Product Portfolio Analysis

The strengths and weaknesses of a company determine its internal capabilities to compete in a market and fulfill customer expectations. One of the tools to identify the strengths and weaknesses of a company is a Product Portfolio Analysis. The Product Portfolio Analysis was proposed in 1973 by Peter Drucker as a way to classify current and expected profitability.

The Product Portfolio Analysis classified various offerings of a particular company into seven categories. They are:

• Today`s Breadwinners - These products are most profitable to the company. The company should support these products and maintain current investment levels.
• Tomorrow`s Breadwinners - These products have the potential to contribute to the company`s profit in the future and thus the company should support these products and perhaps increase investments in them.
• Yesterday`s Breadwinners - These were the most profitable products of the past but do not currently contribute significantly to profits. The company needs to maintain a minimum level of support and investment for these products until the time they resume generating substantial profits. After that, the company may decide to discontinue such products.
• Developments - These products are under development and need greater investment to achieve a level on which they start generating profits. A decision on whether to invest more resources needs to be made after a thorough analysis of the market potential and Return on Investment (ROI) for these products.
• Sleepers - These products have been around for some time but have failed to establish themselves.
• Investments in Managerial Ego - These products, backed by influential managers, have little proven demand in the market and typically waste many functional resources.
• Failures - These products have failed in the past and have no future in their current form. They should ideally be discontinued unless there is a way to successfully reposition them.

Products in the first three categories, "Today`s Breadwinners," "Tomorrow`s Breadwinners," and "Yesterday`s Breadwinners," are strengths of the company while those in the last two categories, "Investments in Managerial Ego" and "Failures," are weaknesses. The "Developments" and "Sleepers" need to be analyzed in greater detail to classify them as either strengths or weaknesses.

A product portfolio analysis for a company in the phone manufacturing industry may categorize its entire product as follows:

• Today`s Breadwinners: Touch screen cell phones
• Tomorrow`s Breadwinners: Hybrid tablet-cell phones
• Yesterday`s Breadwinners: Home phone handsets
• Developments: Wearable technology
• Sleepers: Imbedded, bio-technology
• Investments in Managerial Ego: Extendable keyboards
• Failures: In-ear receivers

After the classification exercise, the marketing team is able to pinpoint products that contribute to the company`s strengths and those that do not. Accordingly, the Marketing Strategy to be followed for each product can be decided.

Sales training, not just for sales teams anymore. SMstudy is for everyone.

As companies continue the eternal pursuit of streamlining, a little bit of universal sales training can yield major benefits. Basic understanding of the aspects of the sales process is a benefit for all members of a company regardless of position or department.

Some very real advances in efficiency can be achieved when everyone speaks the same language.

Ever feel important communications get lost in translation from one branch of a company to the other? Since sales is usually a crucial element of any company, it benefits everyone to have an understanding of sales processes and its terminology.  When everyone speaks the same language, everything goes more smoothly.

According to Will Brooks, executive vice president and director of marketing at The Brooks Group, “Communication is enhanced once everyone is fluent in the selling process, when the dialogue around specific accounts and stages in the buyer’s journey becomes more efficient—both within the sales team and across departments. Congruent terminology and standard definitions of each stage in the buying process reduces miscommunication and unifies the sales and marketing departments.”

Continuity of Message = Efficiency

Another important benefit of universal sales training; the continuity of company communication, both internally and externally. A consistent informed message that permeates a company will make a stronger clearer message to potential customers. As customers are brought in to the sales cycle, they will continue to receive a consistent message that in turn leads to a seamless customer experience. 

Brooks notes, “Customer service can better understand the customer’s needs once they have received sales training, and when marketing understands the sales process, they can provide tools and resources that are aligned with how sales is selling. The promises sales makes to customers should mirror the messages that marketing sends out, and alignment between these departments ensures that’s always happening.”

SMstudy works very well for any company considering a company-wide sales training program. It’s convenient and offers flexible training opportunities that work within the timeframe of a staff members’ busy schedule. The SMstudy Guide® and all its resources, including training videos, study guides, test questions and more, is ideally positioned to provide a positive sales training experience for everyone. 

Find more interesting information on sales and marketing at smstudy.com.

Sources:

How Sales Training Can Benefit More Than the Sales Team, Will Brooks. Sept. 21, 2015. https://www.trainingindustry.com/blog/blog-entries/how-sales-training-can-benefit-more-than-the-sales-team.aspx

All About Customer Advisory Boards

A Customer Advisory Board (CAB) or Customer Advisory Council is a representative customer group comprising senior stakeholders who convene periodically to validate product features, the marketing plan, and the strategic direction of the company to ensure these align with customers and the market. The company uses the information gathered at these meetings to realign business priorities and formulate strategy.

CABs meet on a periodic basis, typically two or three times per year. Some companies choose to meet more or less frequently, depending on need. However, it is challenging to have frequent customer councils as participation at these events is often voluntary, and participants are usually constrained by time. Also, the time and resources taken to accomplish and follow through with changes discussed in the customer councils often do not allow for more frequent meetings.

A physical meeting is the most popular format for customer councils. Other formats used by companies include tele-conferences, video conferences, and online CABs. Using these formats can help reduce time and money spent on travel and can result in increased participation levels. However, while they are more convenient, these formats are not always as effective as face-to-face meetings.

Key Functions of CABs

Some of the important uses of CABs are as follows:

• Validating ideas for new features or new products
• Providing valuable insights into how customers are using the products
• Prioritizing features and identifying the most important ones on which to focus
• Assisting in understanding how the products fare against alternatives in the market
• Helping in designing the next generation of products which customers may adopt in future
• Assisting in retaining key customers
• Increasing revenue opportunities within the existing customer base

A key distinction between a CAB and a focus group is that the members of a CAB are carefully chosen senior members of management from client organizations, unlike product users in the case of focus groups.

