Archive for the ‘Marketing’ Category
Tuesday, June 16th, 2009
I chanced upon the banner ad rates offered by one Singaporean company awhile back, and saw that a prominently placed banner ad goes for S$4,000 a week, with the promise of “reaching” millions of “eyeballs”.
In Seth Godin’s book “Purple Cow”, there’s a chapter called “law of large numbers” where he bought 300 million banner ads for US$600. That’s more than one banner impression for one person in the United States. The result? He made a loss. Selling $500 of merchandise in total. He doesn’t specify what merchandise, but does it matter?
To break even on S$4,000 a week, you need to sell:
- 8 16gig iPhone 3Gs (about one a day)
- 10 Amazon Kindles (about 1.5 a day)
- 50 Xbox games (about seven a day)
- 400 movie tickets (just over 50 a day)
and that’s on revenue, not profit.
The flipside of this is of course, there’s no guarantee that some people of the 300 million saw the ad, and bought the merchandise some time later, thus making it untrackable. But isn’t it the same as any TV, radio or print ad you buy anyway?
Do you think you’re going to do better than Seth Godin’s case study? I’m going to leave the parallel of “reach” and “eyeballs” to traditional media to you.
If you’re in marketing, you’ve probably heard of the old adage “I know half of my marketing doesn’t work, I just don’t know which half”. The good news is if you’re employing banner ads in your marketing “arsenal”, they automatically fall into the half that isn’t working.
But that’s just one case study, if you’re buying banner ads, I’d like to ask you: How have they worked for you?
Tags: amazon kindles, banner ad, eyeballs, iphone 3G, law of large numbers, millions, movie tickets, online marketing, print, profit, purple cow, radio, reach, revenue, seth godin, tv, xbox
Posted in Marketing, Poor Practices | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, May 27th, 2009
As everyone knows by now, Singapore has it’s first H1N1 case, a schoolmate of mine from SMU (I don’t know her name or who she is). She came back from a business study mission to New York, and I was on a similar trip two years ago in 2007, and many of my friends were on trips before, during and after that.
So when the media gets hold of information that
a) The H1N1 case is a student from SMU
b) She was on a business study mission to New York
What do they do? Call/email/sms/instant message anyone and everyone they know who has ever gone on the trip, regardless of which year it was. I personally was contacted for information, so too were other friends who were on the previous trips, and not this year’s. They then start asking for the phone number of the professor in charge.
Look. If you want to do responsible reporting, do responsible reporting. Call the hospital, ask the doctor how she is, ask the ministries if we’re prepared for the flu, whatever. Don’t sensationalise reporting by finding out facts that don’t matter, and don’t harass people who have nothing to do with it!
You know the rules. You want a comment, call the school, not the students.
And for goodness sake, leave the poor girl alone to recover in the hospital. It’s bad enough she has to go through the trauma for having the virus, the last thing she needs are vultures circling around her door, phone and anywhere else to get every juicy tidbit of information that matters.
By the way, Channel News Asia, there’s no point being on Twitter which is meant for instantaneous messaging, if you break the news almost five hours after it’s out.
Tags: business study mission new york, h1n1, h1n1 singapore, singaporean press, SMU, vultures
Posted in Marketing, Plurk, Poor Practices, SMU, Singapore | 15 Comments »
Sunday, April 26th, 2009
As any marketer should know, the adoption process, or steps that people go through before a purchasing decision, works like this:
Awareness –> Trial –> Purchase/Usage
Unfortunately, when it comes to campaigns or initiatives, awareness is all too often the focus, but the linkage between awaerness and conversion or a purchase is so far away, that it doesn’t always work out well for the brand. Trial is just a step that is way too underrated in the marketing process.
Let’s put it this way: Awareness is sitting at the pub watching an ad on the sports channel for a different beer than what you’re drinking. Trial is your buddy next to you asking you to try his beer, which is also a different beer than what you’re drinking. Which is more likely to work better (assuming the beer doesn’t taste foul)?
With a freemium feature (one where basic features are available for free, but extra features are paid for), you incorporate awareness and trial all at once, and that’s something iPhone app creators are doing to gain users in a really competitive and swamped marketplace.
Let’s see how it works:
Awareness
I’m subscribed to App Shopper and a few other blogs that do nothing but aggregate and share the new apps available on the iTunes app store daily. This is where app developers go to to try to get awareness.
