Digital Marketing

With the end to this module, my peers and myself are closer to entering the workforce with what we have been equipped with, but a notion of challenging ourselves will do us greatly as none of us will and fully grasp current concepts in the marketplaces. An article on the Harvard Business Review writes that life-long learning is imperative and important for both the CEO’s of firms and the majority staff. This brings me to think of the widely used Product Adoption Curve (PAC).

Which states that 50% of the population falls into the Late Majority (34%) or Laggards (16%) category. This is a huge number and just shows that at some point of our lives we are going to be late to the party so to speak. There is definitely much room to improve and humility is much needed for a continuous life-long learning mindset. And frankly, what we do learn in our education would be a tad out of date to the real-life expectations, an involuntary lag of the education system. Therefore, crucial to wearing our ‘purple-cow hat’ with finesse and humility.

There were many insightful and thought-provoking content from the Mark Ritson’s video on what really matters in marketing. Especially how many a times a message is being focused on so heavily, a huge chunk of proper marketing insights are discarded and deemed unneeded. Better described with his compressed version of what marketers do.

There has been a fad as exposed very brutally by Mark that there are ‘anti-intellectuals’ who deem an education or training of marketing is useless or just so out of touch.

Communication is the sought-after end result and because of that the key elements in marketing that holds a strong foundational presence such as the Diagnosis phase followed by the Strategy phase. Without proper target segmentation and brand development, Mark shows every other brand comes up with the same positive human race movement. Even though they are worlds apart as a brand and as a company. Greatly insulting this over 100year old study of marketing further.

The part that really hits me is that as a marketing undergrad, I am guilty that the communication part of the triad has been often overly glorified and overlooked that sadly the more traditional side of marketing is left not utilised correctly.

Thus, Mark’s message to the RMIT undergrads on not magnifying ‘tactification’ which is the lack of diagnosis and strategy, delivers to the world half-baked missions and communication, this leaves a mark on me (no pun intended). To be a better ‘real marketer’ of tomorrow.

Before purchasing anything online or off the shelf, a smart way to figure out how good a product is, or rather how reliable the brand in which the product is from, Is a simple Google search of both the keywords of the product followed by the brand it is from, and almost guaranteed if the product is at least real, there will be reviews and links to the official website or Facebook page. That my friends are the freedom we have as consumers today, and marketers cannot puppet us like before. Making their products seem what they are not.

It is this reason Vollero says in his paper on Integrated Marketing Campaign (IMC), that the traditional IMC that has worked in the 90s are now almost irrelevant and moves to a negotiated brand, meaning it is now on the company to plan ahead to mediate consumers and the brand, even in the absence of a marketer. As shown by the figure below.

But how it is accomplished is why companies need to know or even master an omni-channel marketing, ensuring no matter where the consumers view or interact with your product, you have already designed the webpage, social media site or any other form of channel to be presentable and consistent throughout. Consistency is important as Lonoff says in her article, 7 ways to create a successful integrated marketing campaign, is through also consistent messages as it may take up many impressions on an individual for the message to sink in.

One interesting way is of the emergent strategy from Vollero, where the consumers are relied on to drive a brand message, either through collaboration or engagement. Which reciprocity comes in to decide the balance of input from the managerial and consumers. As shown below engagement is now of importance because this way it gets consumers involved and talking about it, so co-creation with consumers would be sort after.

Hybrid communication mix would then be the pinnacle of modern marketing melding all elements of traditional and modern IMC, the video from Dunkin Donuts, creatively shows how it was achieved by using traditional methods such as billboard advertisements at certain bus stops, along with carefully planned bus rides, where commuters would experience the smell of coffee when the Dunkin Donut jingle is played. This is ingenuity to me and for marketers alike, the future holds some anxiety inducing processes but nevertheless exciting opportunities.  

Have you ever been stuck in traffic? I know, I have. But unlike that kind of traffic where it is a congestion of vehicles on the road, there is another kind of traffic. One that is invisible to the naked eye. It is called Online Traffic. It is a term that is defined as the number of visits to a website, and it is a common way to measure an online business effectiveness at attracting an audience.

