All Entries Tagged With: "Strategy"
Can Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 9 Lead the Next Generation of Browsers?
Microsoft recently unveiled its developer preview of IE9. If IE8 did little to curb Microsoft’s ever-sinking market share, how is IE9 going to save the day and establish leadership with the next generation of web users? Microsoft claims IE9 is “slightly faster…
Google Acquires Online Photo-Editing App, Picnik
Earlier this week, Google expanded its cloud computing empire through the acquisition of popular photo-editing site Picnik. Moments after the news was announced on both the Google Photo blog and Picnik’s blog, users of both applications…
Apple Streamlining iPhone OS for Apple TV and Other Devices?
A simple job posting by Apple last week may give us a glimpse into the tech giant’s future, as clues indicate Apple is developing the iPhone operating system for more devices. Rumors of such a new direction are sparking innovative product ideas in the…
Top 5 Acquisition Strategies
Mergers and acquisitions often dominate headlines: “Apple Acquires Quattro Wireless for $250 M” or “Bank of America Acquires Merrill Lynch for $50B.” Acquisitions consolidate financial and physical resources within a short period of time…
Using Newsletters to Drive Business
Developing a newsletter is a great way to engage your users and generate site referrals. Newsletters give your readers a call to action (whether it’s a discount or joining your social cause), enable you keep in touch with your audience and can be effectively measured…
Brand Spotlight: Netflix
Do you remember the days when renting a movie was a less of daily occurrence, and more of an event? The VCR had just debuted, and going to the movie rental store involved the whole family piling in the car and ended with a fight over what movie to rent or which candy to buy. Over the years, renting movies not only became much more typical, but less expensive and not as time consuming. To some this was a welcomed move, but left others feeling nostalgic for the early days of the…
Effective Internal Marketing Strategies for All Businesses
Southwest Airlines is not just an airline, it is “THE low-fare airline.” For Southwest, its motto gives internal direction and guidance. It serves as a practical tool for employees and executives to make decisions that are in-line with the brand.
Rallying your team around a single mission builds a cohesive brand identity that will differentiate you from your peers. It’s not just reciting “we are the low-fare airline,” that will make you “THE low-fare airline,” however. It has to be the…
Can Web Innovation Save Media?
Recently, we have seen magazines run out of business due to low readership and a failing economy. While some industries and media outlets have yet to fully adapt to digital media, there are many more who are getting ahead of the curve. To do so, they’re reinventing their brands and adapting to the digital trend through social media and digital tools. They are developing new ways to host and produce content that is not only accessible, but also appealing to viewers and…
In the News: Brand Marketers Embrace Social Media
If you perform a Google search on any big company’s name with the word Facebook at the end, chances are the top result will be the company’s own official Facebook page. The same goes for Twitter and YouTube. CocaCola and Pepsi, Apple and Microsoft, Target and Walmart—they all have a presence on some social media platform. The Internet was buzzing about the future of social media, media marketing, and how businesses can use social media to their advantage. Within the next year, an astonishing 82 percent of brand marketers will be using social media to promote their brand…
Microsoft VS Google: Collaborative Intelligence in Computing
The unique element Google is infusing into their new operating system is collaboration. Collaborative intelligence (CQ, like IQ) combines the individual intelligence of many practitioners to create or enhance a new product or service. Much like Wikipedia, Google will call upon their legions of enthusiastic developer fans to create a vastly different user interface—that improves upon the weaknesses of today’s technologies. These empowered legions of fans are a part of the Home-Turf King trend–that says internet users are increasingly encouraged to explore, create, collaborate and build.
Engaging Influentials: Twitter and Beyond
With the rapid adoption of social media, we have accelerated into a network economy. In a network economy, connectivity enables value to be created and shared by network members. The larger the network, the greater the potential benefits. In the digital world, network activities take place on an open platform that enables participation and cloud computing (think Wikipedia and widgets).
Top 5 Guerilla Marketing Strategies
Brands are finding their loud, flashy messages are falling upon deaf ears—particularly with younger generations. Bigger, louder, flashier is simplistic, narrow-minded and an ineffective way of delivering your message. Smart, intelligent, different, catchy and honest are adjectives to describe campaigns that grab consumers’ attention. How many used car advertisements do you remember versus GE, Apple or Volkswagen campaigns?
Digital Marketing: The New Push / Pull Dynamic
Consumers are bombarded with more messages than ever before. Refining and clarifying your target segment is becoming evermore important as mass-messages are falling upon deaf ears. Specific, tailored and relevant messages, combined with consumer engagement and empowerment are elemental in the new marketing era. Less and less are market leaders dictating consumer needs through “push” advertising. By way of digital networking and publishing tools, consumers are creating consumer needs.
What the Iranian Government Can Learn from Social Media
Social media is a great platform for spreading information and sharing ideas across a far-reaching network of users. For those who suffer negative buzz from social media, the first instinct may be to exert control to eliminate the conversation. However, on passion point topics, such as the disputed Iranian election, empowered people stand up to share their voice.
How to Define Your Market Position
The goal of market positioning is to find the ideal opportunity in the market based on customer needs, market forces and financial and strategic considerations. Once you find that market opportunity, further develop your product and elevate your brand to deliver outstanding value.
Customer Loyalty Programs
Loyalty programs are essentially the price you pay for individual customer data. You make money from the careful use of this data. When you also know the identity of the customers in your (branded) community, you can…
Challenges of Segmentation
While segmentation is a pervasive marketing strategy, it is important to be aware of its shortcomings. To explore how you can avoid these pitfalls, we will discuss common challenges many companies face through segmenting their audience.
Top 5 Unconventional Brand Campaigns
Biodegradable coffee cup sleeves, hybrid vehicles, consumer-friendly solar panels and many more products are ways in which we are collectively trying to quell human impact on the environment. What about advertising? Direct mail, business-to-business, print space add up to a lot of junk paper. SEA LIFE London Aquarium is doing the opposite of traditional advertising—they’re sea-tagging.
Using Segmentation to Develop Your Marketing Strategy
While there are many ways to harness the power of segmentation, one of the broadest and most valuable applications is for designing your marketing strategy – a strategy that clearly defines who you’re targeting, what you’re going to offer them, where you’re going to reach them, and how you’re going to sell them on your product & brand.
Top 5 Reasons to Segment
Implementing segmentation has many benefits to a company. After segmenting the market, a customer needs and wants can be identified more effectively, communication with these customers improves, opportunities for growth and innovation are created and profits and market share increase.
