Tuck B-School and IBM (Part 1): When the Minority Becomes Majority
May 28, 2008
Special thanks to Dr. Leonard Greenhalgh (Tuck School of Business) and Michael Robinson (IBM). In Part 1, they discuss economic implications derived from when the minority becomes the majority.
Click here to watch the video…
Name This Blog!
May 28, 2008
Our “President’s Corner” blog needs a new name and we’d like your help. We need your help in naming this blog section. “President’s Corner” is a little stuffy so we want to know what you think. Please submit your suggestions. For your time, we will add you to our Partnership Network for FREE.
Guidelines: Well, we are very open to any ideas, but keep in mind it should be relevant to our magazines (MBN USA and MBN Texas) and/or blogging in general. For instance, the new name for our Women’s Enterprise sites is WEblog2.
Thanks in advance for your suggestions and help!
Tim
Digital Marketing: Targeting Gen Y
May 27, 2008
Making Sense of Gen Y Media Consumption
Forrester Research recently reported on media consumption among Gen-Y’ers (18-27 year-olds). This group, not very surprisingly, spends more time online than watching TV. In fact, according to the report, they “Spend less time watching television today than they did in 2004.” Reportedly, they spend more time playing video games, watching DVDs and checking out Web and mobile video content than the general population.
To make sense of it all in the marketing light, Forrester offers a few tips for marketers:
Find consumers in their preferred media channels. Are your consumers online or offline? How are they spending their time online? What channels do they prefer? This media profile will answer those questions with a view of today and a trend line showing how behavior has changed in the past four years.
Prioritize media channels and brands for advertising….One simple way to start is to compare your advertising spend against the time that your target customers spend with each channel and brand. For example, Gen Y’ers generally are more likely to be found on MySpace than Facebook, but perhaps your target market is more likely to use Facebook. Or it may be that your multichannel sports fanatic customer actually spends more time online than watching television!
IBM’s Tom Trotter (Retired) on MWBEs and Corporate America
May 23, 2008
Tom Trotter, a true supply chain diversity pioneer, talks with us about MWBEs and strategies to grow their businesses, including accessibility to Corporate America through networking.
Toyota: Innovations and the Next Level
May 23, 2008
Moneta Stephens with Toyota talks about innovation and taking your company to the next level
Gary Muddyman: China and business opportunities for small businesses in the US
May 22, 2008
Garry Muddyman talks about small business opportunities with China.
Digital Campaigns: Metrics to Measure
May 22, 2008
Metrics To Measure
Today we are looking at metrics you can measure to determine the outcomes and results of digital campaigns. The following are specific metrics that must be tracked by any marketing organization:
1. Customers – Benchmark your existing base customers and develop tracking systems for prospects. Also, you need to analyze your visitors and conversion rates to determine the direction and level of growth.
2. Revenues – Monitor sales in total and per customer. Obviously this will differ from one company to another, depending on the nature of the business, but consider the average order and number of units per purchase. Check the trends to ensure they continue to maintain current levels, and grow your business.
3. Expenses – Measure your marketing costs in total, per customer and per campaign. If you have had collateral factors involved, event co-sponsors or trade arrangements for example, analyze the effectiveness from the join ventures and collaborations.
4. Margins – Ensure the continuation of your gross margins. Also, track the lifeline value and ROI to determine whether you are within acceptable company guidelines.
5. External factors – Make sure you also track environmental factors. For instance, although you may be seeing certain success according to your internal measures, you don’t want to fall behind the overall economy or your direct competition.
6. Buzz – Don’t overlook trends! Monitor the buzz about your company and products/services as well as your competitors and their products.
It will surely be another huge year for digital marketing in 2008. We will see records being broken as more budgeting is allocated to online marketing, and companies begin seeing the business gains from these efforts. The future belongs to the companies that take the time to develop tracking systems and closely monitor their digital marketing spend, succeeding with both innovation and execution.
Happy tracking,
Tim
Your Thoughts on Online marketing?
May 22, 2008
Your Thoughts?
We want to know what you would like to see in terms of online marketing. Does your company market to a national or world-wide audience or more regional and localized? What does your digital budget look like and have you reviewed your ROI from digital marketing?
Online marketing can be quite daunting and an exceptionally time-consuming process if you run all your numbers and track everything like you should. Well, we are here to help. In the next session, we will touch base on what exactly you want to track and measure regarding your online marketing campaigns.
Let us know your thoughts in the meantime.
Tim
Digital Marketing Trends for 2008
May 22, 2008
Digital Marketing Trends for 2008
Today I wanted to discuss some of the digital marketing trends forecasted for 2008. The top seven trends for 2008 (thanks to www.Clickz.com) are:
- Social media growth will come from expanded niche products. While facebook et al had phenomenal growth in 2007, attracting YouTube and MySpace, social media growth in 2008 is expected to focus on very targeted offerings that will attract users based on specific interests.
- Search marketing will continue to grow significantly. MSN reported a couple of weeks ago that a more local focus will emerge from the general online search marketing forums. Thus, this will open the door even more to the smaller businesses, with smaller ad budgets, creating the local “mom and pop” retailers to also be seen like the larger companies. However, this type of marketing will also extend its reach into other formats, including the social and mobile search environments.
- Analytics and related measurements will become more sophisticated. As the online market matures, analytics will become the arbiter of success and important for revealing areas of opportunity and those that require additional effort.
- Behavioral targeting will become more widespread and will provide improved customer experiences, offering customers more relevant information to consumers and better targeted ads to marketers. Bottom line is that this will open the flood gates in terms of customer experience.
- Integration of online and offline will continue as retailers update technology to allow customers to use preferred channels for each aspect of the purchase process.
- Email communications will continue to evolve. Promotional email has lost its novelty based on customer fatigue from increased frequency and stale offers. Thus, marketers must focus on delivering relevant information to customer when they are most willing to listen. This results in increased use of behaviorally triggers email related to customers actions, more personalized and dynamic content, and greater use of newsletter that provide customers with either valuable or entertaining information.
- The market will be disrupted by a new technology or a shift in how existing products are used. Be sure, something like a Google, MySpace, or YouTube will arrive out of nowhere and provide a geat way for marketers who can react fast.
You may notice that mobile marketing failed to make the top seven. This is primarily because, although it has massive potential, the lack of generally accepted platforms, formats, and business models will continue to hamper mobile’s growth in 2008.
By staying on top of these trends and incorporating them into your campaigns, you will be at the forefront of digital marketing…until it all changes again next week.
To success!
Tim
The Inaugural Blog!
May 22, 2008
Welcome to Business News Group Online!
Welcome and thanks for joining us for the inaugural Business News group blog. Although we will be hitting on topics relevant to the growth of your business, analyzing opportunities for exceptional networking, and reviewing the latest digital marketing trends, we also want this to be an easy and informal way for you to leave feedback and interact with the entire business community. Let us all know your thoughts, goals, accomplishments and concerns. We can all grow from the additional knowledge.
Over the coming weeks, we will be discussing various trends, tools, developments and strategies regarding digital marketing campaigns. Such topics will include email marketing strategies, integrated marketing, mobile marketing, online video advertising, using new ad technology, video, rich and streaming media, market analysis, ROI marketing, agency media strategies, behavioral marketing, online publishing, email marketing, digital marketing optimization and search engine marketing.
The evolutionary rate of such digital marketing trends and technologies is quite impressive. If you take a week’s vacation, it seems that you return to an entirely new environment from the one you just left. So although we are starting a great new era in terms of online marketing, we really need to bring our “A” game in order to stay on top of things.
Here is to a very successful digital marketing year in 2008!
Tim