To read more articles about sales and marketing, visit www.smstudy.com/articles

Happy Customer, Happy Life

Just as every married man can attest to the fact that “a happy wife makes a happy life,” anyone interacting with customers will agree that a happy customer makes a happy life as well.

So, why would a sales team not use a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system when it’s been shown to improve customer happiness? The truth is that very few opt out of a CRM system, since there are just too many good, sound reasons to incorporate the tool and in essence create a win-win situation for the sales team AND customer alike.

According to SMstudy, a CRM system is used to track the various stages in the sales process. It also assists in managing a company’s interactions with a customer, thus allowing a company to manage information about customers and customer touch-points in order to maximize customer loyalty.

Based on the information available in most CRM systems, a company is able to provide a high degree of personalized service to the customer in the form of customized products, services and promotions. Personalized services are also key to maintaining and building customer loyalty.

A typical CRM System has four processes:

1. Knowledge Discovery– This is the process of analyzing customer information through contact with a company’s products or services. CRM systems enable the company to analyze the data and draw meaningful insights.
2. Planning– In this process, the output from the knowledge discovery phase is used to develop strategies for personalized marketing and promotional activities.
3. Customer Interaction– This is the process where the actual implementation of the various programs and strategies occurs. These programs and strategies target various customer touch-points and/or company channels.
4. Analysis and Refinement– In this process, customer feedback and responses from the various programs implemented are analyzed as part of the ongoing communication and review process.

In his article, “The five biggest benefits of CRM systems,” Patricio Robles notes, “In today's ultra-competitive markets, the companies that manage customer relationships the best are more likely to win than those that don't.”

Robles goes on to list the top five reasons why a company should incorporate a CRM system. They include:

1. Efficiency – not only does a CRM system clear up any inefficiencies related to manual customer management, but also “the ability of popular CRM platforms to integrate with other systems, such as marketing automation tools can enable companies to interact with customers in ways that they wouldn't have the resources to do otherwise.”
2. Collaboration – Complex customer lifecycles require the ability for many to work together. “The use of cloud-based CRM platforms allows employees in multiple departments to more effectively manage their customer relationships and to see the big picture at any time.”
3. Data – Access to data, the ability to analyze data and present it clearly are all integral to understanding what’s happening with customers. “Popular CRM platforms typically offer a variety of homegrown and third party tools that enable companies to understand their CRM data and learn things about their customers that wouldn't be possible otherwise.”
4. Increased accountability – Consider a CRM system as the safety net catching all who may have “fallen through the cracks.” “A well-implemented CRM system helps employees across departments understand their responsibilities to customers throughout the customer lifecycle and when those responsibilities aren't met, it's easy to identify what went wrong, where, who fell short and how to make sure it doesn't happen again.”
5. Improved customer experience – As we said earlier, this is the ultimate benefit of all. “Customers are more easily and accurately segmented, their needs identified, and because the status of a company's relationship with them is accurately tracked, companies can interact with them meaningfully at the right times, leading to more sales, faster sales and higher customer retention and satisfaction.”

Happy customers make a happy sales and marketing life.

To read more articles about sales and marketing, visit www.smstudy.com/articles

Sources:

“The five biggest benefits of CRM systems,” Patricio Robles, April 10, 2015

https://econsultancy.com/blog/66287-the-five-biggest-benefits-of-crm-systems/

How Low Can You Go? How High Can You Get?

Continually rising prices at the gas pump since the mid-1970s has had us all asking, “How high can these get?!” As 2015 slipped into 2016, with oil by the barrel in free fall, we found ourselves asking, “How low can this go?”

The roller coaster of oil pricing per barrel and sticker surprise at the gas pump has a lot of people wondering, “How in the world do they set those prices?”

Companies set their prices according to their own pricing strategy, which “properly prices products or services so that the company can sustain profitability while maintaining or growing its market share,” according to SMstudy’s Marketing Strategy, book one in the SMstudy® Guide series. Even though it sometimes seems as though companies are grabbing for quick profits and letting the future take care of itself, sustained profitability and growth in market share are part of every sane strategy.

Coming up with that sane strategy isn’t as easy as a few fat cats sitting around in a smoky room saying, “Well, what do we want to charge for this?” That question is likely to be followed with another, “What CAN we get for this?” And now our fat cats are talking strategy. The SMstudy® Guide says, “In order to develop a comprehensive Pricing Strategy, a company must specifically evaluate and understand the trends and dynamics in many areas such as the following:

• the features and pricing of competitive products in the market
• the company’s desired positioning, mapped against that of the competition to identify pricing of similarly positioned products
• the consumer mindset to understand the demand and spending capability for each product
• the cost, projected unit sales, and targeted profitability levels of each product
• the innovativeness of each product
• the capability of the production and operations teams to create high-quality products at reasonable costs
• the knowledge of the current and desired market shares for each product.”

 The SMstudy® Guide details nine inputs and fourteen tools companies can use to understand these trends and dynamics to design a successful pricing strategy. One input is the company’s own positioning statement. This statement is important because “how a company markets a product impacts who buys it and how much consumers are willing to pay to purchase it.” The positioning statement identifies who the company wants to sell to and how much it would like those customers to pay. “A company that caters to a wealthier market segment with relatively high disposable incomes, aims to create a premier positioning for the product focusing on the quality of the goods or services, brand messaging, and packaging.” This market position allows for premium pricing, too.  It is no wonder that there are at least three grades of gasoline at every pump.

Another input is “opportunities and threats.” As the SMstudy® Guide points out, “Identifying and analyzing opportunities and threats help the company consider the external factors that may influence the costs involved in manufacturing a product or service and subsequently impact its pricing.” This is why refinery fires, hostile take overs of oil fields, and sudden growth from emerging markets all over the world affect the price of gasoline at the station on the corner.