Trial
If someone notices an app from any one of these aggregators, the next step would be to download it from the App Store and try it out. I did this recently with Airport Mania and Best of 101 Dog Tricks, and really liked the free versions, though the features were really limited for the free version.
Purchase/Usage
If the apps blow the consumer away (and if they’re good, they will), then purchase is just one click away. From the company’s perspective, there’s nothing to lose. The more people get it free to try, the more people are aware of it and could pass it on to other people willing to buy.
There are so many apps out there (or products, or services) and it’s hard to make a decision to shell out $1.99 (or $19.99 or $199.99) for your offering when all I have to go on is awareness. Offer something that proves your product is kick-ass and worth paying for, and consumers pretty much will do just that.
Tags: adoption process, advertising campaign, aggregator, airport mania, app shopper, awareness, best of 101 dog tricks, competitive marketplace, conversion, induces trial, inducing trial, initiatives, iphone app, itunes app store, marketer, Marketing, purchase, purchasing decision, trial, usage
Posted in Marketing, case studies | No Comments »
Friday, April 24th, 2009
Last week, Rubin and I made a quick search for shirts that go with a tux (no, we didn’t know previously that they’re different from regular shirts). So we hit three shops in the immediate vicinity, the first two were totally aiming to make the sale. Everything from trying to get you to commit to an order, introducing “premium” materials and lowering prices to make it seem like a “discount”.
The third, we felt was more authentic right off the bat. He showed us the “normal” material and “premium” material and told us to verify for ourselves that there was no discernible difference in texture (there wasn’t), and that the important thing that tailors bring to customers is the service and customisation.
I think this approach is really about customer lifetime value. Do you go in with an affordable, knock-them-off-their-socks product that keeps them coming back for more, or are you concerned about making that one sale, and forgetting about the trust and relationship that can be formed, especially in businesses that are service-oriented?
Very different marketing approaches, but in the long run, I think aiming for retention will get better results than just attracting new customers. More word of mouth, more loyalty and more trust, which money can’t buy.
Tags: attracting new customers, authentic, authenticity, commit to an order, customer lifetime value, different marketing approaches, discernable difference, discernible difference, discount prices, going for the customer, going for the sale, keep coming back for more, knock them off their socks, lowering prices, loyalty, money can't buy, premium materials, retention, service and customisation, service and customization, service-oriented, shirts for tuxedos, texture, trust, trust and relationship, tux, word of mouth
Posted in Marketing, Singapore, case studies | 3 Comments »
Tuesday, April 21st, 2009
Arsene Wenger
Reading up on soccer (or football) news before tonight’s game, I came across a great quote by Arsenal’s manager, Arsene Wenger on the topic of mind games in sports, as he draws a parallel to advertising:
”I believe it [mind games] was always something which was overrated a bit. But it is part of our environment and part of the media.
”You never know how much impact it has because it is impossible to measure. It is a little bit like advertising - it is needed but what impact it has on sales you never know. With mind games it’s the same.”
Smart man, that Arsene Wenger.
[image credits: Sun News Online]
Tags: advertising, advertising impossible to measure, arsenal, arsenal manager, arsene wenger, football, impossible to measure, mind games, mind games in sports, overrated, parallel to advertising, part of the media, quotes, soccer
Posted in Marketing, Media | No Comments »
Monday, March 30th, 2009
Michael starts on the beer
I got invited by Mark a few weeks ago for a discussion at Edelman regarding responsible participation and what it means. Also present was Phil Gomes, John Kerr, Michael Netzley, Ben Koe, Preetam Rai and Eastcoastlife.
I’m not going to say too much about the discussion itself, as Michael has written a very comprehensive post detailing the discussion, but I will make two quick comments:
1) No one seems to really know what responsible participation means. Does it mean different things depending on context? For example, does “responsible participation” take on different manifestations in a B2C context as contrasted with a public-sector context?
2) Responsible participation, regardless of the context, needs to be two-way. I’m astounded at the sentiment on one side of the fence that calls for, or demands responsible participation, without even being engaged and participating themselves in the first place. Reciprocity is a global norm, no?
John collecting opinions
As a side note, I had a subsequent class visit to Edelman the following week, and the topic of discussion was “Crisis communication”. Before any of us could bring up the Wal-Mart example, the speaker brought it up first as an example of how they had to deal with it and it’s nice to see them openly acknowledge past mistakes and use them as a learning experience.
All in all, it seems like Edelman is genuinely trying to tap into the community to aid them in their social media efforts and this is only the first of such discussions. I’m looking forward to see what comes next.
