website Design
We live in a culture that wants things to be aesthetically appealing. Having a firm understanding of what your business says in a visual sense can help you create a design and feel for your branding collateral.
The visual aspect of your logo and website should speak in both literal and figurative terms, about the character of your business. If you are a wholesale wine distributor, it make sense to have a bottle or a glass of wine in your logo, or perhaps you want something a little subtler. A bundle of grapes or a wine barrel could work just fine. Decide what characteristics you want your business to stand for about the industry you’re in, and try to visualize it. This will enable you to describe to developers what look you're going for. Your logo and website will define your business both online and offline, so make it something you’re proud of.
2. Social Network Business Profiles
These sites are an important part of your online influence, and a great avenue to reach your customers. Once you’ve decided that a business profile is for you, I would recommend looking into other companies you look up to, and note what they’re doing well with their profiles. You want to generate content that your fans will find interesting, and want to share. Some of this information can be deals, or information on products or services you provide, but you might want to also post articles or videos you find helpful, useful, or entertaining.
3. SEO
As a small business owner, the hardest obstacle you’ll have to overcome is being “seen." The Internet is littered with small business websites all vying for the same small corners of the web. It’s imperative you focus on driving more traffic to your site, and drive up your search engine optimization. Social networks can help a lot, as well as having a blog as part of your site. Identify ways you can reach your customers (advertising, partnerships, etc.) and take the necessary steps to get your name out there. The more unique visitors you can drive to your site, the better your Google rank will become, which in turn makes you more visible online.
4. Publicity
PR is another great way to make yourself visible both online and offline. If you’re involved in any sort of charitable work, alert local media so they might want to cover it. Position yourself online as an expert in your field, and make yourself available for comments and opinions. Target smaller publications and blogs at first to build up your persona, and create working relationships with the media. PR can get very expensive very quickly if you pay for it, so as a small business it makes the most financial sense to take care of it in-house. I offered to write articles for various publications on and offline to build up my reputation, which has to led to many free PR opportunities for my company.
5. Testimonials
Once your business is up and running, make sure you connect with your customers so you understand what is working and what isn’t working. Don’t be afraid to tweak your product or service, and be receptive to feedback. It’s important to understand that no matter how much experience you have in business, you never cease learning how to do business better. When your clients are happy and vocal about your product or service, ask them for a testimonial. You can share these on your site, and it will prove your worth to other potential customers as well as instill trust in possible future clients.
Dan Schawbel is the managing partner of Millennial Branding, a Gen-Y research and management-consulting firm. Subscribe to his updates at Facebook.com/DanSchawbel.
12:01 0
vendredi 11 mai 2012
Why Microsoft Is Being Left in the Dust
There are now a number of companies — Apple, Google, Amazon, and others — that have Microsoft in their rear-view mirrors, disappearing quickly on the horizon in a cloud of dust.
That kick of dust in the company’s face is being emitted by Apple’s iPhone and iPad, Amazon’s Kindle, and Google’s search and cloud domination. Microsoft’s own wild lunges into various technology segments are also contributing considerably to it being left behind. Take the company’s recent partnership with Barnes & Noble, where it took 18% of the Nook e-reader for $605 million in cash and future guarantees. This was a move to compete with Amazon, but can it really compete?
If you want to know why Microsoft’s share price has been flat for 11 years while Apple, Amazon, and Google shares have soared, this is why. Microsoft is not innovating aggressively. It is not leading categories or blazing trails. No, it’s acquiring aggressively as a shortcut to innovation. That isn’t working. Its own history suggests as much.
Microsoft Has Not Capitalized on its Partnerships and Acquisitions
Last year, Microsoft announced a broad strategic partnership with Nokia, presumably to use Windows operating systems and software on Nokia’s smartphones. This was 15 months ago. But last week, a report found that Apple and Samsung generated 99 percent of the profits in the mobile phone category. Nokia, which once enjoyed more than half of all mobile phone profits, made zero.
In 2009, Microsoft acquired a 10-year license to use Yahoo’s core search technology, which later became the Bing search engine. Today, Google’s search market share is a dominant 66%, with Microsoft’s Bing a very distant second at 15%. After spending billions building and marketing Bing, Microsoft is barely visible in Google’s rear-view mirror.
