Takeaways 9

Takeaways:

• Web Server
• Shared Web hosting
• Content management system (CMS)
• Mobile
• Social Media

Web server

Web servers are computers loaded with software and receive the HTTP request from the browser and load the website. In a very small company the HTTP server and a FTP server could all be hosted on one computer to run the website but in a larger company each service would be run on one or more dedicated servers. The browser sends HTTP requests to the server, which responds with HTML pages and possibly additional programs.

Shared web hosting

Shared web hosting is web servers where users rent a piece of the server to hos there website. The web host stores all the pages of your website and makes them available when users type in your domain name. They are many different web hosting companies and options that you have to chose from. A single web server can host several hundreds of websites.

Content management system (CMS)

A content management system is used to manage the editorial content of a website. CMS allows users with out the knowledge of html and css to change the content of their website in a very similar way of typing and editing a document in Microsoft Word. This makes it much easier for people to keep their site updated.

Mobile

Mobile is huge and is continually growing. When creating a website you want to make sure that it is responsive to be read on a mobile phone and now more companies are creating mobile apps to be downloaded onto users phones. Mobile websites offer the widest range of possible users and are immediately available to view from a browser. A mobile app is often more interactive, and can use features on the phone to enhance the experience such as using the camera. A mobile website should be the first priority and then if needed a mobile app should be created.

Social Media

As we all know social media is huge and marketers are taking to social media to advertise and help get their brand out there. On Twitter using images is huge as many companies have reported a 150% increase in re-tweets when they use images. As a company having various social media pages you want to make sure that they all fit together and don’t duplicate content, and they should all link to each other. With social media, you’re in charge of being equal parts entertainer, informer and just a dash advertiser.

Takeaways 8

Takeaways:

• CRAP Design
• Multimedia
• User Interface Design
• Typography
• Rule of 7

CRAP Design

CRAP design are four basic design principles which are contrast, repetition, alignment, and proximity. All of these aspects work together and are important starting points when starting the process. These design step well help to eliminate the awkwardness of website or other documents and make your business appear more professional.

Multimedia

Multimedia on the web refers to audio, videos, slideshows, and animation. When developing a website multimedia can be helpful but you want to make sure that you only use multimedia that is tailored made for your business and that it actually matters. You don’t want to just have a bunch of videos because you can you want them to be short and to the point. Multimedia should enhance the users experience not overwhelm and hinder their experience on your website.

User Interface Design

User Interface Design is a huge and very important part, it focuses on what users might need to do and ensuring that the interface has elements that are east to access, understand, and use to complete those actions. You want your site to share the common interface elements which are used across most websites such as buttons, search field, etc. to help ensure the user satisfaction and efficiency.

Typography

Typography is the visual component of the written word. A useful tip is to focus on making your body text look good and then the rest because there’s more body text than anything else. Font size is very important the headings should be a larger font while the body text should be smaller. Line spacing should be about 120-145% of the point size, line length should be an average of 45-90 characters per line. The font choice is also very important as it can change the entire feel and look of the website.

Rule of 7

The rule of 7 is an old marketing strategy which states that a prospective buyer should hear or see the marketing message at least 7 times before they buy your product. People today are overloaded with information and messages that it will take for them a couple times of hearing or seeing your marketing message in order for them to remember it. Customers have many options when buying a product and they often go with who they hear and see the most about.

Takeaways 7

My five takeaways

• Client Interviews
• Marketing Plan
• SWOT Analysis
• Mission Statement
• Site specifications

Client Interviews

Client interviews are huge today as the chance of getting one are less because there are a lot more options in the market. In order to succeed at the interview you want to do your research on the company and person you will be interviewing. You need to understand what the client needs and tell them how you will accomplish the task using terms that they will understand.

Marketing Plan

The marketing plan is important in helping your company succeed as it is like a road map and shows where you want to e and the steps you have to take to get there. When creating a marketing plan you want to involve people from all parts of your company as it will take everyone in your company for the marketing plan to reach its goal.

SWOT Analysis

SWOT is a planning method which is used to evaluate the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats involved in a project or business venture.

SWOT can help you uncover opportunities that you are well placed to exploit, and by understanding the weaknesses of your business, you can manage and eliminate threats that would otherwise catch you unawares. SWOT can be used to “kick-off” strategy formulation or it can be used as a serious strategy tool.

Mission Statement

A mission statement should capture in a few sentences the essence of your business’s goals and the philosophies underlying them. The mission statement reflects all aspects of your company. You want to state one or two main things that your company does and something that makes you stand out from your competition.

