Friday 4 November 2016

It is All About the Influence


A common misconception is that if you have many followers on a social media platform then you are followed by many. But that isn’t necessarily true.
You could have 20,000 followers, and yes, that looks impressive, but does that mean that 20,000 people are actually engaged in your content? This can be false advertising for a company’s consumers, but it is also misleading in regards to a company’s analytics. How can you really gauge your company’s engagement when likes are able to be purchased?
It isn’t about the amount of people that follow your brand’s page or view a piece of content marketing, so why do some many companies feel they must rake in the followers and likes? How do you fix this issue?
According to Gary Vaynerchuk, CEO of VaynerMedia, “Instead of talking about how many people see your content, we need to be focusing on how much value that piece of content actually brings your audience.” In social media channels, high-quality content is of the utmost importance. Companies worldwide invest large quantities of money to create quality content, but in many cases, that content is not distributed properly.
Audiences neither find it nor share it. A good Content Creation and Distribution Plan for social media marketing will ensure that a company’s content is relevant, timely and well written and that it reaches the target audience using the optimal means as determined by the social media marketing team.
One of the major debates regarding content creation is between content quality and quantity—how much content is enough and how good does it need to be?
Content creation should ideally start by defining a quantity goal and a publishing schedule with proper deadlines. Once the publishing schedule is finalized, focus should be on quality for each piece of content being distributed.
In addition to good quality content, an effective social media effort must have a good distribution strategy. In other words, it needs to be shared. And that shouldn’t be a problem if the content is engaging. People naturally share information for many reasons; they could simply like the content or perhaps find it interesting. But whatever the reason, a company must ensure that their content provides their consumers with something that encourages shares or else it will be lost in the sea of content.
Vaynerchuk states, “Bottom line: I don’t care how many people see something, “I care about how many people see something.” Quality over quantity. Depth over width. Reach does not equal value and follower count doesn’t mean people are listening.”
So, it’s time to stop fretting over followers and put that time and energy into creating content that will engage; one must remember that it all begins with Content Creation and Distribution Strategy.
To read more articles about sales and marketing, visit http://www.smstudy.com/articles
Sources:

Thursday 3 November 2016

How Low Can You Go? How High Can You Get?


Continually rising prices at the gas pump since the mid-1970s has had us all asking, “How high can these get?!” As 2015 slipped into 2016, with oil by the barrel in free fall, we found ourselves asking, “How low can this go?”
The roller coaster of oil pricing per barrel and sticker surprise at the gas pump has a lot of people wondering, “How in the world do they set those prices?”
Companies set their prices according to their own pricing strategy, which “properly prices products or services so that the company can sustain profitability while maintaining or growing its market share,” according to SMstudy’s Marketing Strategy, book one in the SMstudy® Guide series. Even though it sometimes seems as though companies are grabbing for quick profits and letting the future take care of itself, sustained profitability and growth in market share are part of every sane strategy.
Coming up with that sane strategy isn’t as easy as a few fat cats sitting around in a smoky room saying, “Well, what do we want to charge for this?” That question is likely to be followed with another, “What CAN we get for this?” And now our fat cats are talking strategy. The SMstudy® Guide says, “In order to develop a comprehensive Pricing Strategy, a company must specifically evaluate and understand the trends and dynamics in many areas such as the following:
  • the features and pricing of competitive products in the market
  • the company’s desired positioning, mapped against that of the competition to identify pricing of similarly positioned products
  • the consumer mindset to understand the demand and spending capability for each product
  • the cost, projected unit sales, and targeted profitability levels of each product
  • the innovativeness of each product
  • the capability of the production and operations teams to create high-quality products at reasonable costs
  • the knowledge of the current and desired market shares for each product.”
 The SMstudy® Guide details nine inputs and fourteen tools companies can use to understand these trends and dynamics to design a successful pricing strategy. One input is the company’s own positioning statement. This statement is important because “how a company markets a product impacts who buys it and how much consumers are willing to pay to purchase it.” The positioning statement identifies who the company wants to sell to and how much it would like those customers to pay. “A company that caters to a wealthier market segment with relatively high disposable incomes, aims to create a premier positioning for the product focusing on the quality of the goods or services, brand messaging, and packaging.” This market position allows for premium pricing, too.  It is no wonder that there are at least three grades of gasoline at every pump.
Another input is “opportunities and threats.” As the SMstudy® Guide points out, “Identifying and analyzing opportunities and threats help the company consider the external factors that may influence the costs involved in manufacturing a product or service and subsequently impact its pricing.” This is why refinery fires, hostile take overs of oil fields, and sudden growth from emerging markets all over the world affect the price of gasoline at the station on the corner.
So, how in the world do they set those prices? By following a rather elaborate pricing strategy.
For more help understanding pricing and marketing strategies, visit SMstudy.com
The information in this article comes from chapter four of SMstudy’s Marketing Strategy, book one in the SMstudy® Guideseries of six books that also include Marketing ResearchDigital MarketingCorporate SalesRetail Sales and Branding and Advertising.

