Refer a friend!

Word-of-mouth referrals are the ultimate endorsement for a company, its products, services and staff. Referrals are therefore considered the gold standard of customer acquisition in many fields. But what can be done when the excellence of your salesmanship isn’t equating into a steady stream of referrals? When you’re giving it 110% and still not feeling the referral love?

When referrals aren’t being generously doled out by past or current customers, a smart referral program can be just the right form of encouragement they need to extol you and your company’s virtues. According to the SMstudy® Guide, Corporate Sales, referrals may happen on their own, but companies can also influence referrals through appropriate online marketing strategies.

The book states, “The key to a good referral program is not only to drive customer acquisition in the short term, but also to engage new and loyal customers, encouraging them to act on their brand advocacy.”

Incorporating a smart creative program can definitely be a win-win-win situation, benefiting the existing customer, potential customer and sales team.

The pluses of incorporating a referral program are noteworthy:

 A reduction in marketing costs. Satisfied customers are now incentivized to sing your praises and steer potential customers in your direction.

An improvement in customer satisfaction. Existing customers can engage and benefit from a referral program.

An all-around better Return on Investment (ROI).

After deciding to embark on a referral program, it’s time to put on the proverbial “thinking cap” and figure out what can be offered as a worthy token of a customer’s loyalty and how it can best be presented to customers. Every company is different but many find that offering what is within their wheelhouse enhances brand recognition and builds an ongoing conversation with customers.  

For example, the cloud-based file hosting service, Dropbox, ran a very successful referral campaign that offered 500MB of free storage to both the referrer and the referee. Sited by ReferralCandy as their #1 Best Practice Referral example, Dropbox experienced a 60% increase in sign-ups, beginning in September 2008 with 100,000 users to 4,000,000 in January of 2010. In addition, Dropbox noted that 35% of its daily enrollment was via their referral program.

In their article, “How Referrals Built a $10 Billion Dropbox Empire,” ReferralCandy places Dropbox’s program at the pinnacle of all referral programs for a few distinct reasons. Besides the general benefits noted above, smaller details helped set Dropbox apart, including:

A built-in referral process. Step 6 in the Dropbox sign up process… “Invite some friends to join Dropbox.”

Offer a gift, don’t ask a favor. Dropbox offers more free storage space to new members instead of asking them to refer a friend.

Make the referral process painless. Offer convenience with a choice in referral methods. Simple social media and email options are optimal.

Let the customer behind the curtain. Dropbox allows users to check on referrals via their dashboard.

Keep the train running. A confirmation email indicating when a referral has responded includes the option to refer another person. So, instead of being a one-time only affair, Dropbox has created a referral loop and as long as it maintains its appeal, it will continue to draw in referrals.

We’re always hoping well-earned referrals will be forever flowing in, but when they’re not, referral programs such as the one used by Dropbox have the potential to fire up our customers.

And as a final thought, consider this…ReferralCandy suggests that if advertising had been their only means of acquiring customers, Dropbox would have failed.

“Not only did referrals allow Dropbox to escape death, it allowed them to avoid all traditional ad spend. That in turn would have allowed them to focus their resources on making a better product- further cementing their competitive advantage,” they said.

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

Image courtesy of JD Hancock, Flickr. https://www.flickr.com/photos/jdhancock/6023780563/

Sources:

SMstudy® Guide, Corporate Sales, pg. 172-173.

“8 Proven Steps to Double Your Referrals from Other Attorneys,” Stephen Fairley http://www.attorneyatlawmagazine.com/phoenix/8-proven-steps-double-referrals-attorneys/

“Referral Program Examples – An Epic List Of 47 Referral Programs,” ReferralCandy, http://www.referralcandy.com/blog/47-referral-programs/#best-practices

“How Referrals Built The $10 Billion Dropbox Empire,” ReferralCandy, http://www.referralcandy.com/blog/referrals-built-dropbox-empire/

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

Big Data and Analytics : Fundamentally changing the marketing landscape

Big data and analytics become an integral part of marketing since the inception of internet in the late 1990’s and the introduction of smart phone and other internet enabled smart devices in recent times. Big data usually refers to the data sets with sizes beyond the scope of commonly used software tools to collect, clean, manage and process data within an acceptable time frame. With the rapid advancement in technology and increasing use of smart phones and other internet enabled devices, organizations today face overwhelming volume of data through multiple channels and devices. The main roadblocks while using big data are:

• Capture high volume of data from multiple sources and consolidate the data
• Data cleaning (i.e. removing redundant or unnecessary data – internal data, data generated due to testing, deletion/ blocking of cookies)
• Data storage
• Data sharing/ transfer
• Data visualization
• Data analysis

Now the important question is why should organizations use big data and analytics. The answer lies in decision making. Organizations cannot afford to make any decision just by guess or gut feeling. The use of predictive analytics and certain other advanced statistical methods to extract value from data leads to more confident decision making which in turn results is greater operational efficiency, cost reduction and reduced risk.     