How is this relevant to anyone, one may ask. Let me bring you back to the scenario where you are stuck in traffic on the road, because everyone around you is going somewhere, and what if that somewhere is also the same place! Now instead of a physical location, it is an online website.

If you are an online business owner, and everyone is visiting your site. How awesome is that. Imagine the ‘purchases’ and ‘business’ you will be able to rake in.

But the question is, how do you increase ‘traffic’ to your website, there is these 2 special marketing tools called Search Engine Marketing (SEO) and Pay Per Click (PPC) also known as Paid Search Marketing.

SEO is a structured approach that online search engines will factor in, in order for your website to be listed above the rest and hopefully be in the first few upon a keyword search. Simply put, people do not want to scroll too far down on their devices, for something they can already find right at the top. McDonald has an interesting workbook to help online marketers improve and exercise their skills in developing a hands-on approach to success. In his book The Seven Steps to SEO Success on Google.

Similarly, Moz also has an online crash course to help beginners grasp how does one use SEO or rather also to simply understand it. Both McDonald and Moz has similar 7 steps in bringing the reader to improve online competitiveness. But Moz have so conveniently created his version of Moslow’s Hierachy of Needs, called Mozlow’s Hierarchy of SEO Needs.

Where Moz starts off with signifying the importance of Crawl accessibility so engines can read the website effectively and efficiently.

But in the current age, SEO is no longer enough to gain sufficient traction and instead would also be recommended to be utilised with PPC on Google to place ads on your site increasing your website ranking almost effortlessly.

Analyzing your site should also be followed as McDonalds labels step 6: Metrics, along with Moz’s chapter 7: Measuring & Tracking SEO Success. This means being smart in designing your website to continually be able to feed you the owner/marketer with information pertaining to the various types of people visiting and also which parts of the site is being neglected and which are being highly viewed.

Engagement is the final piece of the puzzle as shown below.

For viewers to not just visit your site and leaving (bounces) but to stay, linger and interact with the website in the form of commenting, writing reviews. This also leads to higher Word of mouth (WOM) recommendations to people and friends. Ultimately creating more value for consumers.  

It’s early in the morning, I’m cozy in bed. The alarm rings and as I reach over to grab my phone, immediately I start checking my messages, reading important news and looking into the schedule of the day. This is usually how I start my mornings, ashamedly admitting or maybe some would feel the same too. Mobile phones are so well integrated into our lives and activities that as YouTube channel Digital Garage puts it in their video, this is the rapid evolution of the mobile device, meaning it’s now an essential part of us. This is also good news to marketers our there as it’s an easy way to deliver information through various methods right into the palm of your hands.

Enter Mobile Marketing. Google explained it in a way not many can deny it happening in their lives, what is happening you may ask? This term called Micro-moments, its small instances when you’re in thought and stuck at a decision-making juncture. Such as what are you curious to find out, where do you want to go to, to buy and to do? We whip out our smartphones and start typing our queries into any search engine there is. We’ve all been there, these are moments marketers could also start being hyper aware of, to swoop in at the right moments to capture the attention and hearts of audiences all around.

Kaplan also so sophisticatedly put it on the types of people there are out there in the above diagram who would be at the receiving end of marketing messages where not everyone welcomes it, he calls them ‘Victims’. Information being pushed into people who have no say whether they want it or not, which is illegal in some places, but at the same time unavoidable everywhere, happening all around us. But knowing these, do companies change their strategy to instead target their audiences appropriately without harass. Instead focus resources on people who want it, that sounds smarter.

One way it could be achieved is through what Kaplan calls the four ‘I’s of mobile social media, where whatever application or medium is used by the consumer to be integrated into their lives or interactive enough to keep people talking about it or even keen to lean in to find out more. This way actually sounds more exciting and natural then forcing information down to the masses (Victims). Which foursquare an app that does location check-ins have done up perfectly.

When I’m sharing something to a friend, be it about a certain TV show, product or idea. It gets me thinking after, like why was I so passionate about sharing what I shared, or rather convicted and emotional about it too. This would happen to me time and time again, and my conclusion right after would always be, maybe because I really believed in it!