Finally, what of Microsoft’s Skype acquisition a year ago? It’s too early to tell, but here’s a fact worth noting: The Wall Street Journal reports that 85% of Microsoft’s revenue comes from Windows and Office software. The rest of it? Barely a blip.
And so, Microsoft is proving, like many have before it, that acquiring companies outside your core competencies are recipes for failure. Remember when Cisco purchased the Flip video camera, at the time one of the most popular consumer electronics products on the planet? How did that work out? In 2010, HP bought Palm for $1.2 billion, but we haven’t seen any industry-altering smartphones from HP.
Conversely, consider Apple’s acquisition of Siri: a technology that immediately and profoundly complimented and enhanced its iPhone. It fit obviously and very successfully.
Microsoft Does Not Need to Compete with Amazon
Another major problem with Microsoft’s partnership involving the Nook is that there is simply no need for it to compete with Amazon. This is like Best Buy focusing all of its efforts on its ecommerce site while neglecting its one major competitive advantage: its brick-and-mortar stores. This is also like Research in Motion spending a year building its atrociously received tablet, the PlayBook, while neglecting its core competency of Blackberry smartphones.
Microsoft dominates the competition in computer operating systems and software. Computers are dying, right? And yet, in May 2012, there is no Microsoft Office for tablets and smartphones. Millions of iPads and Android tablets are being adopted in corporate environments, and most of those customers would be happy to spend $70 on Microsoft Office for each device. Except, it does not exist.
I can only guess why: because with its many categories, acquisitions and partnerships, Microsoft is physically incapable of putting its full focus behind converting its desktop products to mobile devices.
Microsoft is Going Wide, Not Deep
Which brings me to the third and final big problem with Microsoft’s Nook play. It is keeping with the strategy of going as wide as possible. Microsoft is not, and cannot be, all things to all people. In fact, no company can.
Here’s the truth: The wider you go, the more priorities you focus on, the less chance you have to be successful. But when you go deep, you can dominate. (See Apple, and Amazon.) When you go deep, you can continue perfecting. You become the world’s expert on a certain specialty. Apple is seen as the world’s expert on smartphones and tablets. Amazon is the accepted leader in online shopping and electronic reading. It’s because these two companies relentlessly focus on their strengths, saying no to nearly everything else. No. That’s a word Microsoft should consider trying out before it gets left in the dust permanently.
12:05 1
lundi 2 avril 2012
4 Facebook Features Marketers Can’t Afford to Ignore
If you have a brand or a business to market chances are you’re using a social media management application to monitor online mentions, schedule updates, and generate reports. But if you really want to be an effective marketer, you need to develop a deeper understanding of which networks are most vital to your company, and what network features are key. In Facebook’s case, we’re talking about some powerful community management components that are unmatched by its competitors, and often overlooked by marketing pros. Here are the four that simply can’t be ignored.
1. Activity Log
Facebook’s activity log is like a Facebook Timeline for every interaction that fans have with your page. It also includes updates you’ve made, like comments or Facebook Questions. What makes this tool unique and powerful is that it offers an archive of your Facebook interactions that you can review at any time. This is useful for tracking how well you’re following up and engaging with fans, and what kind of feedback you’re getting from them during specific events.
2. Demographic Targeting
The manage tab in Facebook Page’s Admin Panel allows you to publish updates to specific demographic groups. The feature isn’t as robust as it should be, but it lets you reach out to people who, for example, speak a certain language. This is useful if your page serves audiences in different countries.
Netflix is a prime example. Due to the nature of its content licensing deals, the site offers different movie and TV-show libraries in the United States than it does in Canada. If the Netflix page administrator wants to announce a new movie that’s only available in one country, he or she can hide that update from fans in the other. Other options include making a post completely invisible to people outside of a certain location, or to people under a certain age.
3.Twitter Linking
Cross-promoting between social networks is a critical component of any social media marketing strategy. Facebook recognizes this, which is why it offers the ability to link your Facebook page to Twitter for the purpose of publishing updates to both sites.