So, how in the world do they set those prices? By following a rather elaborate pricing strategy.

For more help understanding pricing and marketing strategies, visit SMstudy.com

The information in this article comes from chapter four of SMstudy’s Marketing Strategy, book one in theSMstudy® Guide series of six books that also include Marketing Research, Digital Marketing, Corporate Sales,Retail Sales and Branding and Advertising.

Say Hello to My Little Friend

More and more our smartphones are becoming our most handy go-to resource, or as I like to call it, “my little friend.” Not quite as large, powerful and destructive as the machine gun Al Pacino whips out in the 1983 film Scarface, but ultimately way more helpful and much more deserving of the label “little friend.”

And smartphones ARE so very helpful. Besides allowing us to talk to anyone anywhere (assuming we’re not out of range), they help get us where we need to go, keep us connected to friends, family and all global. Anything we need, chances are there’s something that’s either on your smartphone or can be added to it to make our lives a little easier. In other words, there’s an app for that!

According to Digital Marketing, book three of the SMstudy™ Guide, “optimizing the mobile channel, which includes both the mobile websites and mobile apps, should never be neglected and specific focus should be paid to optimizing this channel to achieve maximum reach, enhance relationships with customers and to support a company’s reputation.”

Considering recent statistics from Google, the SMstudy™ Guide is correct to suggest that mobile should not be ignore or even placed on the back burner... especially if your business is retail. Google global search data from November 2014- October 2015 revealed that shopping-related searches have increased by 120% in the last year. Additionally, from a 2015 study based on 5,398 internet users we learn that 82% of shoppers consult their smartphones on purchases they’re about to make in a store…sometimes while in the checkout line.

Wow. That really can’t be ignored.

With this data in mind, mobile marketers are on an innovative kick and keen to connect with consumers during what is now being called micro-moments, or moments according to Google when “consumers’ expectations are higher than ever. The powerful computers we carry in our pockets have trained us to expect brands to immediately deliver exactly what we are looking for when we are looking. We want things right, and we want things right away.”

One such identified micro-moment occurs while customers are actually in a physical store. In response to the mind-blowing fact noted above (82% of shoppers say they consult their smartphones purchases they’re about to make in a store), our “little friends” can now tell us a bit more information about a product we’re considering buying.  Sephora, the beauty product retailer actively encourages customers to scan products into the Sephora app, where they will receive additional product information and ratings. 

Other retailers are beefing up their geographic “searchabilty” based on recent data showing that “Near Me” searches have grown substantially year-over-year and that 18 percent of local searches end in a purchase.

Responding to our ever-growing desire for mobile-centric “helpers” marketers are recognizing that the shopping experience begins way before a customer walks in the front door. Providing information during the micro-moments when consumers are seeking relevant, helpful and oftentimes local information, is key to keeping customers around.

Optimism regarding this new data is wonderful if it leads to new and creative ways to help consumers navigate the retail experience. But beware, at some point too many “pushes” from retailers ceases to be helpful and can potentially become a nuisance. But for now it’s all well and good as long as our “little friends” know how to stay helpful and not turn into little frenemies that end up blowing up in our faces. Remember poor Antonio Montana and his little friend?

To read more interesting articles, visit http://www.SMstudy.com/articles/ 

Sources:

SMstudy™ Guide, Book 3, Digital Marketing. Available at http://www.scrumstudy.com/overview-of-sbok.asp

“Five Ways Consumers Connect to Stores With Mobile Shopping,” Matt Lawson. February 2016. https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/articles/5-ways-consumers-connect-stores-mobile-shopping.html?utm_medium=email-d&utm_source=2016-03-think-letter&utm_campaign=20160328-think-letter-weekly-insight-OT-CP-EL&utm_content=Local-Retail-img&mkt_tok=3RkMMJWWfF9wsRous6rJZKXonjHpfsX67e4pW6%2BylMI%2F0ER3fOvrPUfGjI4JSspkI%2BSLDwEYGJlv6SgFTrDBMaN2wrgLXhY%3D

"Consumers in the Micro-Moment" study, March 2015.

Exploratory Research Design

In the context of marketing research, every research problem is unique in its own way, but almost all research problems and objectives can be matched to one of three types of research designs—exploratory, descriptive, or causal. The researcher’s choice of design depends on available information such as nature of the problem, scope of the problem, objectives, and known information. Exploratory research design is chosen to gain background information and to define the terms of the research problem. This is used to clarify research problems and hypotheses and to establish research priorities. A hypothesis is a statement based on limited evidence which can be proved or disproved and leads to further investigation. It helps organizations to formulate their problems clearly.

Exploratory research design is conducted for a research problem when the researcher has no past data or only a few studies for reference. Sometimes this research is informal and unstructured. It serves as a tool for initial research that provides a hypothetical or theoretical idea of the research problem. It will not offer concrete solutions for the research problem. This research is conducted in order to determine the nature of the problem and helps the researcher to develop a better understanding of the problem. Exploratory research is flexible and provides the initial groundwork for future research. Exploratory research requires the researcher to investigate different sources such as published secondary data, data from other surveys, observation of research items, and opinions about a company, product, or service.

Example of Exploratory Research Design:

Freshbite is a one and half year old e-commerce start-up company delivering fresh foods as per the order to customer’s doorstep through its delivery partners. The company operates in multiple cities. Since its inception, the company achieved a high sales growth rate. However, after completion of the first year, the sales started declining at brisk rate. Due to lack of historical data, the sales director was confused about the reasons for this decline in sales. He prefer to appoint a marketing research consultant to conduct an exploratory research study in order to discern the possible reasons rather than making assumptions. The prime objective of this research was not to figure out a solution to the declining sales problem, but rather to identify the possible reasons, such as poor quality of products and services, competition, or ineffective marketing, and to better understand the factors affecting sales. Once these potential causes are identified, the strength of each reason can be tested using causal research.