Big data enables marketers to increase the size and range of information sources while speeding up reporting, enabling real-time forecasting and more informed and accurate decision-making.

marketers benefit from a large volume targeting options when it comes to online advertising. The growth of cookies and information-rich social media, means that the data is there to go beyond simple demographic, geographic, psychographic and time-based targeting options. 

Big data analytics helps optimizing campaigns and improve results in a scalable, real-time manner.

Big data transformed the last-click conversion attribution model to the multifaceted attribution model which takes into account all touch points across consumer purchase life-cycle. It was complicated earlier to capture these different, interrelated factors and their relative weights. But big data makes it easy to track, analyze and evaluate activities to see what is actually driving customers to engage.   

Find additional posts on sales and marketing at www.smstudy.com/articles. 

Sources:

https://econsultancy.com/blog/65260-the-top-four-applications-of-big-data-in-marketing/

http://www.forbes.com/sites/mckinsey/2013/07/22/big-data-analytics-and-the-future-of-marketing-sales/#6f0ec1ee344d

Social Insights on Video Marketing in the Age of YouTube

Down ‘n’ dirty or überposh, there’s a place for all quality of video marketing in the world today.

Recently we noted marketers’ growing acumen at not only parsing available social data, but also using the social media environment to probe the social community and glean consumer preferences and other social insights.  

We said, “Filling the role of the modern-day focus group, social media insights are also valuable for taking the temperature of the public on an idea such as a logo or slogan, a product or service. Testing the social media world’s tastes and perceptions allows for adjustment before launching, saving money and perhaps even preventing a catastrophic mistake.”

A recent experiment co-sponsored by Google and L’Oreal was one such probe that asked “whether storytelling changes for different age groups?” Results provided interesting insights into the minds of the under-45 crowd and how they respond to various styles of video marketing.

The study presented three L’Oreal ad spots (via YouTube) promoting a new eyeshadow. Researchers then documented which of the three had the greatest impact across three age groups: 18 to 24, 25 to 34 and 35 to 44.

The first ad is a traditional cosmetics commercial- gorgeous photography, high glamour. The kind of ad we’d expect to see on television. This one was named “The Glam.”

The second was more of a how-to video but still retained some glamorous elements. This one was called, “The Show.”

The third, named “The Tell,” was a user-generated DIY video. A regular “girl next door” talking about the makeup and how to apply it. Straight forward and practical.  

The results were both expected and surprising. Let’s explain…

“The Glam” scored very well, indeed. Topping the charts for both the 18-24 and 35-44 age groups, with no major difference in their rate of viewing.

The report states that “Regardless of age, "The Glam," the most traditionally structured and produced video, was the most "unskippable" ad with the strongest view-through rate (VTR).”

No real surprise here, right? We all love gorgeous images, compelling copy and a little eye candy never hurts. 

But here is where the experiment gets interesting.

Although “The Glam” view rates were 82% higher, it was “The Tell,” the DIY, user-generated styled video that did exceedingly well with the 18-24 age group (aka millennials) in the category of Ad Recall, coming in 100% higher than “The Glam.”

What the marketing study showed clearly was the changing generational tastes in regards to how marketed products are received. “The Glam” was accepted by all age groups as the highest visual quality with superior storytelling, but failed to provide the same viewer retention as “The Tell.” “The Tell” provided obvious how-to value and millennials had no problem accepting the unpolished amateur style of video. In addition, because “The Tell” felt more like “taking advice from a friend” it produced a click-through rate two times higher than the “The Glam” and “The Show,” meaning even in its bling-less status, the how-to video created a stronger call to action.

The report suggests millennials are miles more accepting of low-fi video production than the Gen Xer's… even when they know it’s an ad. For marketers that’s a pretty big deal. If the study proves accurate upon additional testing, anyone with a smartphone and some chutzpah can shoot marketing videos (bringing the cost to nearly zero) and still have the same chance at online virility, the holy grail of digital marketing.

All this to say, there appears to be a place for both “The Glam” and “The Tell” in today’s online marketplace, given the tastes of millennials to accept less traditional, high-gloss marketing as long as it offers legitimate value. This opens the door for greater marketing opportunities no matter what the budget.

For more articles on Sales and Marketing, visit smstudy.com.