Wednesday 2 November 2016

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 
“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

Tuesday 1 November 2016

All about GE-McKinsey Matrix


The GE-McKinsey Matrix was developed in response to the shortcomings of the BCG Matrix, which does not account for a number of factors. It was originally used for a visual representation of GE’s 150 business units to determine which business units were doing well, which needed support, and which should be discontinued. However, the matrix can also be applied to a product portfolio. It evaluates each product on two parameters, market attractiveness and product position, which are the labels of the axes on the matrix.
Market attractiveness and product position are determined by a weighted score for all the relevant factors that contribute to each. There are three levels for each parameter—high, medium, and low—giving the matrix nine boxes in total. The placement of each product on the matrix determines the strategy to be used for the product. A-6 shows the GE-McKinsey Matrix.
Products that fall above the diagonal line are high performers, or are those with potential for either growth or cash flow. These are the products on which a company should focus. Products that fall below the diagonal line are those that typically drain a company’s resources, with small returns and little potential for growth. These products should be analyzed thoroughly to determine which can benefit from selective investment in order to move them above the diagonal, and which need to be discontinued.
The factors used to determine market attractiveness are market growth, market size, opportunity to differentiate product and/or services from others in the market, profitability, intensity of competition, risk to returns, pricing trends, entry barriers, demand variability, distribution structure, and technological developments. The factors involved in determining product position are strength of assets and competencies, customer loyalty, cost position relative to competitors, distribution strength, record of technological or other innovation, relative brand strength, market share, and access to financial and other investment resources.
Advantages and disadvantages of GE-McKinsey Matrix:
Advantages:
  • This matrix takes into account a number of factors that the BCG Matrix does not.
  • It is visually easy to understand and provides more options to place a product as compared to the BCG Matrix, due to the inclusion of the “low” level on both axes.
  • It is conceptually similar to the BCG Matrix, so anyone who is familiar with the BCG Matrix can easily use the GE-McKinsey Matrix.
Disadvantages:
  • This matrix does not take into account the synergies between various products. Discontinuing one might adversely impact another.
  • The scoring of the various factors using the weights is subjective and leaves the tool open to bias.
  • It does not help in allocating the relative investments for each product. 

Monday 31 October 2016

All About Customer Advisory Boards


A Customer Advisory Board (CAB) or Customer Advisory Council is a representative customer group comprising senior stakeholders who convene periodically to validate product features, the marketing plan, and the strategic direction of the company to ensure these align with customers and the market. The company uses the information gathered at these meetings to realign business priorities and formulate strategy.
CABs meet on a periodic basis, typically two or three times per year. Some companies choose to meet more or less frequently, depending on need. However, it is challenging to have frequent customer councils as participation at these events is often voluntary, and participants are usually constrained by time. Also, the time and resources taken to accomplish and follow through with changes discussed in the customer councils often do not allow for more frequent meetings.
A physical meeting is the most popular format for customer councils. Other formats used by companies include tele-conferences, video conferences, and online CABs. Using these formats can help reduce time and money spent on travel and can result in increased participation levels. However, while they are more convenient, these formats are not always as effective as face-to-face meetings.
Key Functions of CABs
Some of the important uses of CABs are as follows:
  • Validating ideas for new features or new products
  • Providing valuable insights into how customers are using the products
  • Prioritizing features and identifying the most important ones on which to focus
  • Assisting in understanding how the products fare against alternatives in the market
  • Helping in designing the next generation of products which customers may adopt in future
  • Assisting in retaining key customers
  • Increasing revenue opportunities within the existing customer base
A key distinction between a CAB and a focus group is that the members of a CAB are carefully chosen senior members of management from client organizations, unlike product users in the case of focus groups.
To read more articles about sales and marketing, visit www.smstudy.com/articles