Site Specifications

In order to build a good website you want to create a plan by understanding the vision and goals for the website. You want to start with the homepage then branch out to the other pages. Before you start you want to know all the categories and sub-pages that need to be included. You want to make sure that the website includes what the client wants and the site specifications should be written in a way where the client would be able to understand them.

Takeaways 6

My five takeaways:

• Branding
• Co-branding
• Product Placement
• Relationship Marketing
• Customer Lifetime Value

Branding

Branding is the process of creating a unique image, gut feeling, and reputation of your product or company.

Branding is important to help with getting your target market to chose your company/product over your competition. A good brand will deliver the message clearly, confirms your credibility, connects your target prospects emotionally, motivates the buyer, and concretes user loyalty. In order to succeed in branding you need to understand the needs and wants of your customers.

Co-branding

Co-branding is a marketing partnership between two or more brands.

Co-branding is a great way of introducing one company’s products and services to the loyalists of another. Co-branding can be a cost effective way to market your product/service to a wider target audience. You should co-brand with companies who share the same complementary values, and companies with products who are the best-in-class.

Product Placement

Product placement is the placement of products/brands in TV shows and movies.

Product placement in movies and TV shows is becoming more common especially as people often skip through commercials or are distracted by their phones during commercial breaks. With product placement companies have a much higher chance for viewers to see their products. Often times we as the viewer may not recognize the placement of products but subliminally we pick up on them. There are many examples of this such as Back to The Future with the DeLorean car, Nike shoes and many others.

Relationship Marketing

Relationship marketing is a marketing strategy designed to focus on customer loyalty, interaction and long-term engagement.

Relationship marketing can be one of the more tricky aspects of marketing but is is very important. With social media it’s easier for companies to reach their customers and can help to build relationships. On social media you want to try to interact with the people who follow you (your customers) and this helps to build connections.

Customer Lifetime Value

Customer Lifetime Value is the net profit that a customer is to your company.

Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) is all based upon customer relationships. In order to have a lot of customers who continue to return to your product over competitors you need to have great customer service. Loyalty programs are a great way to keep customers coming back. CLV calculations can be used to help forecast sales and to better market your product.

Takeaway’s 5

My Five Takeaway’s

• Market Research
• Two Types of data
• 5 basic Marketing Research Methods
• New Marketing Research Methods
• Positioning

Market Research

Market research is the process of gathering information about consumers needs and preferences.

Marketing research is very important and around the internet age market research lagged behind but is now gaining ground according to this article. When market research first began it was all done by paper and pen surveys. When the internet was first coming out marketing firms kept to the paper and pen surveys and they relied and just their company to gather all the information. Now they care taking full advantage of new technology and are having companies themselves use software to collect information for them. It is now easier than ever to collect customer feedback and many customers are willing to share their feedback which greatly benefits everyone.

Two Types of Data

They are two main types of data which are quantitative and qualitative.

Quantitative data is measurable data often numbers while qualitative data is based upon observation or communication with customers. Qualitative Research is ideal for earlier phases of research projects while for the latter part of the research project, Quantitative Research is highly recommended. Quantitative Research provides the researcher a clearer picture of what to expect in their research compared to Qualitative Research. Both quantitative and qualitative are important to help get a complete understanding.

5 basic Marketing Research Methods

The five basic marketing research methods are surveys, focus groups, personal interviews, observation, and field trails. Each one of these methods can be fairly simple to gather information that can be of great use. Each one has positives and drawback such as focus groups, they can be a great way to tell what people think of a product and how they act but people are easily influenced in groups and can cause inaccurate information.

New Marketing Research Methods

As technology is always advancing and changing so is marketing research along with many other fields. Market Research are shifting from self-reporting such as surveys and focus groups to observational research and experiments as the information gathered is much more reliable. Bio-metric is another new tool which measures a subjects physical response to stimuli which provides valuable data that a subject might not be able to willing to express verbally. As technology continues to evolve and advance the way we gather information does as well.

Positioning

Positioning is how you decide to be in the market.

When positioning your brand and coming up with a positioning statement you want to keep it to one or two benefits rather than a whole list. When coming up with a positioning statement you need to identify your target audiences most pressing problems, then rank the listed problems and get input from key stakeholders and finally make sure that it’s unique and stand out from your competitors.

Takeaway’s 4

Takeaways

• Copywriting for the Web
• Domain Names
• Discoverable Vs. Brandable
• Search Engine Optimization
• Google SEO

Copywriting for the web

Copywriting is the message to promote a product or business.