Sources:

“2015 Will Be the Year of Video Marketing,” Tyler Lessard, Dec. 17, 2014 http://www.marketingprofs.com/articles/2014/26719/2015-will-be-the-year-of-video-marketing

“How Demographics and Storytelling Style Affect Video Ad Effectiveness,” Ben Jones, January 6. https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/articles/how-demographics-storytelling-style-affect-video-ad-effectiveness.html?utm_source=LinkedIn&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=Think

“In Search of Social Media Insights,” SMstudy.com. http://smstudy.com/Article/the-search-for-social-media-insights

Photo credit: Laura Lee Moreau

Pixel Stuffing, Ad Stacking and Billion Dollar Losses

In an article earlier in the week by SMstudy, we began with this quote from Fortune, “A massive chunk of the advertising market is based on smoke and mirrors, or even outright fraud.”[1]

The article written by Matthew Ingram focused on bots, software creepy crawlers that mimic human activities making online ads appear to be creating more impressions that they actually are, and thereby stealing fees based on CPI (Cost-Per-Impression). In this article, we take a quick look at two other online advertising fraud techniques: pixel stuffing and ad stacking.

A Bit of Background

While some watching the advertising world continue to point to declining ad revenues—“not just for print, but for digital and video and pretty much everything,” others see growth in online ad revenues. The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) reports online ad revenues achieving a 17 percent overall Compounded Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) from 2005 through 2015.[2]

But all can agree that what is definitely growing are revenue losses due to criminal activities, “The IAB said that a myriad of issues—from fraud to ad blocking to content piracy—is now costing online marketers around $8 billion annually.”[3]

As early as 2013, industry insiders had been saying that “Half or more of the paid online display advertisements that ad networks, media buyers, and ad agencies have knowingly been selling to clients over the years have never appeared in front of live human beings,” says Samuel Scott, writing in MOZ [4], citing a source from The Wall Street Journal.[5]

Ad Fraud Techniques

Bots account for almost half of fraudulent impressions. The rest come from a variety of techniques that include pixel stuffing and ad stacking.

Pixel stuffing is “where an ad designed to appear at 1,024 by 480 pixels is crammed into a one-by-one pixel square,” according to Ingram. Naomi Schwartz, writing for TechCrunch, describes this as “iFrame stuffing,” saying, “iFrame stuffing compresses an ad into a tiny one-by-one pixel size. The ad is served up on a site as a real ad and reported as a view, even though a real user would never be able to view such a tiny ad.” This might be similar to the use of “small print” to hide legalese in contracts: legally it’s there, but it’s not meant to be seen.

Ad stacking is “where multiple ads are programmed for a single slot,” according to Ingram. Schwartz explains it this way, “In this type of scam, multiple ads are placed on top of each other in a single ad placement. Only the top ad is in view, but all of the ads are reported as viewed.” The affect is much like the old cemetery swindle of selling a single burial plot to numerous customers.

Among six strategies to combat the effects of bots, pixel stuffing, ad stuffing and other fraudulent activities recommended by Samuel Scott, former journalist turned digital marcom professional, global marketing speaker and contributor to TechCrunch and Moz,  is that online marketers should “stop doing cost-per-impression (CPI or CPM) campaigns” and “revise advertising KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) and metrics in human terms.”

What you, as an online advertiser, decide to do is the billion-dollar question.

For additional interesting and informative articles on sales and marketing, visit http://www.SMstudy.com.

[1] Matthew Ingram. (July 1, 2015) “There’s a Ticking Time Bomb Inside the Online Advertising Market.” Fortune. Retrieved 5/25/16 from http://fortune.com/2015/07/01/online-advertising-fraud/

[2] From the IAB annual report “IAB internet advertising revenue report 2015 full year results April 2016” at http://www.iab.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/IAB-Internet-Advertising-Revenue-Report-FY-2015.pdf

[3] Christopher Heine. (January 19, 2016) “Bots Will Cost Digital Advertisers $7.2 Billion in @016, Says ANA Study.” AdWeek. Retrieved on 5/25/16 from http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/bots-will-cost-digital-advertisers-72-billion-2016-says-ana-study-169072

[4] Samuel Scott. (6/22/15) “The Alleged $7.5 Billion Fraud in Online Advertising.” MOZ. Retrieved on 5/26/16 from https://moz.com/blog/online-advertising-fraud

[5] Suzanne Vranica. (6/11/2013) “Web Display Ads Often Not Visible” The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved on 5/27/16 from http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887324904004578537131312357490

The Rise of Organic Advertising on Snapchat

There are 83 million Millennials. That is 83 million young adults that were born in the early 80s to late 90s, and 71 percent of those young adults check their social media websites every day. It only makes sense that companies have moved to social media when it comes to advertising their brands.