Friday 28 October 2016

SMstudy and the Post-Advertising World


We recently read that “We are living in a post-advertising world.” The claim was made by John Horsley, director of Digital Doughnut, a global digital marketing community. Horsley should know, so we took notice.
Horsley explained his claim in a LinkedIn group forum: “Conversations have replaced campaigns, engagement trumps reach, and brands are no longer built by above-the-line agencies, but at every touchpoint the business has with its customers. And the thread that links all these elements is social media.” This resonates with us at SMstudy. We have included a lot about touchpoints, engagement and social media marketing in A Guide to the Sales and Marketing Body of Knowledge, also referred to as the SMstudy® Guide.
Horsley was using his claim to incite and invite members of the group to take part in a survey being conducted to explore the current status of companies and social media and contribute to his work “New Report: Social Media’s Impact on Customer Experience.” He says “businesses have been slow to respond, often hampered by outdated structures, siloed thinking and a lack of strategic understanding.” Now, that really resonates with us because we wrote an entire book on Marketing Strategy as one of the six aspects covered in the SMstudy® Guide and we offer certifications in marketing strategy.
His claim did not resonate so well with others, however. One group member commented, “Social media channels are simply another way to touch someone, as is and remains advertising. Effective communications usually consist of multichannel or cross channel strategies.” We had to agree with several points here. Our Digital Marketing book says, “Given the nature of the online world, which is constantly evolving and expanding—new channels are developing 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 and applicability in helping achieve the company’s overall organizational goals and objectives.”
Social media provide many opportunities for delivering messages that advertise. Within Marketing Strategy whole sections have been dedicated to planning and developing social media as well as other digital channels.
The term “posting” (as it is used in advertising) comes not from posting mail but from a time when fences, street lamp poles, telephone posts and any available urban wall space were festooned with advertisements for products, shows, soon-to-arrive circuses and political candidates. When the rampant postings got out-of-hand, a new posting appeared saying, “Post No Bills.” Now, many marketing and advertising messages are being posted online and in social media. Perhaps we should say we’re living in a post-post-advertising world? Well … maybe not.
Another commenter added, “effective marketing communication is always a delicious idea (whatever it might be) served on many different (multichannel) dishes.” And that’s an idea we can relish.
To get more insights about sales and marketing, register for the free SMstudy subscription today - http://smstudy.com/Subscription/Free-Subscription