It was with that in mind I chose a major in marketing at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (NO KIDDING), this has come to my attention that what started out as mere reflections would turn out to be an inner desire to find out more on why am I particularly motivated to be the ‘guy’ who shares his ideas whilst others could be captivated by it. Hence, the study of marketing. And playing in my head in a loop would be the question, how do I continue to phrase it better for my audiences (Friends).

For this reason, today’s blog post became something of an interesting nature for me, it is right smack on, or if not close enough to my experiences. As mentioned by Berger, the key thing in how ideas spread is the motivation behind it, which ties in to his 6 principles (STEPPS). Each having its own unique way to getting people motivated, as I read on the principles, it was something I could relate or maybe once fell prey to.

But what Berger mention on motivation, was what I found Gladwell carried on from well, although definitely not intended. After a motivation is conceived in someone’s head, how it relates from there on would be also the person’s standing in the society. Is the person someone that is extremely well connected, or does the person have a ‘higher’ position of connectivity with people, let’s say an influencer.  Which could also be why Gladwell’s book is called ‘The Tipping Point’ or would also be a smooth coincidence, where people who are already motivated have their versions of ‘tipping over’ into their action phase. And Gladwell categorised these people into 3 unique groups, Connectors, Mavens and Salesmen. Which is something I find innate in everyone, just varying in levels and effectiveness.

Godin adds a new perspective of other than psychology of people in the spreading process, there is a recognisable pattern behind it. To first and foremost reach people who are interested to listen, and not waste any time on people who don’t. Or rather be someone who can make something that could look and feel ordinary, be ‘remarkable’ and something now worth mentioning, that is his take on how ideas spread. Basically to break the mould and make something new of it, as he so eloquently said it, risky is now the new safe. 🙂

Web 2.0 and social media marketing

Reminiscing my days as a child in awe of technology and how it all works, I remembered sitting by my Dad as I observed precariously as he connected the computer to a landline for the internet. In hindsight, was I witnessing the remaining years of ‘Web 1.0’? If there were ever such a term.

As we speak right now, we’re living in the modern day of Web 2.0. It is a framework, a concept of sorts on how data is mashed intricately to better all aspects of today.

How it serves us is different for all, or rather how we choose to harness it for our own benefits. With that Web 2.0 brings fourth high expectations, by linking our personal data to what we see on our social media platforms feed to us.

But just how much is too much, as mentioned earlier in a short span of just 2 decades It has grown significantly and if left unchecked, where will it go next? Dramatically pushing interoperability, meaning merging the internet and reality.

I for one think some restrains should be exercised and so as to keep using the Internet for ‘good’.

Will we come to a point where it will be too late for a U-turn all in the name of benefitting mankind. Paranoid? maybe, but cautious, yes. As machine and AI learning is continuously churning in the background 24/7 to better understand our buying, choosing patterns. In fact, Amazon tried a service where they would send you items even if you did not order it, based on your frequency and buying patterns. It is called predictive shipping.

So it brings back the question to light, when will enough be enough. And how do we keep the internet safe and intelligent from a consumer stand point, that will be the answer all brands will race towards to find out, to be the winning choice for us.

This is an example post, originally published as part of Blogging University. Enroll in one of our ten programs, and start your blog right.

You’re going to publish a post today. Don’t worry about how your blog looks. Don’t worry if you haven’t given it a name yet, or you’re feeling overwhelmed. Just click the “New Post” button, and tell us why you’re here.

Why do this?

• Because it gives new readers context. What are you about? Why should they read your blog?
• Because it will help you focus you own ideas about your blog and what you’d like to do with it.

The post can be short or long, a personal intro to your life or a bloggy mission statement, a manifesto for the future or a simple outline of your the types of things you hope to publish.

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• Why are you blogging publicly, rather than keeping a personal journal?
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• If you blog successfully throughout the next year, what would you hope to have accomplished?

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Can’t think how to get started? Just write the first thing that pops into your head. Anne Lamott, author of a book on writing we love, says that you need to give yourself permission to write a “crappy first draft”. Anne makes a great point — just start writing, and worry about editing it later.

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