Snapchat, a company born in 2011, is now worth 18 billion dollars. So, ask the question. Go ahead. How did they do it? They learned how to monetize their product. Snapchat Discover is part of the latest app update. It provides companies with the ability to market their brand on the Stories menu. This not only eliminates the restriction of only being able to reach the people that personally follow a company but also costs 100 dollars CPM or cost per mille. For those who have no idea what that means, that is 100 dollars per 1,000 views. You can imagine how fast the money is being raked in when you consider there are 100 million daily active Snapchat users and the number is rapidly growing.

As fantastic as the new Snapchat Discover is, it doesn’t really assist companies that are not able to fork out large sums of money to reach the masses. Companies such as The Coca-Cola Company have figured out how to overcome this issue by handing the metaphorical reins over to Snapchat Influencer, Harris Markowitz. Snapchat Influencers are just your average Joes that have accumulated millions of followers by utilizing the app to it’s potential. The Coca-Cola Company partnered with Harris Markowitz to organically advertise their brand.

Markowitz has been providing weekly exclusive content for their Snapchat Story by, “reflecting the company's set mission: to refresh the world, to inspire moments of optimism and happiness, and to create value and make a difference. The Snapchat stories Coca-Cola creates refresh the organic advertisement world within the app by meeting all of their company missions in a creative way,” said Julian Gamboa, Lead Course Assistant at the University of California, Berkeley.

So not only do these snaps reach the followers of The Coca-Cola Company, but every single one of Markowitz’s 5 million followers has the opportunity to enjoy the engaging and entertaining Snap Story. By hiring Markowitz, The Coca-Cola Company went from promoting their brand to the few that have chosen to follow the company to having the brand viewed by millions of users virtually overnight. Other companies such as Taco Bell and Mashable have also jumped on the organic advertising bandwagon by partnering with Snapchat Influencers.

Partnering with an influencer on social media almost tricks viewers into thinking they watching their favorite Snapchat star’s Story and in the digital marketing world we like to call this native advertisement. According to Digital Marketing, book 3 in theSMstudy® Guide, “native advertising is a form of online advertising that blends in with its surroundings. The objective is to promote a company’s product or service in a way that is ‘native’ to the platform in which the message appears. Native ads are promotional pieces that are attempting to look like the material to which they are adjacent.”

The going rate for partnering with Snapchat influences varies as much as their online personalities, but there are best practices when it comes to negotiating a mutually beneficial agreement. Most influencers accept a flat fee. It simplifies the process for everyone and it is helpful for the allocation of funds months in advance (if need be). As Snapchat charges cost per mille, so do influences. For the most part. Influencers have also been known to ask for a percentage of the sale rather than flat compensation, as well as free products or services.

According to Ad Week, “Snapchat splits revenue with the media companies for ads on Discover channels, and those sponsorships can cost as much as $75,000 a day, say marketing execs. In other cases, brands like McDonald's cough up as much as $750,000 for daily official sponsorships.”

Companies like Boost Insider aids brands in finding the right influencer for them at the right budget. You can partner with an influencer for as little as 200 dollars, but, again, this number does depend on the amount of followers the influencer has. For small business, hiring an influencer is not out of the cards, it will drastically improve the way you organically use Snapchat and give you the fun of going native.

For more interesting articles about sales and marketing, visit www.smstudy.com/articles

Adoption Cycle for Technology Products

When a business plans to launch any product/service into the market, it always has a target audience in mind who would be using this product. Now even though the target audience are the ones that will be the source of revenue for the firm while acquiring market share, audiences in general are apprehensive of shifting from their existing products and adopting new products. Typically for FMCG products, businesses conduct free trials to increase customer adoption but when it comes to technology products, customer adoption is a big challenge.

In order to gain early traction into any market, businesses should not only identify their target segment but also people who are more likely to adapt their product faster so as to get the most effective results of their initial marketing campaign. Based on the adoption cycle of products, customers are divided as:

Innovators – Innovators are typically the first individuals to adopt any new innovative product or service launched into the market. Innovators have good financial status, are geeky, and are open to experimentation. They also like to show off any new product they have to their social circles ansd their risk tolerance allows them to adopt technologies that may ultimately fail. 

Early Adopters– Typically when the innovators try out a new product/service, they talk about it and their feedback typically impacts the second fastest category of individuals who would adopt the innovation which is Early Adopter. While Innovators are important to test the product initially, it is the Early Adopters that have the highest degree of opinion leadership among the other adopter categories and their feedback typically creates or kills the product/service. Early adopters are more discreet in adoption choices than innovators. They use judicious choice of adoption to help them maintain a central communication position.