Thursday 27 October 2016

How Information Finds You: Hyper-relevant Content Marketing


“If the news is that important, it will find me.”
This (in)famous declaration was made by an anonymous college student in 2008 during a focus group conducted by Jane Buckingham, founder of the market research company Intelligence Group.
Since 2008, this remark has made the rounds. It’s been quoted and discussed in both media and marketing worlds. It’s even been cited by the New York Times. And if you have to ask why, you haven’t been paying attention. This statement, which seems like a throw away (let’s be honest) has proven to be the number one guiding principle in both media dissemination and marketing in the new digital age.
As Joshua Benton remarked in a recent piece for NiemanLab, “If the news is that important, it will find me. I can’t tell you how many conferences, how many symposia, how many gatherings of worthies I’ve been at where some version of that line has been tossed around.”
It’s true! I’d heard it mentioned during a class on 21st-century journalism in 2009. At the time, old time journos scoffed at the student’s “laziness” or “lack of interest” in the wider world. But today, no one scoffs at the idea of providing valuable, relevant content, served up directly to viewers through the various social media channels. This is now the expectation. If it’s important, it will find you.
Marketers, like the media, have adapted. And one of the methods hyped over the last few years is content marketing. But with massive quantities of information bombarding us daily, we are reaching what is referred to as “Peak Content” or “the point at which this glut of things to read, watch and listen to becomes completely unsustainable,” according to author Kevin Anderson in 2014.
With Peak Content looming and with the understanding that a story (or content) MUST be important enough to reach the reader/viewer, successful marketers are turning to extra relevant, extra valuable content that will cut through the fracas. As this happens, the question then becomes “what’s relevant?”
Relevance often depends on individual circumstances and numerous other factors that may be at play at any moment in a person’s life. But there are some general assumptions that can be made. For example, most people will be thinking about breakfast in the morning. Or, if someone is awake late at night, information on insomnia might be something they’d like to see.
Enter the hyper-relevant content marketing plan, predicted by some to be a major social media marketing trend in 2016. Hyper-relevant content marketing takes into consideration the season, time of day or other societal factors that may be affecting a person’s need for a specific type of information.  
One such marketer, Amanda Todorovich, manager of Digital Engagement for Cleveland Clinic, is achieving major success producing hyper-relevant content by fine-tuning her organization’s marketing to maintain “evergreen” value for everyone and then offering it wisely within marketing channels.
“We are trying to put content in front of people at the right time,” Todorovich said. “We try to marry the best times of day on each channel with the best content and what people are using those channels for. Not everything gets posted on every channel we're on.”
By assessing the relevance and value of the content being used within a marketing strategy and utilizing the channels as well as season or time of day effectively, a marketer can be sure to hit the target more directly and at the same time find they’ve contributed something of genuine value to the online community.
For more resources and information on sales and marketing visit www.SMstudy.com
Sources:
Peak Content: The collapse of the attention economy, Kevin Anderson. Jan. 4, 2016. ehttp://www.themediabriefing.com/article/peak-content-the-collapse-of-the-attention-economy
“If the news is that important, it’ll find me.” But what determines if it’s important?, Joshua Benton, Feb. 20, 2014. http://www.niemanlab.org/2014/02/if-the-news-is-that-important-itll-find-me-but-what-determines-if-its-important/
Behind the Scenes of the Cleveland Clinic’s Content Marketing Strategy, Brianne Carlon Rush, Dec. 2, 2014. http://www.kunocreative.com/blog/cleveland-clinics-content-marketing-strategy