The one caveat is that the implementation here is slanted pretty heavily towards promoting Facebook. This means tweets that originate from your Facebook page always have a link back to Facebook. If that’s not your thing, you can supplement with a third-party tool.
4. Smart Moderation
You probably already know how to moderate individual comments on Facebook, but you can also dive into your Facebook Page’s settings and add specific terms you want to automatically block. While it’s better to allow open conversation on your Facebook page — customers don’t like to be censored — there will be specific situations that call for more control. This tool will give you that.
18:27 0
samedi 17 mars 2012
5 Components of a Successful Marketing Plan
The plan's value is in the success of the business.
Within this general framework, successful marketing plans have several key elements. I’ll use examples from the restaurant business because it's familiar to most people.
1. Market focus
“I don’t know the secret to success, but I do know that the secret to failure is trying to please everybody,” said Bill Cosby. Good marketing plans define target markets narrowly. A restaurant’s target market might be families, couples, baby boomers, teenagers, children, date nights, busy and rushed working people, or some combination.
You won’t find a restaurant that works for a baby boomer couple’s night out also working for families with small children. Choose. Divide and conquer.
2. Product focus
Product focus matches market focus. If you want baby boomers’ date nights, then serve good food. If you want families with kids, then serve food quickly, make the menu items relatively cheap and, of course, the food has to be safe.
Sushi doesn’t sell on price. Drive-through windows don’t deliver fast food.
3. Concrete, measurable specifics
A good marketing plan is full of dates and details. Strategy probably drives a good plan, but tactics, programs and details make the difference. As much as possible, the plan has to tie results back to activities and come up with hard numbers to measure those results.
A restaurant cannot have vague goals like having the best-tasting food. It needs specifics that are related to marketing message, insertions, posts, tweets, dinners served, return visits, members of the e-mail list, reviews, stars and so forth.
The key is to take a plan and think ahead about how you’ll know whether it was implemented. Will you be able to tell?
4. Responsibility and accountability
Groups and committees get little done. Assign every part of a marketing plan to a specific person. Measure the results of every task and be sure a person is responsible for it. Peer pressure is important: The people executing the plan have to be accountable for measurable results. Failure has to hurt, and achievement has to be rewarded.
An old joke: How do you see involvement vs. commitment in a bacon-and-egg breakfast? Answer: The chicken is involved, but the pig is committed. A good marketing plan needs commitment, not just involvement.
5. Reviews and revisions
Every successful marketing plan is actually a planning process, not just a plan. Things change too fast for static plans. A good marketing plan is part of a process that involves setting goals, measuring results and tracking performance. It entails regular review and revision.
If the group running the marketing plan isn’t meeting once a month to compare the plan with actual results and make course corrections, there is no marketing plan.
Photo credit: iStockphoto
17:42 0
mercredi 29 février 2012
The Marketer’s Guide To Pinterest [Infographic]
Pinterest, the visual social network that lets users “pin” images
they like from around the web to virtual pin boards, is stacking up to
be one of the fastest growing social sites of all time. With more and
more people joining Pinterest every day, it’s becoming impossible for
marketers to ignore the Pinterest phenomenon. But how can marketers get
in on this? A new infographic from MDG Advertising takes a deeper
look.
‘Pin It to Win It: A Marketer’s Guide to Pinterest’ breaks down the “who, why, and how of Pinterest.” The infographic starts out by taking a look at the people who pin. The breakdown is currently 87 percent female to 13 percent male, with most pinners being between the ages of 25 and 54.
So, as a marketer, why should you be on Pinterest? The infographic explains, plainly, that you should be on the site because it’s making history. “According to comScore, Pinterest hit 11.7 million unique monthly U.S. visitors in January, making it the fastest standalone site in history to cross the 10 million mark.” They also provide convincing statistics on how Pinterest is driving traffic, and list some big brands that are already on Pinterest.
Once you’re convinced, the infographic sheds some light on how you can make Pinterest work for your brand with some helpful tips, including adding ‘Pin It’ buttons to your site content, pumping up the quality of pinable content on your site, and more.