Early Majority– Individuals in this category adopt the innovation after a varying degree of time. Their time of adoption is significantly longer than the innovators and early adopters and they normally have a lower risk appetite and would only purchase products that carry some credibility or atleast products launched by credible organizations. They are heavily influenced by the opinions of Innovators and Early Adopters. 

Late Majority– They adopt an innovation after the average individual. The people falling under this category are reluctant to innovations and adopt it only after the majority of society has adopted the innovation. Late Majority are often financially prudent, have little opinion leadership and are not influenced by new technology immediately. The general attraction for Later Majority would be products sold at a lower price than existing products or products that create a network effect wherein Late Majority are influenced by people in their circles using the new product/technology.

Laggards– They are the last to adopt an innovation. Laggards are almost repulsive to change, typically avoid technology and are inherently not outgoing and in contact with only family and close friends.

Understanding these various segments is extremely important for any business to grow and establish themselves in the market. For example, when Tesla launched their cars, the initial cars were extremely expensive and were bought by high net worth individuals who liked the exclusivity the car gave them and also how it projected them as being environmentally conscious. This move helped Tesla because by producing the initial few cars, they were able to get good media coverage while also ensuring that since they were targeting people with dispensable income, they could recover their initial investment by pricing the product high. But now that their is increased acceptance for the product, they are able to come up with lower priced products because they have the market for it and can afford to mass produce them. Had Tesla just gone ahead and mass produced this low price version, it could very well have been stuck with unsold inventory resulting in failure.

Sales training, not just for sales teams anymore. SMstudy is for everyone.

As companies continue the eternal pursuit of streamlining, a little bit of universal sales training can yield major benefits. Basic understanding of the aspects of the sales process is a benefit for all members of a company regardless of position or department.

Some very real advances in efficiency can be achieved when everyone speaks the same language.

Ever feel important communications get lost in translation from one branch of a company to the other? Since sales is usually a crucial element of any company, it benefits everyone to have an understanding of sales processes and its terminology.  When everyone speaks the same language, everything goes more smoothly.

According to Will Brooks, executive vice president and director of marketing at The Brooks Group, “Communication is enhanced once everyone is fluent in the selling process, when the dialogue around specific accounts and stages in the buyer’s journey becomes more efficient—both within the sales team and across departments. Congruent terminology and standard definitions of each stage in the buying process reduces miscommunication and unifies the sales and marketing departments.”

Continuity of Message = Efficiency

Another important benefit of universal sales training; the continuity of company communication, both internally and externally. A consistent informed message that permeates a company will make a stronger clearer message to potential customers. As customers are brought in to the sales cycle, they will continue to receive a consistent message that in turn leads to a seamless customer experience. 

Brooks notes, “Customer service can better understand the customer’s needs once they have received sales training, and when marketing understands the sales process, they can provide tools and resources that are aligned with how sales is selling. The promises sales makes to customers should mirror the messages that marketing sends out, and alignment between these departments ensures that’s always happening.”

SMstudy works very well for any company considering a company-wide sales training program. It’s convenient and offers flexible training opportunities that work within the timeframe of a staff members’ busy schedule. The SMstudy Guide® and all its resources, including training videos, study guides, test questions and more, is ideally positioned to provide a positive sales training experience for everyone. 

Find more interesting information on sales and marketing at smstudy.com.

Sources:

How Sales Training Can Benefit More Than the Sales Team, Will Brooks. Sept. 21, 2015. https://www.trainingindustry.com/blog/blog-entries/how-sales-training-can-benefit-more-than-the-sales-team.aspx

Five Exceptional Examples of Product Placement in Hollywood Movies

The European Union defines product placement as "any form of audiovisual commercial communication consisting of the inclusion of or reference to a product, a service or the trademark thereof so that it is featured within a program." Product placement is one of the most effective methods of advertising because it has a viewing audience of nearly 100 percent. While TV advertisers lose many viewers who take breaks during commercials, movie viewers pay attention to product advertisements because they are engrossed in the film. The growth of product placement in movies has been phenomenal over the past decade. The U.S. is the largest and fastest growing paid product placement market. It generated revenues of $1.5 billion in 2005, $2.9 billion in 2007, and $3.7 billion in 2008.

Lets look at five exceptional examples of product placement in Hollywood movies that stood out in terms of seamless integration with the storyline and benefit to the brands.