Tuesday 25 October 2016

Play Poker, Not Chess with VMEdu


How many articles on leadership include advisories to “Play Poker, Not Chess” and “Blow up the Enterprise”? Not many, and certainly not as many as this author would like. However, in a series of articles on leadership for Forbes Magazine in 2012, Alex Knapp gave these two bits of advice using episodes from the Star Trek and Star Wars franchises as source material.
Knapp used Starfleet captains James T. Kirk and Jean-Luc Picard as positive leadership examples in articles titled “Five Leadership Lessons from James T. Kirk” and “Five Leadership Lessons from Jean-Luc Picard,” respectively.  For negative examples, he visited Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi’s nemesis in an article called “Five Leadership Mistakes of the Galactic Empire.” Besides an affinity for the number five, Knapp gives an interesting twist to traits of leadership that are far from unfamiliar territory. His unique insights, dead-on applications and intriguing examples give this well-discussed topic new spirit and made reviewing some old saws interesting and enjoyable.
Giving well-discussed topics new spirit and making them both interesting and enjoyable is the challenge for all writers and educators.  While writers are more or less on their own, there is help for professional trainers and educators.
The Internet provides opportunities for new ideas and new discussions of old topics. It also simultaneously presentsmultitudes of people talking about these same things. Ideas, terms, and examples are bound to be repeated and repeated and repeated. The challenge for professional trainers is to keep their material fresh, relevant, and attractive. This requires knowing one’s students and this is where playing poker instead of chess comes in. Knapp writes, “For all of its intricacies, chess is a game of defined rules that can be mathematically determined. A far better analogy to strategy is poker, not chess. Life is a game of probabilities, not defined rules. And often understanding your opponents [students] is a much greater advantage than the cards you have in your hand.”
This isn’t to say that the “the cards you have in your hand” are not important; trainers and educators put most of their attention on them, and rightly so. However, in addition to knowing one’s subject matter, professional educators must share it in evocative and effective ways. And those are not the only things professional training providers must do. Each must also prepare knowledge assessments and track student progress. Aligning tests to the requirements of appropriate, associated certifications is often more than a trainer can handle. For this, the educator needs to follow the advice one learns from Jean-Luc Picard, “When you’re overwhelmed, ask for help.” 
                Knapp observes that seeking help “is a hard thing to do.” Because of this, there are organizations making it easier for professional training providers to get help, especially with tasks such as preparing and giving exams and tracking student progress. One such company is VMEdu, Inc., a leader in the professional training and certification industry that has developed a versatile course delivery platform and back office support. During the seven years it spent creating its Learning Management System (LMS), the company used it with its PMstudy and MyITstudy brands, whose students have achieved 98.7 and 99.2 percent pass rates, respectively, on professional certification exams. The LMS system helped PMstudy grow to be the largest PMP trainer worldwide and the SCRUMstudy brand to become the global accreditation body for Scrum with a network of more than 800 training partners. VMEdu now offers its platform and back office services and products to professional trainers across the globe.
For professional trainers in its VMEdu Authorized Training Partners (V.A.T.P.) and VMEdu Authorized Content Providers (V.A.C.P.) programs, it also develops apps designed to generate additional leads, provide immediate feedback on courses and lessons and generate up-sell and cross-sell opportunities, according to VMEdu. The training apps VMEdu has already created include interactive case studies, specialized glossaries, games, flash cards and practice exams.
                Using an episode in which Captain Kirk, a 23rd century space explorer, mixes and uses gunpowder to save himself and his crew, Knapp points out that there was no need for Kirk to know this information because “Starfleet officers fight with phasers and photon torpedoes.” However, Kirk is a voracious learner and develops expertise outside of his primary field of focus. Knapp applies this to leaders saying, “In the same way, no matter what your organization does, it helps to never stop learning. The more knowledge you have, the more creative you can be. The more you’re able to do, the more solutions you have for problems at your disposal.” During World War II, General Eisenhower of the Allied command used a group of officers to increase his own knowledge base and put more solutions at his disposal.
Creating mobile apps and databases for following student progress may not be your primary area of focus, but they are two solutions for problems facing the trainer in the technological age. Knapp tells his readers that “Kirk’s reputation at the Academy was that of a ‘walking stack of books.’” Where Kirk had Starfleet Academy and General Eisenhower had his officers, today’s professional trainers have companies such as VMEdu.
Keeping one’s training fresh and interesting with unique insights, engaging mobile apps, and intriguing examples is a huge challenge, but NOT a challenge the modern professional educator must meet alone.
Works Cited
Knapp, Alex. (5 March 2012) “Five Leadership Lessons from James T. Kirk.” Forbes. (3 January 2014) http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2012/03/05/five-leadership-lessons-from-james-t-kirk/
− ­− − (13 March 2012) “Five Leadership Lessons from Jean-Luc Picard.” Forbes. (3 January 2014) http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2012/03/13/five-leadership-lessons-from-jean-luc-picard/
− ­− − (13 February 2012) “Five Leadership Mistakes of the Galactic Empire.” Forbes. (3 January 2014) http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2012/02/13/five-leadership-mistakes-of-the-galactic-empire/

Monday 24 October 2016

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.