For more interesting articles about Sales and Marketing, visit - www.SMstudy.com/articles

The Return of Email Marketing

By mid-2014 media trackers noted an interesting trend in news consumption. After years of floundering and grasping for innovative ways to engage readers, news outlets such as The New York Times, Bloomberg News and others were seeing their greatest success with email newsletters. Despite all the technologically-enthused punditry to the contrary, old school email emerged as the best method for news delivery.

In a New York Times article from the same year, David Carr reported that news outlets had discovered that their greatest chance of getting “eyeballs” was in the inbox.

This may come as a shock given the newer options (including all the various aspects of social media) out there in the media landscape. It would’ve seemed logical that as new channels for dissemination opened up, there would be a permanent migration away from email marketing, but that has proved to not be the case.

As Carr points out, “newsletters are clicking because readers have grown tired of the endless stream of information on the Internet, and having something finite and recognizable show up in your inbox can impose order on all that chaos.” 

As we embark on 2016, email is officially re-emerging as one of the best tools in today’s marketing toolbox as well. This time not because it’s the default (like it was in the 1990s/ early 2000s), but because email possesses some real advantages over its flashier social media cousins.

In fact, as early as the second quarter of 2013, the Custora E-Commerce Customer Acquisition Snapshot was reporting a four-fold increase in customer acquisition via email over the prior four years. In fact, acquisition through email had grown more quickly than acquisition through social media, despite an increase in social media marketing during the same timeframe.

Three years in and we’re still seeing a customer preference for email marketing. So what are the advantages of email marketing and why has it become the “channel of choice” for many consumers?

A few key factors seem to be the main drivers of the “back-to-email” trend.

One important factor was the advent of the mobile email apps. Gmail and other email mobile apps have opened up the email experience to the mobile user in a way not previously possible.

In addition, the rise in smartphone use has contributed to the ease with which people can check their emails. One third of American consumers reportedly check their email “throughout the day,” and the average person is looking through their inbox 150 times a day, according to an August 2015 Business Insider report.

The article states, “now users are able and prompted to check email on the go, and their attention is no longer divided by a multitude of emails in an inbox checked a few times per day – this means they can pay more attention to each message as it comes through.”

Another important development in email is personalization. The ability to personalize an email has proven to be appealing to recipients. Email marketing platforms such as Constant Contact and Mailchimp allow for user-friendly, one-step personalization.

Author Anne Muehlenhaup notes in her article “The Resurgence of Email Marketing” that personalizing email campaigns based on geography is also an important benefit.

“The result is a more intimate outreach to prospective buyers that delivers to them only the information that is most relevant and specific to them,” Muehlenhaup says.

And the last and perhaps most important benefit of email marketing is it allows the sharing of meaningful, relevant content. Marketers can provide quality content and at the same time keep a customer or potential customer informed on company announcements and product updates.

In a piece titled “5 Must-Haves to Revamp Your 2016 Email Strategy”, Natasha D. Smith, senior editor of Digital Marketing News quotes Christopher Lester, VP of sales for Emma  who states, “The overall theme we see happening (in email marketing) this year is relevancy—in other words, what's relevant to the consumer and not to solely the sender of the message. The expectation of the consumer is that it's not just content for content sake.”

And finally, compared to social media marketing which can be challenging to track in regards to click-through rate, page views and conversions. Email marketing provides a clear look at consumer behavior and how retention and conversion can be improved moving forward.

Although the future may prove different, it appears (at least for now) that convenience, personalization and quality content make email marketing a weapon of choice for sales and marketing teams and the vehicle of choice for today’s consumer.

Sources:

“For Email Newsletters, a Death Greatly Exaggerated” David Carr. June 24, 2014 http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/30/business/media/for-email-a-death-greatly-exaggerated.html?_r=1

Custora Ecommerce Customer Acquisition Snapshot Q213, http://blog.custora.com/custora-content/uploads/downloads/2013/07/Custora_EcommSnapshotQ213.pdf

“People either check email all the time, or barely at all” Matt Rosoff, Aug. 17, 2015  http://www.businessinsider.com/how-often-do-people-check-their-email-2015-8

“The Resurgence of Email Marketing” Anne Muelenhaupt, Sept. 22, 2015  http://blog.act-on.com/2015/09/resurgence-email-marketing/

“5 Must-Haves to Revamp Your 2016 Email Strategy” Natasha D. Smith, Jan. 12, 2016,=. http://www.dmnews.com/email-marketing/5-must-haves-to-revamp-your-2016-email-strategy/article/464405/

Lower Your Bounce Rates with SMstudy

The bounce rate (BR) or the percentage of people who entered a website and immediately left, is a popular metric companies use to determine the quality of a webpage.

According to Digital Marketing, Book 2 in the SMstudy Guide®, bounce rate is defined as “the percentage of visitors who leave the first page of a website they encounter without clicking to other pages on the website. A lower bounce rate from a modified advertisement would indicate that customers were leaving the page less often, possibly because they were finding the page relevant to the advertisement. The target bounce rate should be the bounce rate of pages linked to similar advertisements that the company has used successfully.”

So, a BR is not exactly a percentage of people who visited a website and immediately left, but actually a percentage of people who visited a website but then performed no other trackable actions. Technically, according to these guidelines, a person could read a 10-thousand-word article on a company’s website and share it with five hundred of their closest friends without actually performing a trackable action. A common misconception in regards to BR is often the way it is calculated. If a company does not take into consideration the example above, then the bounce rate will appear to be too high.

Once a bounce rate is properly calculated, it’s time to get down to business. User experience should be the first factor a company looks at in the hopes of reducing their BR. People that browse websites are looking for a seamless passage through the site. If a company’s website is confusing, difficult to navigate or causes confusion, people will tend to look for another site they can get around more easily. As the old saying goes, “keep it simple, stupid.” Another easy way to enhance user experience is to ensure the content is relevant and engaging. This can be done by creating videos, images, blog articles, and more.

