Xueyi (Chloe) Chen's Blog

After browsing through my fellow classmates’ blogs, I came across with Cicely Finamore’s blog “Direct Marketing-They put the PRO in Proactive.” In her blog, she talked about how companies use different forms of direct marketing based on their marketing mix and business strategies, either as a supplement to other approaches, or as a primary marketing approach, as in Proactive’s case.

It is evident that Proactive achieved incredible success through extensive and strategic use of infomercials with celebrity endorsements. Proactive’s success is largely due to the fact that it has successfully target to the right customers-teenagers with celebrities like Justin Bieber who shares same values and needs as most teenagers. However, many companies cannot simply become successful just by using direct marketing. Due to different natures of products, many companies such as clothing brands use direct marketing as a supplement to other approaches. In that case, direct marketing should support companies’ marketing mix and align with marketing objectives. Direct marketing that doesn’t align with the marketing mix confuses consumers, and weakens brand images.

Next, for direct marketing to succeed, the strategic use of database plays and important role. The fact that more and more companies are starting to use direct marketing is because it’s a powerful tool for targeting the right segments and building customer relationships. Database plays an important role in supporting the success of direct marketing. Companies nowadays use database marketing to target small groups or individual consumers and promote their products through personalized communications. This approach helps to create greater value for customers. A good example of this is the low-cost airlines. Many airlines now allow customers to book tickets directly with them over the Internet. They then capture comprehensive data about individual customers, and use the database to learn about the preferences and behaviors of targeted individuals. For example, by mining their database, special offers and flight bundles can be sent directly to customers using direct mail or emails. Sending customers with highly personalized mails and emails can demonstrate company’s knowledge of their needs and values, and build long lasting relationship with customers. However, people nowadays are bombarded with too many trash mails, therefore, companies need to make sure that their mails/emails engages people immediately with creative messages that are relevant to customers’ value and needs.

Overall, a company’s database can be an important tool for direct marketing and building stronger long-term relationships.

After browsing through several marketing blogs for some inspiration, I came across Chuck English’s blog “ Six Reasons that Print is Alive and Kicking.” In his blog, he emphasizes that print isn’t dead, instead, it still play an important role in the marketing mix. He notes that many evidences have shown that the battle between print and online advertising has never stopped. For example, it is noted that direct mail fundraising still outdistances email fundraising; and there are still 43 million out of 187 million American magazine readers read exclusively in print. Moreover, over half of internet users learn about new brands, products/services from TV, radio, and offline print sources; and most readers spend infinitely more time with newspapers than their digital counterparts and generate 10 times more revenue.

All these evidences suggest that strategic use of print can still be a very effective way to market products. Therefore, in my opinion, marketing strategies using print ads can be implemented in different stages of the product life cycle to increase revenues.

In the introduction stage of a new product, in addition to online advertising, companies should use print ads to inform a range of consumers of the new product and get them to try it. Since over half of Internet users learn about new brands, products/services from TV, radio, and offline print sources, using print ads is a great way to launch a new product. Moreover, print ads can generate a visual impact more quickly and effectively than any ads on smartphones, which would likely enable it to leave a lasting impression of the brands in consumers’ minds. In the growth stage, however, companies should emphasize more on using online/TV ads to build awareness and interests in the mass market. Print ads can assist online advertising, as it doesn’t reach out to as many consumers as online advertising can. In its maturity stage, successful companies should evolve to meet changes in consumer needs, and one of the methods can be to modify its marketing mix. Companies can offer new or improved products to consumers, and use print ads to aid aggressive sales promotions. Since the average revenue per user with newspapers is shown to be 10 times more than the average revenue with online news, print sources are likely to be more effective on improving sales.

Therefore, successful use of print sources in different product life cycle stages can distinguish the product from others, and help improve brand awareness and sales.

Link to the article:

http://www.the-cma.org/about/blog/six-reasons-that-print-is-alive-and-kicking

As I was reading through other fellow classmates’ blogs, I came across Angus Chak’s blog “PepsiCo Advances past Coke?” In his blog, he talked about how PepsiCo has advanced substantially further than Coke in terms of sustainable marketing. Even though both companies have employed sustainable marketing practices, Coke seems to fall a step behind PepsiCo in terms of coming up with more environmentally friendly products.

Here, I would like to add few points to his post. In terms of sustainable marketing, both companies have committed on improving their socially and environmentally responsible practices. Because we all know “go green” is the ultimate social trend, employing sustainable marketing will not only benefit customers, but also the companies as companies’ visions resonate with customers’ and societal values.

According to “Sustainability Faceoff: Coca-Cola vs. PepsiCo” by Ariel Schwartz, Coke has made an impressive step toward sustainability in its “Commitment 2020” plan, which include: a carbon footprint reduction of 15% (from a 2007 baseline), minimizing water use, recovering 100% of packaging, and increasing recycling. As far as water usage is concerned, Coke plans to improve water efficiency by 20% by 2012 compared to a 2004 baseline. PepsiCo also commits to cut water use by 20% by 2015 compared to 2006 levels. But let’s first not look at which company wins on water saving. I think the more important point to make here is that: both companies want to improve on water sustainably not only because their businesses depend on it, but also because they want to establish positive brand images. By using resources wisely and promoting sustainable brand images, Coke and PepsiCo can not only cut cost, but also improve their sales through sustainable marketing.