Friday 21 October 2016

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

Thursday 20 October 2016

Why it is Better to Wear More Than One Hat and How SMstudy Helps You


A “soup-to-nuts” attitude is the best way to approach any career. Demonstrating an intense interest in a subject and presenting a thorough understanding and a “can- do” work ethic are all feathers in your professional cap.
While in some fields extreme specialization is still required, there’s a growing trend toward job consolidation or the combination of what was once two separate careers into one. And in fact, as the trend doesn’t appear to be going away any time soon, broader skillsets may be a requirement in the future. Thus the need to wear more than one hat (at least professionally speaking) will continue to be increasingly important.
One of the main reasons for this shift is the impact from technology. Over the last decade advancements in technological solutions have transformed the way companies do business. The opportunities technology provides for streamlining workflow, such as automation or software application utilization, is a movement that’s been noted across industries.
Using sales as an example, Stuart Leung of salesforce.com said, “Technology is transforming the world of sales. Going forward, only organizations that use powerful tools and technologies such as big data, social media, mobile technologies, and the cloud to streamline the sales process will remain profitable and competitive. Those who choose to retain outdated sales techniques may ultimately cease to exist.”
The rise in technological advancements has also been noted in the trend toward streamlining staff as well. As technology provides tools that allow for greater efficiency, a staff member is freed up to handle more aspects of the process…not simply one small part. In many fields this has led to the combining of jobs when it’s seen as beneficial and appropriate.
There exists a natural symbiotic relationship between sales and marketing departments. Streamlining and job combining between the two allows for a more efficient workflow and optimizes the sharing of objectives and the continual free flow of communication.  Of course this is good news for a company, but it also opens growth opportunities for current or future staff members as well.
For a sales and marketing team member, there are clear benefits to possessing knowledge of both the sales and marketing processes. It sets you apart as someone who can offer comprehensive critical thinking. It also allows the “left hand to know what the right hand is doing”, or in other words there is smooth communication and understanding between the two sides of the sales and marketing spectrum. To be well versed and authoritative on the workflow of connecting potential customers with valuable content and to provide knowledgeable sales skills to assist customers in finding solutions can set you apart when out on the job hunt, working toward greater responsibility within a company or even considering striking out on your own (ala the entrepreneur).
Whether you’re seeking to align your skill set with the new professional landscape or planning to move into a sales and marketing field and want to show a comprehensive knowledge of the continuum of sales and marketing, SMstudy can get you there.
SMstudy offers training and certifications on its own platform available through the SMstudy website.
  • SMstudy has gathered expert instruction and guidance from all over the globe to offer a vast library of information on the various aspects of sales and marketing.
  • SMstudy is budget friendly. Many courses (and Associate certifications) are free to all.
  • SMstudy is a major opportunity for networking with others who share an interest in sales and marketing.
  • SMstudy offers the opportunity to share sales and marketing knowledge and insight through the SMstudy platform that allows the creation of training materials such as videos, study guides, mobile apps and more.
For interesting articles about Sales and Marketing, visit www.SMstudy.com/articles

Wednesday 19 October 2016

Various types of Primary Data in the context of Marketing Research


When a researcher collects new data for a specific research project, the data is considered primary data. On the other hand if the data is already available in house i.e. historical data or data received from some other external sources (e.g. industry reports, internet searches, government published reports etc.), the data is considered as secondary data. 
The research requirements will vary from project to project, with many research projects requiring both primary and secondary data to solve the research problem. Some research projects can be solved with the sole use of existing secondary data, while in other cases no secondary data exists and the research project can only be solved with the use of primary data.
As a rule, a researcher should always try to collect and analyze secondary data before moving to the collection and analysis of comparatively costly and time-consuming primary data. In some cases secondary data may be inadequate or unusable. When the needed data do not exist or are outdated, inaccurate, incomplete, or unreliable, the researcher needs to collect primary data.
Let’s take an example to illustrate the need of collecting primary data. It is a common HR practice to keep the employees satisfied for most of the medium to big sized companies as studies show that engaged employees are more productive and are better contributors to their employer’s goals and objectives. Employee satisfaction surveys (popularly known as “ESAT survey”) are done to evaluate the satisfaction of employees on key parameters such as satisfaction with senior management, immediate managers, company policies, work environment, hygiene factors and other facilities, training and development, opportunities for personal growth etc. In this case collecting primary data is a must as it is meaningless to use past ESAT survey data for the current workforce.
There are various forms of primary data. Some common types are illustrated as follows:
Demographic Data—Demographic data are related to characteristics such as the gender, age, income, education, occupation, marital status, ethnicity, and social status of the target group. Demographic primary data categorize the target market into different customer segments each having some common attributes which help marketers to focus on a specific segment or create segment specific marketing strategies. For example a fast food (e.g. pizza, burgers etc.) brand may find that preferences of people in the 20–30 age group are different from the preferences of people in the 30–40 age group.
Psychographics and Lifestyle Data—This kind of data is related to personality traits, interests, lifestyle, values, and opinions of the target respondents. Marketers often combine psychographics and lifestyle information with demographic information to obtain an important perspective of the target market.
Intentions—Intentions refer to the anticipated future behaviors of an individual. This is a subject of interest to marketers who want to solve a research problem related to future consumption rate or demand.
Attitudes—Attitudes refer to a person’s feelings, convictions, or beliefs toward an object, idea, or an individual. Since attitude impacts behavior, it is of great importance to marketers.
Awareness/KnowledgeThis data refers to what subjects do or do not know about an object of investigation. Information influences behavior and marketers often want to know how the behavior of customers changes with their level of awareness regarding a particular product, brand, object, or industry.
MotivationsA person’s actions are the reflection of his or her inner state. Marketers often want to know the motives that direct specific consumer behavior. Motivations can include users’ category, brand-purchasing motives, value systems, and perceptions among others.
BehaviorsBehaviors are the actions taken by respondents. Questions regarding respondents’ behaviors toward a particular situation can be asked to them directly and can be included in a survey. However, the responses may not represent the actual behavior of the respondents. Observation techniques are more often used to understand the actual behavior of respondents. Purchase behavior is also an important factor; when considering purchase behavior, marketers might categorize consumers as non-users, potential users, first-time users, regular users, or former users.
To know more about primary data, visit “SMstudy”.