1. Wilson (Movie: Castaway) - "Castaway" took the concept of product placement to another level by using a brand name for a character. When Chuck (Tom Hanks) gets stranded on an island, he finds a Wilson volleyball from one of the boxes that was in the plane. He paints the ball and turns it into a friend and companion named "Wilson." One of the original volleyballs used in the movie was auctioned for $18,500 to the ex-CEO of FedEx Office, Ken May. Wilson launched a joint promotion at the time of the films release boasting the fact that one of its products was co-starring Tom Hanks.

2. Sears (Movie: Man of Steel) - The 2013 blockbuster "Man of Steel" holds the record for the most occurrences of product placement in a movie. Apparently, the producers signed around 100 deals with promotional partners. One prominent example of product placement in the movie is a Sears store. Supermans father uses Craftsman tools and works at Sears. One scene includes a Sears store being blown up. Sears used this opportunity to create a Guinness World Record for the largest number of people assembled in one place dressed as Superman by gathering 566 employees in Superman costumes at the companys headquarters.

3. McDonalds (Movie: Pulp Fiction) - The 1994, Quentin Tarantino movie "Pulp Fiction" is arguably one of the best movies ever made. One bit of iconic dialogue centers on McDonalds. While discussing cultural differences among nations, Vincent Vega (John Travolta) and Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson) reference the Quarter Pounder and Big Mac.

4. Omega (Movie: Casino Royale) - Product placement in James Bond movies isnt new. Omega is one brand with a long history of association with the Bond films. It started in 1995 with "GoldenEye," in which Pierce Brosnan wore an Omega Seamster Quartz Professional watch. The trend followed as Brosnan flaunted different models of Seamster in later films. Daniel Craig, the current 007, has also worn the Omega Seamster in all of his Bond movies and even mentions the brand name Omega in "Casino Royale."

5. Starbucks (Movie: Youve Got Mail) - The 1998 romantic comedy "Youve Got Mail" famously placed two brands in the storyline--AOL and Starbucks. In the movie, Tom Hanks is shown drinking coffee at Starbucks and even makes a reference to the coffee giant in the dialogue: "The whole purpose of places like Starbucks is for people with no decision-making ability whatsoever to make six decisions just to buy one cup of coffee. Short, tall, light, dark, caf, decaf, low-fat, non-fat, etc. So people who dont know what the hell they are doing or who on earth they are can, for only $2.95, get not just a cup of coffee but an absolutely defining sense of self: Tall. Decaf. Cappuccino."

Out with the old, in with the new

20 years ago people had to be convinced to use the Internet. How often did we hear the question, “What would I use it for anyway?” It’s comical to think that people needed to be convinced to use the Internet considering nowadays people can’t survive without it.

The first smartphone was released in 1992 by IBM. It was considered a smartphone because of its virtual assistant capabilities, but the smartphone of today is light years more advanced. The timeline is a little blurry, but many would say that the first actual smartphone was the Sidekick, released in the early 2000s. Smartphones in existence prior to the Sidekick were for corporate professionals, but the Sidekick advertised to a younger market. Teenagers no longer had to wait until they got home from school to sign on to AIM to speak to their friends, the capability was right in their pockets!

In the last 15 years the smartphone technology has increased rapidly. According to Monica Anderson at the Pew Research Center 68 percent of adults in the United States use a smartphone. 88 percent of 18-29 year olds own a smartphone while only 78 percent of the same age group own laptops or desktop computers. As the use of smartphones increases there is less of a need for a laptop or desktop computer. And why would you need one, when a smartphone is just a smaller computer?

Mobile technology has been advancing at a very fast pace. The average American uses a smartphone to view product reviews, make price comparisons, and find information about products while they are shopping in-store. With consumers increasingly using technology on the go, a company’s Digital Marketing Strategy must be designed to take full advantage of this consumer trend, especially in consideration of a recent study released by the Daily Mail stateing that smartphone users check their phone 85 times per day on average.

Google coined the term Micromoments for all the times smartphone owners use their device. This could be to a simple check of a notification that popped up from a news organization or using the phone to check reviews before purchasing a product. Companies must capitalize on these moments if they are looking for consumers. The trick is to ensure customers and potential customers have access and are able to land on a company’s mobile version of their website when they are using their mobile devices. So, businesses must ensure that they have a mobile-friendly website.

The following factors will ensure a company’s website has the right design for their consumers:

Usability and Design - Organizations with established large scale websites have recognized the growing need for compatible tablet and mobile-accessible content and have implemented updates to their websites to reduce and streamline content and website size in order to be more suitable for mobile-accessible devices. Nevertheless, this approach is sufficient only for sites that provide static, one-way dissemination of information. As more customers demand interaction via mobile devices and tablets, the usability of these updated sites could diminish.