At the end, doesn’t matter who wins on their battle of “sustainable marketing”, it is always a good thing that the two companies keep their battle of being “Greener”. Even though Coke is a step behind on sustainable marketing, it has kept investing heavily on research that addresses sustainable issues, such as its effort to make new bottles from aluminum which can be recycled indefinitely. The battle between PepsiCo and Coke has helped both companies to produce products that are not only pleasing but also beneficial to the customers and society in the long run. We as consumers therefore can always benefit from such competitions.

Link to the article:

http://www.fastcompany.com/1646746/sustainability-faceoff-coca-cola-vs-pepsico

Last class, we discussed primary and secondary data collection and approaches to retrieve this data. Secondary data is the data that has already been gathered and collected. Using secondary data is cheap and quick but may not provide the most current and relevant results. Primary data is actually going out and collecting the data yourself. The three approaches that we discussed are observation (observing people, actions and situations), surveys (a set of questions needed to be answered), and experiments (cause-and-effect relationships). What we learned was online surveys tend to be the quickest and easiest way to gather primary data. What we didn’t talk about was how online survey can be incorporated with social media marketing to increase interaction with customers and gain feedbacks. This article I found (link below) explains that when incorporating surveys into social media marketing, there’s an opportunity to make that intersection a part of our social cycle of interaction through 6 steps. These steps include: listening, grow network, crowd source survey questions, invite surveys socially, recognize super friends, and promote survey results socially. I agree completely with this article because surveys are getting boring and people have less time to waste. Online surveys need to be targeted towards the right group of people, and these people need to trust and be interested enough in the survey in order for them to take the time to complete it. Social media can help to find the topics of interest. It helps to grow a strong and large social network across different channels, so that when we have a large enough network, trust can be earned. Social media can also quickly leverage feedback to construct the flow of online surveys. Different relevant communities can also be tapped to help promote surveys and increase survey exposures. Moreover, social media can help to recognize people who contribute with good ideas and who help promote surveys, this kind of public recognition encourages further contribution from people to future surveys. Finally, social media can be used to promote survey results, I think through extensive communication about survey outcomes; we can quickly gain knowledge from survey feedback and learn what’s working. Overall, I think social media really helps to improve the efficiency of online surveys.

Article:

http://www.toprankblog.com/2010/08/online-surveys-social-media/

Hi, my name is Chloe Chen and I am a second year commerce student planning to major in Finance and minor in International Business. I came to Vancouver from China when I was in grade ten. Leaving my home country was a big step, but I never regretted simply because I love this city so much!

I am taking this course not only because it’s a requirement, but also because I want to gain a deeper understanding of marketing. Marketing is a very essential part of any types of business, having a good understanding and knowledge of it will allow me to see business practices from different angles.

My experience with marketing as a consumer has brought much joy to my life. I find a lot of commercials played on the TV or advertisements on billboards very interesting, I enjoy them very much personally. However, if I’m presented with the same ads with too many times, my interesting for some ads fades away eventually, and the ads, which are used to be engaging, can become quite annoying at the end. That being said, I still think marketing is a great way to help sellers to reach out to their consumer by exploring existing consumer needs and wants. Therefore, marketing, in my opinion, is a great way to explore customer desires and create values, as well as a way to try to satisfy consumer desires. I, as a consumer, am very much entertained and satisfied by marketing. My favorite ads would be those charity advertisements. They promote awareness in the society, and those ads are touching and meaningful. Not only do they provoke discussion about our society and our conscience but also donation to support people or communities in need.

World Vision Ireland TV 

Last but not least, something personal about me that I’d like to share with the class is that I love dancing! I embarked on my journey of dancing more than ten years ago. Through dancing, my flood of emotions is expressed in the most universal and natural language of all- the body language. By learning different types of dance, I have been exposed to various cultures and expressions. This has greatly promoted my understanding of the world.

Finally, I’m looking forward to learning more aspects about marketing in this class!

From the article “BBB warns against five scams targeting senior citizens”, BBB (Better Business Bureau) points out the five main business frauds, which includes “lottery scams”, “Medicare scams”, “bereavement scams”, “deceptive professionals”, and “investment and work-at-home opportunities”, used by scammers to deceive elders in our society. Each of these activities takes advantage of senior citizens whom lack experiences on managing finances.  Elders are easily fooled by scammers who would send lottery winning letters claiming for cheques to cover administration fees, or who would pretend to be workers from Medicare and ask for credit card information. Other than that, scammers also pick on widow or widower and ask them to pay for the “debts” of their recently passed away spouses. Senior victims are also tricked by people who pretend to be professionals in certain areas and charges inflate prices for providing services, or people who offer false opportunities for making money. Many people in nowadays’ society are being deceptive in their business practices. They are morally irresponsible as they cause unwarranted harm to people especially seniors..

http://www.grandrapidsmn.com/special_sections/article_ce62577a-c0e2-11df-96d9-001cc4c03286.html