One additional action that can easily improve a person’s user experience is customizing language to region. As stated in Digital Marketing, “In order to ensure that the marketing message is relevant and reaches audiences around the world, businesses can also customize their ads based on the language preference for their audience. For example, a company providing services in Canada may wish to develop both French and English versions of their ads to target search queries in either official language.”

For more information about bounce rate and how to lower your company’s percentage visit www. SMstudy.com where you can be sure you will be able to take a seamless journey through our website. 

Catching an Academic Wave with VMEdu

It’s not like riding a Tsunami.

But it is exciting, exhilarating and breath-taking to get in early on one of the disruptions that are rapidly reshaping the world we swim in.

Disruptions that wipe the landscape clear are dramatic and threatening. And they are rare. Disruptive inventions and practices in business and industry happen gradually; so gradually, in fact, that they often seem inevitable. This is a point bestselling author Hugh Howey made in a recent article about the state of publishing: “All manner of publishing has been greatly disrupted, but it’s often hard to see because what has changed is what’s now missing from our lives. And these missing things have not disappeared all at once. Rather, it’s been a gradual vanishing.”[1]

The world of publishing—which Howey says includes such products as encyclopedias, maps, those liner notes in albums and CDs, how-to books, instructions enclosed in products, newspapers, magazines and novels—provides an excellent example of the disruption that is now going on in education and training.

Michael Horn, in a piece on Forbes.com, described the disruption this way: “Much of the growth of online learning isn’t just in accredited higher education institutions, but in unaccredited institutions that are hired to do a similar ‘job’ as that of many accredited higher education institutions—advance adult learners in their career pathways. These organizations don’t need accreditation per se though, as they will ultimately develop their reputations from the success of their students with employers.” He cites research done in this regard by Michelle R. Weise and Clayton M. Christensen of the Christensen Institute.

Horn’s suggestion is that schools of higher learning should enhance their online presences and offerings. He gives examples of partnerships that colleges, universities, corporate entities and training organizations can make as a way of turning his suggestion into a reality. One of the companies facilitating this disruption in education and professional training is VMEdu, Inc. This company has a global reach with more than 750 partners in its VMEdu Authorized Training Partner network. It is expanding this with the launch of its VMEdu Authorized Content Partners (V.A.C.P.) program.

In discussing the digital disruption of the publishing industry, Howey says, “In just about every measurable way, these have been great developments.” The V.A.C.P. program brings an enhanced Learning Management System (LMS) and other great developments arising from disruptive innovations in adult education and training to any organization that has created courses related to any field of adult learning in any language; or is already using another LMS to host their courses.

The V.A.C.P. program enables content providers—educational institutions, training companies and those with an expertise worth sharing—the ability to launch courses on their own websites for free, get their own mobile app, sell their courses to the VMEdu Partner Network, offer Sales and Marketing courses on SMstudy, and efficiently track student progress.

Looking at the changes in publishing, Howey says, “It’s difficult to find anything to complain about with this transition, unless you are a middleman who no longer provides a service commensurable with your cost. This is an important point, the act of offering a service that matches your cost.” Educational providers and trainers are very familiar with the costs of some of their products. Student loan debt in America is almost infamous. VMEdu says, “There is no cost associated with creating or uploading your courses, and zero licensing fees.”

The same goes for certain mobile apps for partner courses: “VMEdu will take care of all expenses related to creating, maintaining and upgrading your mobile apps—you pay only $1 per student per month for every student accessing your courses through the mobile app.” This is an example of where the company earns its income.

“Last year, Amazon paid out over $140,000,000 to authors in its Kindle Unlimited program. That doesn’t count the dollars paid for book sales,” says Howey. The disruption of traditional publishing is enabling those who create the works to share a much larger portion of the revenues they generate. Through VMEdu’s cloud-based LMS, the same is happening for adult and professional education providers.

For those considering an educational venture into the new cloud-based ocean of opportunity, come on in; the water is fine.

Surf the VMEdu website and learn more about its V.A.C.P. program: Benefits of Becoming a V.A.C.P.

[1] Howey, Hugh. (2/2/16) “The State of the Industry.” The Wayfinder. Retrieved on 2/3/16 from http://www.hughhowey.com/the-state-of-the-industry/

VMEdu Welcomes You to the Post-Capitalism Era

It has been said that we are exiting the post-capitalism era, and we weren’t even aware of it. We can thank this monumental shift to advancements in technology. Many terms have been thrown around in regards to what sort of economy we have ventured into—such as the sharing economy or frictionless economy—but what path are we really following?

In a recent article we discussed what exactly the frictionless economy is. The frictionless economy centers around companies that provide platforms on which suppliers and buyers can do business directly. Uber, Etsy, and Fiver are just a few of the hundreds of companies that have sprung up in the last decade offering people the ability to be a “self-entrepreneur.” 

According to Alex Chriss, vice president and general manager at Intuit, “What we find so exciting about this trend is it’s solving what has traditionally been the number one challenge any entrepreneur or small business owner faces: finding customers. We’ve seen millions of small businesses struggle to find their next customer – and this struggle has set a bar, a hurdle for entrepreneurs to jump over. Technology is lowering this bar.”

But what about the sharing economy? Companies such as Airbnb and City CarShare allows owners to rent out something that they are not using. This has generally been sharing a house, car, or bike, but the only constant in technology is change, so this sharing could expand to new avenues. Each sharing-economy styled company provides users with ratings or reviews, so that trust is built on both sides of the transaction.