Copywriting is very important to help sell your product or brand, Copywriting has changed over the years but most of it is still the same according to crazyegg. You don’t just want to tell people how great your product is but tell and show them the benefit to them and and why they need your product. You want your copy to be simple words and short sentences. Most people who are on the web are in a hurry and don’t/won’t read through long paragraphs of texts about your product. It will take more than one try to write effective copywrite but these tips can help to get you going in the right direction.

Domain Names

Domain names are how people get to your website and are a unique identifier.

Earlier this year the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann) announced new top level domains (TLD). Icann held an auction for three TLD on September 17th, which were .buy, .tech, and .vip. Amazon won the bidding war for .buy for a price around $4.6 million, Dot Tech won .tech for $6.76 million and gauche won .vip for $3 million. Domain names play a big role as that is how users will find your website and what they will associate with your company or product. These companies paid huge amounts of money for these TLD names to be unique and stand out from their competitors.

Discoverable Vs. Brandable

Choosing a domain name is becoming increasingly harder and there are two may routes a company can chose one that is easier for people to find or one where a company can build up a brand.

Discoverable brands rely on organic search results they are real words and phrases. You want to think of common words or phrases that people would look for when looking for your product or similar products or your type of company. Brandable names on the other hand are creative using sensory images that relate to your page is helpful.

Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization is all about how to set up your web pages for them to come up in search results and be accurate and related to the keywords used.

The article I found discusses how SEO needs to evolve as it currently relies on keywords and not on key images and videos on your web pages. The first thing brought up it how we need to evolve from describing the physical characteristics to the use cases of the product. The images and videos should be driven by the way consumers discuss your product. You want to listen to what people say about your product and change your keywords and written descriptions to how they view and phrase your product.

Google SEO

Google is the leading search engine and they have come out with tips and how you should set up your website to best increase your ranking on search results.

In this article they discuss seven of Google’s SEO that companies need to know about. Google is constantly growing and evolving. It’s best to try to stay current with their techniques to stay current and near the top of their results as they are always enhancing their algorithms and process to rank the results. Content matters most to Google as they want to find what users are looking for so that they keep coming back to use Google. Google factors in many items and it’s impossible to account for all of them the main thing is to have quality content on your pages and for your keywords and descriptions to accurately describe each webpage.

Takeaway’s 3

My five takeaway’s are:

• Market Research
• Focus Groups
• Cookies
• Google Analytic’s
• Keywords

Market Research

Market research is the process of analyzing data to help understand which products and services are in demand, and how to be competitive.

Market Research is huge an a very important part to a companies success. Business 2 Community discusses some tips on how to go about market researching online. Online polls and surveys are very useful but you want to keep them short and simple as most internet users won’t sit through a long survey. Social media is another very useful resource as people willing share information about themselves and some of the sites include tools to help with the process of market researching. You can also conduct online video focus groups which are more convenient.

Focus Groups

Focus groups are a form of qualitative research where people are asked about their opinion, perceptions, beliefs, and attitude towards a product or service.

The article I found on focus groups discuses weather or not focus groups are still relevant. Focus groups can offer great feedback from customers or potential customers which you can then use to enhance your product or service. A drawback is that with any group people are easily influenced by others in the group and can provided invalid feedback.

Cookies

Cookies (no not the ones your mom makes you) are a small piece of data sent from a website and is stored in your web browser on your computer.

In this article they discuss how cookies are related to marketing. Cookies are used to track users and the websites they visit. Marketers can use this information to have ads on the internet related to what websites you have been on. With the cookies companies can figure out what you have bought online and also your location to further target ads towards you.

Google Analytic’s

Google Analytic’s is a service offered by Google which generates statistics about a website and measure visitors, how the found your site etc.

Forbes gives 15 tips on how to maximize your marketing campaign using Google Analytic’s. You can set alerts for certain events that occur so you don’t have to keep checking it. You shouldn’t keep visiting your website as it can skew the results and provide inaccurate information. You can segment your audience’s based on your target markets that you have. Google Analytic’s is a great resource to track your website, how users found it, what pages they visited and much more useful information.

Keywords

Keywords are words or strings of words the represent your page.

This article gives some tips on how to chose keywords to enhance your marketing campaign. You want to put yourself in the users shoes and think what they would use to find your product or service. You can base some of the keywords off of what your competitors are using. You also want to include synonyms and misspellings of your keywords. The goal of keywords are to drive qualified traffic to your website and increase conversions.