Tuesday 18 October 2016

Like, Love, Heart, Share, Retweet: The Power is Real


It’s my morning routine: I sit, smartphone in hand, twitter app open and dig into the chatter. Quickly scrolling through breaking news, taking in headlines and laughing at Michael Moore’s latest quip, I pause on a presidential candidate’s tweet; a candidate I support. As I read the tweet and agree with its message, nodding my head in a “you said it, brother!” manner, I’m also debating whether to heart or even possibly retweet. I can see that it’s been hearted and retweeted thousands of times already and a part of me truly wonders what is lost to my 45 followers (most of whom are trying to sell me something) if I don’t share?
Will they miss out on some vital information?
Will they be annoyed?
Will they disagree?
And then, I have the aha moment.
The truthiest truth is this: I should “heart,” “like,” “share” and “retweet” content I believe in. Not for my followers, since they’ll most likely receive the same information from various other sources, but because we now have the power and the platform to really say what we think, feel, believe. And that is real power. And who am I to turn away such a gift?
All this power is made even more potent because everyone is listening!
For example, marketers and companies want to test the waters with a brand or product, continually finding new ways to slice and dice the data to arrive at the best metrics for planning and executing marketing and sales adventures. 
Or political parties taking the temperature of the society on the importance of an issue or testing the potential of a particular smear campaign (I’ve seen it, it’s ugly).
Or news media outlets continually gathering sentiment, feedback and sometimes actionable intel (in the case of citizen journalism) on stories, topics, issues and events.
These golden nuggets of information or social insights reveal so much about who we are and what we care about that no marketer, politician or gatekeeper can resist.
After my early morning aha moment, my eyes are opened to the dangers inherent in such a powerful tool and what could happen if the tables were turned on us lovers of online democracy. Citing various examples of self-censorship, an article on The Intercept addresses a recent study on the chilling effect created by widespread surveillance. And that, of course, includes social media channels where users know they are being read, monitored.
According to author Glenn Greenwald, “The fear that causes self-censorship is well beyond the realm of theory. Ample evidence demonstrates that it’s real— and rational. A study from PEN America writers found that 1 in 6 writers had curbed their content out of fear of surveillance and showed that writers are “not only overwhelmingly worried about government surveillance, but are engaging in self-censorship as a result.”
And this is no stand-alone, one-off study. Data abounds (and compounds) indicating that we, the watched, are watching what we say.
This makes me fret— a sweaty-palmed, hand-wringing sort of fret.
If we begin to see ourselves as oppressed by the experience of sharing on social media, we’ve collectively gone through the looking glass. We’ve embraced an alternate reality where we are not free to contribute to the construction of a society or the promotion of an idea (or even product). We’ve turned away from the greatest contribution and benefit Twitter and other social media platforms provide…the opportunity to engage in the global marketplace of ideas, to hear and be heard, to make a difference.
So, setting fear aside, I embrace the power of my opinions and retweet that tweet. To do my part, to provoke, to question, and in this instance, to add my one voice to the many.
Even if it means being the 3,478th person to retweet a tweet, it matters.
For more on sales and marketing, visit smstudy.com.
Sources:
New Study Shows Mass Surveillance Breeds Meekness, Fear and Self-Censorship, Glenn Greenwald, April 26, 2016 https://theintercept.com/2016/04/28/new-study-shows-mass-surveillance-breeds-meekness-fear-and-self-censorship/