Tags: b2c, ben koe, communicate asia, crisis communication, discussion, eastcoastlife, Edelman, john kerr, michael netzley, Phil Gomes, preetam rai, reciprocity, Responsable Participation, roundtable, wal-mart
Posted in Marketing, SMU, Singapore, Tools, case studies, collaboration, community, social media, twitter | 1 Comment »
Saturday, December 6th, 2008
I had to do a marketing case study or “show and tell” in class awhile ago, what else would I use, but social media?
Two bloggers, Pat Law and Steven Hodson from Singapore and Canada, had negative experiences with Challenger (a Singaporean Best Buy alternative) and Tim Hortons (the Canadian alternative for Starbucks) respectively. With Pat, there was a huge mess with getting delivery on time, horrendous customer service and problems all round. With Steven, a Tim Hortons cashier short changed his wife of $20, and despite the fact that it was obvious from the CCTV that there was an error, they were told there was nothing Tim Hortons could do.
Both cases resulted in pretty strong words from the bloggers and the commenters against the companies involved, but also pretty strong statistics. Pat shared with me her blog stats, and there were over 1,000 views in five days, with the average time spent clocking at six and a half minutes.
Think about that. 1,000 people with 6.5 minutes of negative exposure to your brand. You can buy all the ads you want and you probably won’t even get 6.5 minutes of positive brand exposure in a month.
Why is this a problem?
Any Monkey Can Blog
It’s a problem for companies because it’s just too simple for anyone to set up a blog and blog about a negative experience with your company. Why would I bother picking up the phone calling customer service when odds are I’ll get crappy customer service anyway? It’s just easier to “stick it to the man” online.
The Mistake
Companies are mistakenly not monitoring their brands online, thinking “no one” cares. Well, one thousand people at 6.5minutes each suggest otherwise. I think when we’re talking about customer lifetime value and potentially large amounts of revenue being lost (you can rest assured I’m not buying a television from Challenger although I’m in the market for one), someone should at least be attempting to make things right.
So What Then?
I'm Not Listening
Companies need to focus on good customer service and relationships to differentiate themselves. Especially for companies like Challenger and Tim Hortons who are selling fairly homogenous products, it’s just too easy for a consumer to go to another electronics store or somewhere else for coffee. Particularly in this recession economy, excellent customer service both in and outside the store may just be the differentiating factor you need. If you’re going to hire those service staff anyway, you might as well make sure they’re doing a good job of it.
The bottom line is this. Stop asking what positive ROI social media is going to bring you, because it isn’t the most important question. If it manages to bring in some sales/conversions, great. But at the very least, it can be used to negate the effect of such negative word of mouth. From one blog post, Challenger easily lost a $3k purchase from me, and who knows who else? How many people are going to forego that product from your company because of something they read, and your company did not respond to set things right?
How much is not getting involved in the social media space costing you?
[Image credits: Any monkey can blog | I'm not listening]
Tags: bad customer service, best buy, blankanvas, canadian blogger, challenger, crappy customer service, excellent customer service, homogeneous products, marketing case study, pat law, show and tell, singapore blogger, social media, steven hodson, stick it to the man, tim hortons, winextra
Posted in Marketing, Poor Practices, case studies, social media | 6 Comments »
Thursday, November 13th, 2008
One of my previous bosses once said: You don’t need to spend $20k on market research to know what the youth are into. Just sit on the train from one end to the other end of the subway and you’ll see the iPods, Playstation Portables, Nintendo DSes and the like.
I’m reading a lot about how Gen Y’s expectations of work from the Baby Boomers (read: our bosses) are different. It doesn’t necessarily lead to conflict, but it can lead to misunderstandings.
But the best “focus group” or “market research” comes from these fresh grads who are seen surfing Amazon one day, coming in with a product bought off Amazon the next. All without watching a TV ad for it, or flipping a magazine to see an ad, but maybe got an e-mail from a friend (read: someone like themselves) with a link to check out this cool new product.
Since your company is probably thinking of cutting back advertising and/or marketing in these recessionary times anyway (bad move, by the way), why not ask him or her what led to that purchasing decision? When was the last time they even saw an ad on TV? They’re sitting in the office working at double the normal productivity and have time to spare anyway.
The even better way to do this, if you have kids, is to just watch your kids. If my folks were marketers (and they’re not), it would be folly for them to think I would ever see their company’s advertisement on TV or read about their company’s new product launch in a physical newspaper.