Check out the infographic and let us know what you think in the comments below. Is your company on Pinterest yet? If not, do you plan to be?
‘Pin It to Win It: A Marketer’s Guide to Pinterest’ breaks down the “who, why, and how of Pinterest.” The infographic starts out by taking a look at the people who pin. The breakdown is currently 87 percent female to 13 percent male, with most pinners being between the ages of 25 and 54.
So, as a marketer, why should you be on Pinterest? The infographic explains, plainly, that you should be on the site because it’s making history. “According to comScore, Pinterest hit 11.7 million unique monthly U.S. visitors in January, making it the fastest standalone site in history to cross the 10 million mark.” They also provide convincing statistics on how Pinterest is driving traffic, and list some big brands that are already on Pinterest.
Once you’re convinced, the infographic sheds some light on how you can make Pinterest work for your brand with some helpful tips, including adding ‘Pin It’ buttons to your site content, pumping up the quality of pinable content on your site, and more.
Check out the infographic and let us know what you think in the comments below. Is your company on Pinterest yet? If not, do you plan to be?
09:40 0
jeudi 9 février 2012
Socialbakers Brings Its Leading European Social Analytics Platform To The U.S.
The company is now officially getting serious about securing a foothold in the states, as it today announced the launch of its U.S. headquarters in San Francisco. To support its arrival on American soil, Socialbakers is also announced a new U.S. leadership team to be based in the Bay Area, which includes veteran technology executive Martin Huml as President and COO and Katrina Wong as VP of Marketing.
Huml, who will lead U.S. operations, has previously served as the company’s chairman, and founded a company which became an exclusive distributor for Apple in central and eastern Europe. He also formerly worked at Credit Suisse before founding San Francisco-based investment consulting firm, Runway Capital. Katrina Wong, who will lead the company’s go-to-market strategy, previously led corporate marketing at Zuora, and worked in marketing at both SAP and Salesforce.com.
The team plans to build on the traction of its social monitoring platform in Europe, which includes a roster of more than 750 customers and 275,000 registered marketing users (with companies like Danone, Vodafone, Samsung, Lufthansa And Peugoet licensing the premium version of its service), on top of the 60 U.S. brands already using its technology.
So what does the company do, exactly? Socialbakers’ analytics platform measures the effectiveness of social marketing campaigns across the major social networks, like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Google+ through its two flagship products. The first, called “Engagement Analytics,” enables statistical analysis of Facebook worldwide, including Facebook Pages, Places, Facebook apps, developers on Facebook, as well as advertising prices. “Engagement Builder,” by contrast offers benchmarking, competitive reporting, and integrated workflow functionality to enable businesses to track a variety of social media metrics.
Jan Rezab, Socialbakers CEO, tells us that he’s seen a surprising amount of SMBs failing to integrate competitive benchmarking and intelligence into their social media strategies, opting to simply tap into certain streams to monitor keywords. While it’s easy for companies today to hook into a search stream and look at individual profiles themselves, the key is obviously to build a robust set of metrics around those profiles and streams. Volume matters, as he says that companies can no longer assume that their users will engage with their Twitter or Facebook content.
By showing companies what works through an “Engagement Rate,” which not only tracks the low-hanging fruit like the number of fans and likes, but the number of comments, the type of engagement, how many people are picking up particular posts, how they’re sharing it, which pieces of content are going viral — and perhaps most importantly — how these engagement metrics compare to that of their competitors.
Much of the data on the platform Socialbakers offers for free (as most of it is public data that is openly available, just poorly aggregated), a resource used increasingly by marketers. Of course, the company also offers a set of “pro” SaaS tools, for which companies pay between $100 and $1,000 per month depending on the number of fans their pages have attracted.
The team believes that the U.S. is home to a fragmented analytics market, and by quickly scaling its platform over the course of the next year, it can become a player in the space. The CEO said that it plans to double the size of its U.S.-based team over the next two months, in addition to growing the international team to more than 100 employees.
“We want to help all the companies using Twitter, Google+, Facebook, and YouTube, get out of the dark,” the CEO said. While that’s no easy feat, we could definitely use a bigger lightbulb.
For more, check out the company at home here.
11:41 0
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