So, which economy are we really entering? One thing that we have learned from technology is that there are no limits. So, why would we limit ourselves by believing that we are entering just one sort of new economy? It seems to be that we are entering various economies that will create branches rather than one straight path. VMEdu gives professional trainers and educators the ability to be a part of both the frictionless AND sharing economy, with its Learning Management System (LMS). The VMEdu Authorized Content Partner (V.A.C.P.) program is one of the finest adult learning platforms available. The V.A.C.P. program is for anyone looking to create online adult learning courses for any subject and in any language. 

As a partner, you can create and upload your courses with the user-friendly VMEdu Course Builder. You can also run the courses on your website for free. Course materials can include videos, test questions, flashcards, glossaries, case studies and more. 

Once your courses are uploaded via the VMEdu Course Builder you have the option to sell them to the VMEdu network of more than 750 Authorized Training Partners (V.A.T.P.s) in 50+ countries. Having the support of such a strong network will help you reach a larger number of potential consumers in a shorter amount of time. 

The V.A.C.P platform gives you the ability to sell your own courses, do business directly with customers that have been provided for you, and be your own boss in addition to hosting your courses on your own website to share with your contacts. This program equips you for whichever future economy becomes our reality.

You can find more information on the VMEdu V.A.C.P. program at www.vmedu.com/Benefits-of-VACP.asp 

The importance of product positioning to the marketing strategic planning

Product positioning is a very important tool for an effective marketing strategic planning. Product positioning creates an image of the company’s products in the mind of consumers, highlighting the most important benefits that differentiate the product from similar products in the market. Product positioning involves identifying points of parity and points of differentiation that enable a company’s product to both meet market standards while offering consumers additional value on key dimensions such as quality, innovation, price, leadership, and functionality, among others.

Product positioning starts with identifying the specific, niche market segments to target e.g. not just working professionals but single working professionals of age group 25-30 years, having an annual income of $50,000-$60,000, and enjoy adventure activities. After segmenting the target market by demographic and psychographic attributes, marketers must understand customer needs. With well-defined target segments, product positioning enables a company to meet very specific needs of a particular market segment, offering value that may not be provided by competitors.

Marketers must keep an eye on the competitiion while considering positioning elements of their marketing strategy. An effective positioning must convey a message to customers why this company’s product should be preferred over the other competitor’s products of similar nature. In other words, the company should not go by the flow of the market i.e. copying what the competitors are doing rather they need to stand out from the crowd by offering distinguishing or differentiated product attributes and other value added services.

The next stage is how to communicate the differentiated offerings to the identified niche market segments. This is possible by selecting the appropriate communication channels that are tailored to connect with their identified target audience when they will be most receptive to these messages. Say for example, a sports car manufacturer position their products through communication via television advertisements during sports events like formula one. They also use print media by running full page high resolution color ads in sports magazines.

It is important that the business incorporate the product positioning across all facets of the business, including manufacturing and customer service in order to ensure consistency of the positioning from the consumer’s standpoint. Further, the positioning must not only align with other divisions and with the current corporate objectives, but also provide long-term sustainability and remain relevant for product variants and for future market scenarios. Using strong product positioning is a key component to the success of the Marketing Strategy and to meeting overall corporate objectives.

To learn more about the product positioning, visit SMstudy.com.

How Information Finds You: Hyper-relevant Content Marketing

“If the news is that important, it will find me.”

This (in)famous declaration was made by an anonymous college student in 2008 during a focus group conducted by Jane Buckingham, founder of the market research company Intelligence Group.

Since 2008, this remark has made the rounds. It’s been quoted and discussed in both media and marketing worlds. It’s even been cited by the New York Times. And if you have to ask why, you haven’t been paying attention. This statement, which seems like a throw away (let’s be honest) has proven to be the number one guiding principle in both media dissemination and marketing in the new digital age.

As Joshua Benton remarked in a recent piece for NiemanLab, “If the news is that important, it will find me. I can’t tell you how many conferences, how many symposia, how many gatherings of worthies I’ve been at where some version of that line has been tossed around.”

It’s true! I’d heard it mentioned during a class on 21st-century journalism in 2009. At the time, old time journos scoffed at the student’s “laziness” or “lack of interest” in the wider world. But today, no one scoffs at the idea of providing valuable, relevant content, served up directly to viewers through the various social media channels. This is now the expectation. If it’s important, it will find you.

Marketers, like the media, have adapted. And one of the methods hyped over the last few years is content marketing. But with massive quantities of information bombarding us daily, we are reaching what is referred to as “Peak Content” or “the point at which this glut of things to read, watch and listen to becomes completely unsustainable,” according to author Kevin Anderson in 2014.

With Peak Content looming and with the understanding that a story (or content) MUST be important enough to reach the reader/viewer, successful marketers are turning to extra relevant, extra valuable content that will cut through the fracas. As this happens, the question then becomes “what’s relevant?”

Relevance often depends on individual circumstances and numerous other factors that may be at play at any moment in a person’s life. But there are some general assumptions that can be made. For example, most people will be thinking about breakfast in the morning. Or, if someone is awake late at night, information on insomnia might be something they’d like to see.

Enter the hyper-relevant content marketing plan, predicted by some to be a major social media marketing trend in 2016. Hyper-relevant content marketing takes into consideration the season, time of day or other societal factors that may be affecting a person’s need for a specific type of information.  

One such marketer, Amanda Todorovich, manager of Digital Engagement for Cleveland Clinic, is achieving major success producing hyper-relevant content by fine-tuning her organization’s marketing to maintain “evergreen” value for everyone and then offering it wisely within marketing channels.

“We are trying to put content in front of people at the right time,” Todorovich said. “We try to marry the best times of day on each channel with the best content and what people are using those channels for. Not everything gets posted on every channel we're on.”

By assessing the relevance and value of the content being used within a marketing strategy and utilizing the channels as well as season or time of day effectively, a marketer can be sure to hit the target more directly and at the same time find they’ve contributed something of genuine value to the online community.

For more resources and information on sales and marketing visit www.SMstudy.com

[Spring Eselgroth, VMEdu staff writer, contributed to this article.]

