Many consumers are starting to enjoy the convenience of shopping at home via online shopping. In turn, retailers are taking advantage of this new trend to capture more market share.  Today, many retailers allow consumers to browse their products through an online shopping site that entitles consumers to purchase in a click of a few buttons. Frequent updates and advertisements on social platforms, such as Twitter, Facebook, and Foursquare consumers are encouraged to engage in online communities.  As a result of online marketing, retailers have enabled purchases to be made on the same page where consumers viewed the advertisement or help navigate consumers accordingly.  This sense of instant gratification is extremely tempting and satisfying to consumers on all levels of their wellbeing.

On the other hand, many consumers are skeptical to provide their credit card numbers online due to obvious reasons of security and testimonials of horrific past experiences.  For example, in the article, “Billing Blacklash Against Popular Online Shopping Site,” a young woman was charged with hidden membership fees that appeared on her bill a month after her actual purchase.  It is because of the actions of such retailers that many consumers have lost their sense of security to shop online.  With the online community becoming more dominant in all aspects of business, it is crucial for companies to be transparent and honest about their company policies in order to gain the trust of the established and building consumer bases.

Email Junk Mail Marketing

Companies that try to personify their brand through sending emails (email marketing) to consumer, as a friend would, is not ineffective, to say the least.

Do you feel more attached to a product that has your name on it? Consumer behaviour is often influenced by an emotional connection to a product or brand.  A consumer is more likely to purchase a product based on the degree of emotional connection to the brand, whether it be memories, or associations with the brand.  Many brands allow consumer to personalize/customize a product into to develop a deeper emotional connection with product.  It is proven that, if consumers feel more involved with a product, the likelihood of purchase increases. Personifying a brand, like how Professor Cubbon mentioned in class, also helps consumers create a sense of connection with the brand.

Today, we find more emails from headquarters of companies that are addressed to individuals. Being able to address someone by name, instead of sending out a generic impersonalized email leads to that deeper emotional connection with the brand that all companies long to achieve.  But somehow this “personalized” email, which businesses refer, as email marketing is somewhat disrespectful and intrusive.  Just because consumers leave their names and email addresses during a single purchase at the store, what gives them the right to spam them emails that they only bothered to change only one word of, the salutation.  The content of the email is evidently not catered to one’s individual needs, as her close friend received the identical emails. Companies should be strategic in the timing and content of their emails. I find it very misleading and humiliated to be excited about an email that’s addressed to me, but only to find out that, it was just  computer generated.  Retailers should either just send out generic emails addressed to the general public or spend more time catering content to valued consumers. For consumers who are not enthusiastic about companies that use email marketing, remember, there’s always the “unsubscribe” button, so make good use of it!

Social media is an expensive way to reach out to consumers compared to traditional advertisements. Video hits on social media platforms, one such as YouTube can attract millions of views in matter of minutes, or even seconds.  This low cost advertising is especially beneficial to non-profit organizations that have constrained budgets.  Through social media, these organizations can extend their messages to more people in a shorter span of time, with less cost, or virtually no monetary cost. A non-profit organization in Los Angeles has done exactly that. The non-profit is social marketing with social media.  The goal of the organization is to stop bullying by educating and empowering students to take action.  With the focus on cyberbullying, as more and children are gained easy access to online chat forums, which put victims at higher risks. Bullying has been reported as a fear in many children, their reason for not attending school, developing disorders and even committing suicide. Can the power of social media really put an end to bullying? Many people talk about bullying, but not many people take action. After just five months of launching the app for smartphones about bullying, it reached over 50,000 users. Be More Heroic is a program that helps create service projects with teaching focused on bullying, which has been implemented in schools throughout the U.S. and still continues to expand. At this pace of exposure, student empowerment to take action in issues of bullying will increase. It is amazing to see the power of social media, the ability to reach and educate individuals.