Takeaway’s 2

My Five Takeaway’s

• Demographics
• Geographics
• Psychographics
• Brand Positioning
• Cohort Generations

Demographics

Demographics are statistics of a given population.

In the article I found about demogrpahics they talk about Facebook and there vast demogrpahics. Facebook is huge for companies and brands as over one billion people are on Facebook. In the United States 67% of internet users are on Facebook which offers a huge marketing base for companies. Facebook is skewed towards young adults but the 45 to 54 year old age range has seen a 46% growth since the end of 2012. Facebook has a very large demographic and can reach a wide range of audiences.

Geographics

Geographics is a segment of the market based on location.

This article discusses four areas to focus on when trying to enter a new geographic market. Referrals are very helpful it’s best to get everyone you know in the target market to talk about your company/product as hearing from people you know greatly impacts your decision. Business associates and public speaking in the new area also help to get your brand out there in the new geographic area. Social media and news articles are also helpful.

Psychographics

Psychographics focus on personality, values, opinions, interests, and lifestyles.

In this article they talk about the importance of psychographics. Psychographics can be a very useful way to market your product, as you can market people that have interest in things that relate to your product or company. Facebook is huge on this as they can target ads towards people based on their “likes”, desires, relationships, activities and any other personal information you share on their site. This allows companies to target specific audiences.

Brand Positioning 

Brand positioning is a market strategy that aims to make a brand occupy a distinct position.

Lava is a brand that is re-positioning there company and brand according to this article. Lava is a newer smartphone company in an already overcrowded market. Lava is trying to differentiate themselves from other cellphone companies. Lava has a single layer distribution market which none of their competition has. They have no middle man and are directly distributing their phones and are directly linked to the customers.

Cohort Generations

Cohort generations is segmenting the market by generations or the dates by when they were born.

The article for this topic is about the different cohort generations and there brand loyalties. Older generations are typically more brand loyal and when it comes to clothes they only wear a select few different brands. The younger generations are more for individuality and don’t wear just a few brands but rather a wide selection. Abercrombie and Fitch has struggled because they advertise their name and logo on all of their clothes and sales have slowed while other stores such as H&M offer a wide variety without a bunch of logos has seen increased sales.

Takeaway’s 1

My Five takeaways are:

• Four P’s of Marketing
• Segmentation
• Supply Chain
• Store layout/product placement
• Guerrilla Marketing

 

Four P’s of Marketing

The four P’s of marketing are products, place, promotion, and price.

In the article I found they talk about some questions you should ask for each of the categories. The four P’s are a marketing model to help you decide on how to introduce a new product into the market. Each category helps you make a marketing plan for your product or service.

 

Segmentation

Segmentation relating to marketing is the process of breaking up the market into groups to define each groups needs and wants.

The article I found for this topic was about the market segmentation for tablets. Tablets when first introduced had huge growth rates but now they have slowed but still are growing. Companies are now segmenting their tablets into four main categories and target markets. The four main subdivisions are tablet PCs which aim to replace standard computers, tablets designed for kids, tablets designed for media such as apps and social media, and tablets designed for gaming. In order for tablets to keep growing and expanding companies have decided to make specific tablets for specific markets.

 

Supply Chain

The market supply chain relates to how the product is produced, distributed, advertised, and available for consumers.

I found an article on the supply chain and the changing economy in China. One change is the direct connection with customers, more and more business’s are now business-to-consumer selling products directly to consumers especially with the internet users. In order for China to stay competitive they will need to increase there speeds. More and more companies are now making new products every month, changing their styling every week.

 

Store layout/product placement

The Store layout and placement plays an important part in selling products and keeping the store successful.

This article is about how big retail chains layout there stores and some tips and techniques they use. Window displays are important because they grab the attention of people as they walk by. Having a eye-catching display when customers walk in is important because it makes them slow down otherwise they often hurry through the store and buy a little. Stores should be grabbing the attention of customers with displays and other design techniques to make them stay in the store longer and by more items.

 

Guerrilla Marketing

Guerrilla marketing is a strategy which uses unconventional means to draw people’s attention.

Guerrilla marketing is a great low-cost marketing strategy according to this article. This article talks about Beats headphones. During the World Cup Sony was the official headphone sponsor and banned all players from using Beats at matches and media events. Many star players still wore the headphones to and from practice and gained more media attention and gave a more credible support as they weren’t sponsored.  Guerrilla marketing is a great low-cost strategy that can become very useful and greatly help your company.