Sources:

Peak Content: The collapse of the attention economy, Kevin Anderson. Jan. 4, 2016. ehttp://www.themediabriefing.com/article/peak-content-the-collapse-of-the-attention-economy

“If the news is that important, it’ll find me.” But what determines if it’s important?, Joshua Benton, Feb. 20, 2014. http://www.niemanlab.org/2014/02/if-the-news-is-that-important-itll-find-me-but-what-determines-if-its-important/

Behind the Scenes of the Cleveland Clinic’s Content Marketing Strategy, Brianne Carlon Rush, Dec. 2, 2014. http://www.kunocreative.com/blog/cleveland-clinics-content-marketing-strategy

Lyft, Uber and the Rise of the Smartphone Economy

While covering the 2016 International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Molly Wood, senior tech correspondent for National Public Radio’s Marketplace, half-jokingly stated that the real “big story” to come out of the renowned conference was not a cool new gadget, but rather the arrival of Lyft and Uber, two of the world’s largest ride-sharing services, to the streets and porte-cochere of hotels all over the city. According to Wood, Las Vegas was the “last bastion” of official taxicabs, which had in years past been the bane of many conference goers; cabs being too few and wait time being too long.  

The city’s cab companies’ final acquiesce to ride-sharing is a prime example of the rise and power of what could be referred to as the smartphone economy, or an economy made possible by the advent of smartphones. Companies like Lyft and Uber owe much of their success to the technological game changer, which allows for instant communication between users in addition to many other benefits such as internet connectivity, etc.

As noted in the SMstudy® Guide’s first book, Marketing Strategy, disruptive technology such as smartphones need to be considered in a company’s product strategy. Basing a business on a technology such as smartphones makes it necessary to pay special attention to developments in that particular technology and continual assessment of evolving risks and opportunities for strategic innovation.

The book explains, “Rapid changes in the internet, e-commerce, telcom, social media, and clean technologies can be very disruptive for existing companies in these fields, but can also generate significant opportunities for innovation. “

Another significant factor in the rise of ride-sharing services in the United States is the decidedly anti-ownership mentality of its largest population cohort: Millennials. According to a recent report by Goldman Sachs titled “Millennials- Coming of Age”, “access not ownership” is the Millennial mantra.

The report states, “Millennials have been reluctant to buy items such as cars, music and luxury goods. Instead, they’re turning to a new set of services that provide access to products without the burden of ownership, giving rise to what’s being called a ‘sharing economy’.” 

Having a clear understanding of market trends, especially trends related to large demographic groups is also essential for any business hoping to find a home in the current and future economies.

Again, Marketing Strategy includes understanding market trends as one of the six components of a market analysis. In addition, as in the example provided here, data on a specific cohort or demographic can be beneficial when conducting a PESTEL analysis as it can satisfy the “S” or Social Factors of the analysis.

The book states, “social factors reflect the social and cultural state, attitudes, and behaviors prevalent in a market. Changes in these factors may impact the demand for a particular product or product category.”

Ride sharing is disrupting the long-held position of the taxicab industry and if Goldman Sachs’ prediction is correct, the larger idea of car ownership in the United States will most likely be disrupted as we move forward. Tectonic shifts in the US economy are here or on the horizon, and much of it hinges on the accessibility and connectivity smartphones provide.

Social Insights on Video Marketing in the Age of YouTube

Down ‘n’ dirty or überposh, there’s a place for all quality of video marketing in the world today.

Recently we noted marketers’ growing acumen at not only parsing available social data, but also using the social media environment to probe the social community and glean consumer preferences and other social insights.  

We said, “Filling the role of the modern-day focus group, social media insights are also valuable for taking the temperature of the public on an idea such as a logo or slogan, a product or service. Testing the social media world’s tastes and perceptions allows for adjustment before launching, saving money and perhaps even preventing a catastrophic mistake.”

A recent experiment co-sponsored by Google and L’Oreal was one such probe that asked “whether storytelling changes for different age groups?” Results provided interesting insights into the minds of the under-45 crowd and how they respond to various styles of video marketing.

The study presented three L’Oreal ad spots (via YouTube) promoting a new eyeshadow. Researchers then documented which of the three had the greatest impact across three age groups: 18 to 24, 25 to 34 and 35 to 44.

The first ad is a traditional cosmetics commercial- gorgeous photography, high glamour. The kind of ad we’d expect to see on television. This one was named “The Glam.”

The second was more of a how-to video but still retained some glamorous elements. This one was called, “The Show.”

The third, named “The Tell,” was a user-generated DIY video. A regular “girl next door” talking about the makeup and how to apply it. Straight forward and practical.  

The results were both expected and surprising. Let’s explain…

“The Glam” scored very well, indeed. Topping the charts for both the 18-24 and 35-44 age groups, with no major difference in their rate of viewing.

The report states that “Regardless of age, "The Glam," the most traditionally structured and produced video, was the most "unskippable" ad with the strongest view-through rate (VTR).”

No real surprise here, right? We all love gorgeous images, compelling copy and a little eye candy never hurts. 

But here is where the experiment gets interesting.

Although “The Glam” view rates were 82% higher, it was “The Tell,” the DIY, user-generated styled video that did exceedingly well with the 18-24 age group (aka millennials) in the category of Ad Recall, coming in 100% higher than “The Glam.”

What the marketing study showed clearly was the changing generational tastes in regards to how marketed products are received. “The Glam” was accepted by all age groups as the highest visual quality with superior storytelling, but failed to provide the same viewer retention as “The Tell.” “The Tell” provided obvious how-to value and millennials had no problem accepting the unpolished amateur style of video. In addition, because “The Tell” felt more like “taking advice from a friend” it produced a click-through rate two times higher than the “The Glam” and “The Show,” meaning even in its bling-less status, the how-to video created a stronger call to action.

