As approaching the end of this term, I have learnt some basic and fundamental marketing knowledge throughout the lecture and assignments.  Especially with the marketing plan assignments, I understood how to utilize my marketing knowledge to practical issues as well as how to work with other fellows as a team. By dividing the assignments into small parts, each one in my team was able to contribute his/her understanding of marketing to analyze the chosen company. And, I  enjoyed the process of discussing and  sharing own thoughts with others.

The best and impressive part of this class is the assignment part#3, the marketing video. Since none of us had the knowledge of producing a film, we spent lots of time and effort on the accomplishment of the movie. By working with my team member closely, we got a chance to know each other better and deeper. We tried to overcome any hardship we encountered during the filming. This experience is more than just academic achievement. However, due to the limit time, we have to keep the movie within 7 mins. If there will be another opportunity for another marketing movie, I will put all ideas into our film.  I think this type of assignment helps me better to understand and apply the knowledge than simply memorizing definitions. It is wise to apply flexible marketing knowledge in different situation rather than memorizing the textbook!

Once again, after completing this marketing course, I feel that I learn way more than I expected at the beginning of class. Marketing is not about products and services, its also related to self-marketing, how to market myself in the society. Those knowledge will help me in my future career and life. Also, I found that I have strong interests on marketing strategies. I will keep learning marketing knowledge on my own after graduating.

Peng Zhang

I will link and comment on an external marketing blog, “Fashion retailers are still failing to optimize email marketing for mobile”, by David Moth on 12 November 2013.

http://econsultancy.com/ca/blog/63775-fashion-retailers-are-still-failing-to-optimise-email-marketing-for-mobile

In this blog, David talks about a phenomenon that mobile email is an increasingly important marketing channel as stats show that around 40% of email is opened on smartphones. Nowadays, more and more people transform from paper reader to e-version reader. As a result, companies start to sending email rather than paper flyers to the customers. By sending weekly or monthly email, fashion companies are able to effectively communicate with their customers regarding any new arrivals and promotions. However, as the rapid development of smartphone industry, more people intend to read email with their smartphones rather than computers. This turns out to be a problem which is the email compatibility with smartphones. Normal email intended to be read on a computer cannot be loaded properly on a smartphone. For example, people can only see a part of the original image on a smartphone due to the scaling issue. David did a test to receive email from several companies. And,only four brands had any success in rendering emails properly on his Android phone.

“It appears that businesses are finally beginning to react to this change in consumer behavior, as the new Econsultancy/BuyDesire Mobile Marketing and Commerce Report shows that  optimized emails are one of the top mobile priorities for businesses in the next 12 months.” In order to allow customers to understand and realize the value of a company’s product or service, the first thing a company needs be aware of is to think the way a customer thinks. From a customer’s perspective, the user friendly emails can definitely  catch more attention than a messy and unscaled email. This is same as customer service, the ultimate goal is not just deliver the service, but let the customer enjoy the service. If a company sends email that compatible with both smartphones and computers, the customer will most likely to spend some time to go through the information. Otherwise, the emails that are not compatible with smartphones will be most likely to go to junk folder. Once again, customers have the abilities to see the effort and attitude of a company towards them. Always think the way that customers are supposed to think.

Peng Zhang

I will link and comment on the following blog “How Southwest Airline add value to its customer”, by Tian Liu. https://blogs.ubc.ca/tian/

In his blog, Tian introduces a phenomenon that Southwest Airline has the lowest numbers of complaints among US airlines. As a middle size airline company, Southwest Airline consistently received the fewest ratio of complaints per passenger boarded of all major U.S. carriers since 1987. From Tian’s point of view, the reason is not “hardware”, but the “software”. In another words, rather than competing with other airlines on the products, Southwest competes others on the customer services. Southwest tries to provide more values to its customers by offering free luggage check-in, free non-alcholic beverages, entertaining way of announcing safety information and reward program to benefit frequent flyers.

I have tried two famous US airlines before. Both of them charged my checked baggage and drinks on board. If I knew the offers of Southwest Airline, I would definitely choose them.  From a consumer’s perspective, I would choose the product or service which provides the most value to me as long as it meets my basic needs. In terms of airlines, consumers would choose the airline company which would cost the least as long as the safety and comfort are ensured. According to the marketing Mix 4P, Southwest Airline takes advantage of low price to obtain the least complaints from customers. Also, based on the reciprocity principle, customer appreciate the incentive provided by Southwest Airline. As a result, Southwest Airline is possible to receive minimum numbers of complaints among so many competitors.

Actually, most of companies are competing with others in the area of customer services. By establishing a close relationship with a customer, a company could potentially earn much more profits than a simply transaction. Nowadays, people are not only judging a product or service by its functionality,  but also the experiences of purchasing. A company has to allow the consumers realizing the additional value that they will get is somehow more than other companies can offer. Then, consumers have to abilities to judge and decide which product to pursuit.

Peng Zhang