Monday 17 October 2016

Understanding Customer-Perceived Features and Price Analysis


Customer-perceived features and price analysis are important indicators of how well the company’s product is perceived in the target market. These analyses help the company understand the product features that the customer perceives as good, as well as the features that need improvement.
They also provide an understanding of how customers perceive the product pricing in comparison with competition. They can also indicate whether the efforts to increase value for a particular feature are headed in the right direction. The scores can be calculated using a comparison of all, a select few, or individual competitors. The customer-perceived features and price analysis should preferably be done separately for the product features and the price.
The customer-perceived features analysis can be done using these following steps:
  1. The customers of both the company and competing companies are asked to list product features, other than price, that are important in their purchasing decisions. The senior management or corporate sales team can also add to the list of features, based on their knowledge of the products and customers.
     
  2. The various features are weighted. This can be done through a survey or from senior management inputs, based on their understanding of the importance of the features.
     
  3. The customers are then asked to rate the features of the products or services offered by the company, as well as the features of their competitors’ products and services.
     
  4. Finally, the score on each feature is divided by the competitors’ score. This is called the product feature ratio for that feature. For each product feature, a ratio of less than one indicates that the particular product feature is perceived lower in quality than the competition’s; a ratio greater than one indicates that the product feature is perceived better than the competition’s.
     
  5. After getting the ratios for each of the product features, ratios are then multiplied by the weights for each attribute and added together to get the overall customer-perceived score for all the product features of the company’s product. An overall customer-perceived features score of 100 indicates a position of relative parity with the completion for the overall product. A score greater than 100 indicates that the product is perceived to be better than the competition’s with respect to overall product features.
The customer-perceived price analysis is similar to the process used for customer-perceived features analysis, and helps the company understand how the product price is perceived with respect to competitors’ prices. However, instead of product features, the calculation uses attributes that affect perceptions of a product’s overall cost.
The customer-perceived price analysis is intended to illustrate customer perception of where a company’s pricing sits relative to the prices of their competitors in areas where the product or service has several pricing factors.
To read more articles about sales and marketing, visit www.smstudy.com/articles

Friday 14 October 2016

Corporate Strategy: The Ladder for Strategic Ascendancy


With the ever increasing B2B sales and rapidly expanding global network, organizations today face a tough challenge  dominating the competition and gaining substantial market share. Moreover to answer questions like “Where are we now?, Where do we want to be?, and How do we get there?”, companies require a concrete strategy to help comprehend and answer these questions at hand. These multifaceted problems requires the senior management of the companies to work in tandem to create and define “Corporate Strategy”, that helps address the ever increasing challenges of the corporate competition.
Corporate Strategy defined by the company’s senior management team are guiding principles for the organization as a whole which takes into consideration an assessment of the existing capabilities of the company and external opportunities and threats to the business. Thus formulation of a company’s Corporate Strategy requires inputs from multiple stakeholders, particularly senior management who are well aware of the strengths and weakness of the organization.
To device a proper Corporate Strategy most companies use existing documentation regarding their Corporate Product Strategy, Corporate Marketing Strategy, Corporate Operations Strategy, Corporate Finance Strategy, and Corporate Human Resource Strategy. These documents are integrated to help define a coherent Corporate Strategy. The level and complexity of documentation for these strategies vary depending on the size of the company and the breadth of its product portfolio and geographic reach.
Many companies execute strategic planning exercises at appropriate and specific time intervals like once or twice a year to arrive at a corporate strategy. This process helps ensure that leadership team has coherently defined goals and strategies that align with the overall strategic goals of the organization.
Corporate Strategy is often defined at a company level; but strategy can also be formulated at lower levels depending on the size and complexity of the organization. For example, the Corporate Strategy for an entire company can be divided into strategies for each business unit or geographic region and then divided further into specific product or brand strategies for each product or brand in a defined geographic region. The Product or Brand Strategy is the lowest level of this hierarchy.
Corporate Strategy thus acts as a benchmark for the company to execute future plans by carefully assessing it internal and external capabilities and helps inundate actions that aid in achieving overall targets and goals.