The report suggests millennials are miles more accepting of low-fi video production than the Gen Xer's… even when they know it’s an ad. For marketers that’s a pretty big deal. If the study proves accurate upon additional testing, anyone with a smartphone and some chutzpah can shoot marketing videos (bringing the cost to nearly zero) and still have the same chance at online virility, the holy grail of digital marketing.

All this to say, there appears to be a place for both “The Glam” and “The Tell” in today’s online marketplace, given the tastes of millennials to accept less traditional, high-gloss marketing as long as it offers legitimate value. This opens the door for greater marketing opportunities no matter what the budget.

For more articles on Sales and Marketing, visit smstudy.com.

Sources:

“2015 Will Be the Year of Video Marketing,” Tyler Lessard, Dec. 17, 2014 http://www.marketingprofs.com/articles/2014/26719/2015-will-be-the-year-of-video-marketing

“How Demographics and Storytelling Style Affect Video Ad Effectiveness,” Ben Jones, January 6. https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/articles/how-demographics-storytelling-style-affect-video-ad-effectiveness.html?utm_source=LinkedIn&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=Think

“In Search of Social Media Insights,” SMstudy.com. http://smstudy.com/Article/the-search-for-social-media-insights

Photo credit: Laura Lee Moreau

Marketing Strategy Overview

All successful products or brands need well-planned marketing strategies in place to ensure that they satisfy the goals set by the corresponding business unit or geographic level and, in turn, the overall corporate marketing strategy.

Marketing strategy is therefore one of the most crucial Aspects of sales and marketing and gets its own book in the SMstudy® Guide series. The book shows how marketing strategy defines a product or brand’s unique value proposition, target markets and the specific strategies to be used to connect with defined audiences. It also specifies the pricing and distribution strategies for a product or brand and outlines the specific metrics, objectives and budgets for its marketing activities.

The well-planned marketing strategy includes a set of outputs from the eleven marketing strategy processes described in theMarketing Strategy book of the SMstudy® Guide. These outputs appear throughout strategic planning to help provide overall direction for marketing initiatives designed to support the promotion of the company’s products or brand.

Here is an overview of the important processes and outputs related to Marketing Strategy:

Marketing Strategy’s second chapter, “Analyze Market Opportunity,” discusses the concepts related to analyzing the internal capabilities of a company and factors of the external environment that impact the business. An analysis of market opportunities is important because businesses operate in dynamic and constantly evolving environments. Understanding the changing landscape and trends impacting a business helps in developing an effective marketing strategy. Crucial factors to consider while analyzing a market opportunity include defining the market within which a company intends to operate and segmenting the market to identify potential customers for the company’s product portfolio.

The processes associated with Analyze Market Opportunity are Determine Strengths and Weaknesses, Determine Opportunities and Threats and Define Market and Identify Market Segments. Each process is explained in detail using its associated inputs, tools and outputs. Analyze Market Opportunity helps an organization understand what it can deliver so that it can fulfill customer needs.

The third chapter, “Define Competition, Targeting and Positioning,” first explores identifying the competition, understanding industry trends and creating future competitive scenarios that help in selecting target market segments. It then looks at creating a differentiated positioning statement for the company’s products or services for the target segments selected. Competitive positioning tools help define how a company can differentiate its product offerings to create value in the market by fully understanding its target segments and the competitive landscape.

The chapter outlines three processes that help an organization understand market competition, target appropriate market segments and define product features that help create a differentiated positioning statement for the products or brands of the company: Identify Competition, Select Target Segments and Create Differentiated Positioning.

Marketing Strategy’s fourth chapter is “Determine Pricing and Distribution Strategies.” A pricing strategy properly prices a company’s products or services so that the company can sustain profitability while maintaining or growing its market share. Developing a pricing strategy involves assessing the value of the company’s products based on their features; analyzing the pricing and features of competitive products in the market; analyzing the consumer mindset, which takes into account demand and price expectations for the products; and considering anticipated unit costs, sales and profitability. A distribution strategy defines how a company moves a product from creation to consumption in a cost-efficient manner while focusing on the end users’ needs. The distribution strategy is important because understanding and addressing the needs of the entire distribution channel external to the company ensures that products or services are delivered and sold to customers in the most efficient and effective manner possible.

The two processes developed in the fourth chapter are Determine Pricing Strategy and Determine Distribution Strategy. The pricing strategy is determined for the various products or services of a company. The end objective is sustainable profitability while growing or maintaining a healthy market share. The distribution strategy ensures the most efficient delivery of a company's products or services to the customer and that the selected strategy is based on the company’s assessment of several alternative distribution channels. These processes are explained with the help of their associated inputs, tools and outputs.

“Determine Metrics, Objectives, Marketing Aspects and Budget Allocation” makes up the fifth chapter and discusses the various metrics and objectives used for sales and marketing such as reach, brand perception, product availability, sales and profitability. It also covers various sales and marketing Aspects including Marketing Research, Digital Marketing, Corporate Sales, Branding and Advertising and Retail Marketing, presenting a framework for allocating targets and budget for each of these Aspects.

The fifth chapter describes three processes using their corresponding inputs, tools and outputs. The processes are Determine Metrics, Determine Objectives and Decide Marketing Aspects and Allocate Budget. In the first process, Determine Metrics, various sales and marketing metrics such as reach, brand perception, product availability, sales and profitability are determined. These metrics help measure the success or failure of the Marketing Strategy. In Determine Objectives, attainable, quantifiable and time-based objectives are determined for all of the metrics selected in the previous process. In the final process, the sales and marketing teams select the Marketing Aspects that will help the company reach its overall sales and marketing objectives. Subsequently, specific objectives are determined for each marketing Aspect and a marketing budget is allocated for each.

With a well-developed and designed marketing strategy, a company can achieve and sustain sales success.