Performance - The advent of these devices has also provided companies with an opportunity to gather more personal data from their users, and in turn, push relevant, context-driven content. Such mobile-optimized content must load quickly on mobile devices to ensure that the performance expectations of consumers are met.

The rapid rise in smartphones, tablets, and Internet-enabled wearable devices has led to a shift in web design approaches, with web development for these devices becoming a much higher priority than it has been in the past. The advancement of technology only brings more opportunities for businesses and consumers, so join in!

Sources:

Victoria Woolleston, “How Often do You Check your Phone?” October 26, 2015. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3294994/How-check-phone-Average-user-picks-device-85-times-DAY-twice-realise.html

Brad McCarty, “The History of Smartphones,” http://thenextweb.com/mobile/2011/12/06/the-history-of-the-smartphone/#gref

Jason Duaine Hahn, “The History of the Sidekick: The Coolest Smartphone of All Time,” September 11, 2015. http://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2015/09/history-of-the-sidekick

Monica Anderson, “Technology Device Ownership,” October 29, 2016. http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/10/29/technology-device-ownership-2015/

Catching an Academic Wave with VMEdu

It’s not like riding a Tsunami.

But it is exciting, exhilarating and breath-taking to get in early on one of the disruptions that are rapidly reshaping the world we swim in.

Disruptions that wipe the landscape clear are dramatic and threatening. And they are rare. Disruptive inventions and practices in business and industry happen gradually; so gradually, in fact, that they often seem inevitable. This is a point bestselling author Hugh Howey made in a recent article about the state of publishing: “All manner of publishing has been greatly disrupted, but it’s often hard to see because what has changed is what’s now missing from our lives. And these missing things have not disappeared all at once. Rather, it’s been a gradual vanishing.”[1]

The world of publishing—which Howey says includes such products as encyclopedias, maps, those liner notes in albums and CDs, how-to books, instructions enclosed in products, newspapers, magazines and novels—provides an excellent example of the disruption that is now going on in education and training.

Michael Horn, in a piece on Forbes.com, described the disruption this way: “Much of the growth of online learning isn’t just in accredited higher education institutions, but in unaccredited institutions that are hired to do a similar ‘job’ as that of many accredited higher education institutions—advance adult learners in their career pathways. These organizations don’t need accreditation per se though, as they will ultimately develop their reputations from the success of their students with employers.” He cites research done in this regard by Michelle R. Weise and Clayton M. Christensen of the Christensen Institute.

Horn’s suggestion is that schools of higher learning should enhance their online presences and offerings. He gives examples of partnerships that colleges, universities, corporate entities and training organizations can make as a way of turning his suggestion into a reality. One of the companies facilitating this disruption in education and professional training is VMEdu, Inc. This company has a global reach with more than 750 partners in its VMEdu Authorized Training Partner network. It is expanding this with the launch of its VMEdu Authorized Content Partners (V.A.C.P.) program.

In discussing the digital disruption of the publishing industry, Howey says, “In just about every measurable way, these have been great developments.” The V.A.C.P. program brings an enhanced Learning Management System (LMS) and other great developments arising from disruptive innovations in adult education and training to any organization that has created courses related to any field of adult learning in any language; or is already using another LMS to host their courses.

The V.A.C.P. program enables content providers—educational institutions, training companies and those with an expertise worth sharing—the ability to launch courses on their own websites for free, get their own mobile app, sell their courses to the VMEdu Partner Network, offer Sales and Marketing courses on SMstudy, and efficiently track student progress.

Looking at the changes in publishing, Howey says, “It’s difficult to find anything to complain about with this transition, unless you are a middleman who no longer provides a service commensurable with your cost. This is an important point, the act of offering a service that matches your cost.” Educational providers and trainers are very familiar with the costs of some of their products. Student loan debt in America is almost infamous. VMEdu says, “There is no cost associated with creating or uploading your courses, and zero licensing fees.”

The same goes for certain mobile apps for partner courses: “VMEdu will take care of all expenses related to creating, maintaining and upgrading your mobile apps—you pay only $1 per student per month for every student accessing your courses through the mobile app.” This is an example of where the company earns its income.

“Last year, Amazon paid out over $140,000,000 to authors in its Kindle Unlimited program. That doesn’t count the dollars paid for book sales,” says Howey. The disruption of traditional publishing is enabling those who create the works to share a much larger portion of the revenues they generate. Through VMEdu’s cloud-based LMS, the same is happening for adult and professional education providers.

For those considering an educational venture into the new cloud-based ocean of opportunity, come on in; the water is fine.