Years ago, during festive seasons (Chinese New Year, Christmas), families would gather for dinner and the TV would be showing some “special” programme, chock full of advertising. Growing up for me, that’s where the kid’s eyes were glued.
Now? My younger nephews and nieces are huddled around my laptop or around their gaming console. So why pay money for those advertisements that no one’s watching? Do you even know they’re not watching?
In my previous internships I’ve been lucky enough to have bosses who let me do what I want (within reason), and I like to think as much as I learned a lot from them, they’ve learned a bit about my generation and how to stay relevant as well.
Tags: advertisements on tv, amazon, baby boomers, digital natives, focus group, Gen Y, generation y, internships, ipod, market research, millennials, nintendo ds, playstation portable, psp, where is gen y getting their info from
Posted in Gen Y, Marketing | 2 Comments »
Monday, November 10th, 2008
In the wake of the historical moment that happened earlier this week, there have been tons and tons of blog posts on President Obama’s victory. In this special edition of weekly links, I present five of them that really caught my attention, four of them marketing and/or social media based, and one commentary based.
1) Marketing lessons from the US Elections by Seth Godin. - I haven’t read Seth Godin’s “Tribes” yet, but from hearing about it and reading his blog, it’s pretty intuitive what it’s about. Find out how tribes (and stories) played a part in the elections.
2) Obama proves that there is nothing more powerful than an engaged community by Alexander van Elsas in the Netherlands - Tribes, community, they’re the same thing. Having them is one thing, but having them and setting fire to them is another.
3) Ten marketing lessons from the Barack Obama Presidential campaign by David Meerman Scott - Not going to go through all ten, but I loved the points about citizen journalists and putting your fans first.
4) Online Facebook Efforts Prove Successful for the Obama Campaign by Louis Gray - Some interesting data on the Facebook community engaged with Obama. Louis asks if John McCain’s loss could be a result of the lack of social media efforts. I certainly think it’s a key reason.
5) Obama: The morning after and some last thoughts by Steven Hodson at the Inquisitr - I picked this because a) it appeared in my Google Alerts for my name, and b) because it collects some really heartfelt comments from people around the internet, and not all of them American, demonstrating how truly global this election has been.
If you weren’t big on the elections and the marketing/social media efforts, have no fear. Regular round of Links For The Week will be right up tomorrow!
Tags: alexander van elsas, citizen journalists, david meerman scott, engaged community, google alerts, inquisitr, john mccain, louis gray, marketing lessons from the us elections, obama facebook efforts, president barack obama, putting your fans first, seth godin, steven hodson, tribes
Posted in Links, Marketing | 1 Comment »
Thursday, November 6th, 2008
My stand on companies entering social media has always been that the very first step is to make sure your product doesn’t suck. By that I don’t mean it has to be perfect (I love Sony but I can’t stand their sensitive hard disk), but it needs to do what it says it does. If you put it out there saying “Try this, it will do X”, then it damn well better do X. And if it does Y instead, don’t get angry and blame the blogger for a negative review or reaction to a sucky product.
Priscilla mentions correctly that making products requires a lot in terms of money and investment. But here’s the thing, if you don’t do that properly in the first place and thing social media will make up for whatever wasn’t done properly in the development stage: it will not.
One of the best examples I have is Claudia’s coverage of Podcamp Singapore. At the bottom there’s a little banner saying all the pictures/videos are taken from the Samsung Innov8 which has the tagline “the ultimate entertainer.”
Now, if the Innov8 has that tagline, but took grainy pictures and/or videos, it’s just going to get smashed online. The Innov8 does it pretty well, that’s why it can stand up to public scrutiny.
If you tell me it’s an ultramobile PC, I can overlook a slightly slower processor, but it shouldn’t weigh more than 2kg.
If they’re noise canceling earphones, I can excuse a lack of base, but not hearing the noisy person chatting next to me on the train.
If it’s a relatively good product that does all that it says it does, but consumers want more and send that feedback to you, then that’s how you win in social media because you’ve created a feedback channel that will be beneficial to your company over a long time.
The problem is companies tend to want to over-hype their products and tout it as the second coming. Consumers are smarter than that. Create the proper expectations and live up to them. If your product doesn’t do anything well, then send it back to the R&D lab. The consumers these days are way too demanding for such a product to survive.
Tags: innov8, make sure your product doesn't suck, overhyping products, priscilla tan, samsung, social media, social media for companies, sony, standing up to public scrutiny, sucky product
Posted in Marketing, case studies, social media | No Comments »