Surf the VMEdu website and learn more about its V.A.C.P. program: Benefits of Becoming a V.A.C.P.

[1] Howey, Hugh. (2/2/16) “The State of the Industry.” The Wayfinder. Retrieved on 2/3/16 from http://www.hughhowey.com/the-state-of-the-industry/

Exploratory Research Design

In the context of marketing research, every research problem is unique in its own way, but almost all research problems and objectives can be matched to one of three types of research designs—exploratory, descriptive, or causal. The researcher’s choice of design depends on available information such as nature of the problem, scope of the problem, objectives, and known information. Exploratory research design is chosen to gain background information and to define the terms of the research problem. This is used to clarify research problems and hypotheses and to establish research priorities. A hypothesis is a statement based on limited evidence which can be proved or disproved and leads to further investigation. It helps organizations to formulate their problems clearly.

Exploratory research design is conducted for a research problem when the researcher has no past data or only a few studies for reference. Sometimes this research is informal and unstructured. It serves as a tool for initial research that provides a hypothetical or theoretical idea of the research problem. It will not offer concrete solutions for the research problem. This research is conducted in order to determine the nature of the problem and helps the researcher to develop a better understanding of the problem. Exploratory research is flexible and provides the initial groundwork for future research. Exploratory research requires the researcher to investigate different sources such as published secondary data, data from other surveys, observation of research items, and opinions about a company, product, or service.

Example of Exploratory Research Design:

Freshbite is a one and half year old e-commerce start-up company delivering fresh foods as per the order to customer’s doorstep through its delivery partners. The company operates in multiple cities. Since its inception, the company achieved a high sales growth rate. However, after completion of the first year, the sales started declining at brisk rate. Due to lack of historical data, the sales director was confused about the reasons for this decline in sales. He prefer to appoint a marketing research consultant to conduct an exploratory research study in order to discern the possible reasons rather than making assumptions. The prime objective of this research was not to figure out a solution to the declining sales problem, but rather to identify the possible reasons, such as poor quality of products and services, competition, or ineffective marketing, and to better understand the factors affecting sales. Once these potential causes are identified, the strength of each reason can be tested using causal research.

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

The V.A.C.P. Program Anticipates the Adult Learning Boom

Until recently, scientists believed that at a certain age, the human brain simply stopped growing. We now know that the human brain keeps developing, making new neural pathways into adulthood and can stay sharp throughout a lifetime if given the proper nourishment. Delving into understanding a brand new concept or learning a new activity are now touted as paths to a sprier, more agile mind that can keep us happier and healthier as we get wiser.

If we consider that the extremely large demographic cohort, the baby boomers, are turning 65 at a rate of 10,000 per day and are keenly aware of the latest research in brain health, it’s no surprise that we are seeing a growth spurt in adult learning. And as many also have the ability to access courses online, it’s safe to say we are entering an online adult learning boom. Authors Matthias Finger and Jose Manuel Asun agree.

In their book “Adult Education at a Crossroads: Learning Our Way Out”, they state, “adult education is indeed burgeoning. Never before has there been so much talk about “learning” and not only about children, but learning by all members of society.”

With adult learning bigger than ever, now is the time to let your inner teacher shine and share what you know. If you’ve dreamed of leading a class or feel you have a valuable subject to teach, it’s never been easier to put together a course with the VMEdu Authorized Content Partner (V.A.C.P.) program.

The VMEdu Cloud Learning Management System (LMS), built and tested over a period of seven years, is one of the best in the adult learning field. Content partners can join and launch courses for free and VMEdu provides the tools and assistance for those with the desire to create educational materials, but find themselves a bit “rusty” in their technical skills. 

Along with helping create your courses, VMEdu designs a best-in-industry mobile app for each content partner at zero-cost for Android Phones and $250 for iPhones . Courses can be made available and sold through VMEdu’s partner network of more than 750 Authorized Training Partners (A.T.P.s) around the world.

With the V.A.C.P. program, the opportunity to teach and share is closer than ever. The ease of the VMEdu platform and program guarantee a positive experience for all, including the large number of adult learners seeking stimulating, informational, inspiring classes. The adult learning boom might just be one of the best things that ever happened to you, whether you’re seeking to teach, to learn or both.

To learn more about the V.A.C.P. program, visit - www.vmedu.com/Benefits-of-VACP.asp

Sources:

“Adult Education at a Crossroads: Learning Our Way Out,” Matthias Finger, Jose Manuel Asun. 2001.

“Baby Boomers Retire,” Pew Research. Dec. 29, 2010.  http://www.pewresearch.org/daily-number/baby-boomers-retire/