Another Year, Another Dollar

Hi everyone, as always it has been a tremendous year of blogging with some tremendous discussion and interaction with people reading from various parts of the world, and with so much happening in both marketing generally and of course social media in specific.

And I have no doubt that when we start up again in early 2013 we will again lead a spirited line of content, discussion and learning.
But until then, I hope you have a safe and happy festive season and until we meet again, good luck and good marketing.
Best Wishes,
Daniele.

Social Media - Most Popular Channels

Among Small to Medium Sized Businesses, Facebook remains the most widely adopted social media marketing website (73%), followed by LinkedIn (61%), Twitter (55%), YouTube (47%), and Google+ (44%).

MySpace has nearly as many current users (20%) as past users (19%), though the site still has a central focus in music and arts.

Which of these networks do you use. And until next time, good luck and good marketing.

Pinterest Testing Its New Secret Board Feature

Pinterest has recently announced that it is testing a new feature called: Secret Boards.

The Pinterest blog recent announced that this feature had been frequently requested since its launch last year.
As a result there will be a progressive roll-out that is being planned where anyone will
be able to create their own secret board.

This feature will have some obvious utility and benefits from the perspective of planning capabilities.
Essentially you can develop a concept, plan or project that isn't quite ready and keep it there until its
ready for the unveiling.

Perhaps your getting married, or opening a business or wanting to
show photos of a world trip you've recently returned from and so on.

As well there is the possibility that your secret board isn't so much a temporary "work bench' but
rather a permanent area that you'd like to reserve for a specific person or group on an ongoing basis
where you will be able to selectively invite those people to join you and pin with you.

As with all things on Pinterest, creating a secret board is a very simple process. Simply go to the bottom of
your profile and click on: Create a Secret Board. Alternatively you can also click the Add+
on the top right-hand corner of Pinterest to select Create Board and turn the Secret button to On.

Pinterest have also stated that this feature is also available for mobiles and tablets by downloading
the current version of Pinterest for both Apple and Android devices. I'm not sure sure but yet again
there was o mention of compatibility with Blackberry, so those of us with Blackberry Bold's may have missed out yet again.

Conceptually I like this feature and the fact that as you pin in these boards, nothing will show up anywhere else.

Following on from their history of simple, practical and ultimately practical features and functionality,
this is now another example of a site that continues to listen, learn and evolve.
Give Secret Boards a go and let us know your thoughts.

And until next time, good luck and good marketing.

Regards,
Daniele.

Veryfing You Website on Pinterest

Pinterest has recently launched its new website verification feature, which allows you to verify that you are the owner the website or blog on your Pinterest profile. To do this, go to the Settings page and click on the Verify Website button.














When your website is verified, people will see a check mark next to your domain in search results. As well they will  see the URL and check mark on your profile.
This simple feature will allow you to demonstrate your associations and attachments to other Pinterest members looking at your profile or pictures.

Until next time, good luck and good marketing.

Regards,
Daniele.

LinkedIn Now Has Video Adds

LinkedIn has recently announced that it will now be possible to set up video ads as distinct from the normal type with purely text or in more recent times, potentially with a picture. A world wide roll-out has now been announced.   Regardless of the type of business you may have, the new mode of LinkedIn ads will offer an exciting new method to update, entice, raise awareness and ultimately convince your target market within the enormous LinkedIn community.

Video ads can be designed by going through the self-serve interface, which allows advertisers to draft the appropriate text and image ads.

 In the same way as with Google Adwords you will be able to proactively regulate the amount that you spend on your ad utilising the conventional pay per click system.  These ads work through LinkedIn and so the business will be able to show the videos concurrently through both platforms.

Video ads will have a standard configuration of: 300 x 250.  As a LinkedIn user clicks an ad, they will then see the 30 second video stream within the frame, On completing the ad, the viewer is then taken to your designated  website page. 

So go to it and explore this exciting new promotional opportunity and until next time, good marketing and good luck.  

Regards,
Daniele.

The Power of A Negative Experience

In light of last weeks post that highlighted yet another powerful review site ( Google + Local) I think it's an appropriate time to take another look at the importance for every business regardless of size, age, market or reputation to the impact of  poor customer experience and the inevitable level of customer dissatisfaction that typically ensues from these experiences.

Over the years there have been many studies done on this topic but perhaps the best known and widely quoted is the TARP study.  In it, it was found that out of every person who receives a negative customer experience and complains about it, another 25 people who get a similar experience don't.

Now as frightening as this statistic is, the story just gets worse. Consider that each of the twenty six people who have received this poor service or experience on average goes and tells around ten people who in turn go and tell another five people.

Do the maths on this and you'll see that for every complaint you actually receive, around 1300 people will know about it. In reality if you are lucky the one complainant will be early on before so much damage is done, and if you're unlucky it may come much later in the piece before you can start to address the situation and fix what ever has gone wrong.

Perhaps that is enough data to scare every one in business and motivate them to consistently deliver true and meaningful levels of customer service and support.  But in closing if you need one more little spur than here it is.  The TARP study was done in 1999 some 13 years ago.

So tell me what particular modern day phenomenon did't exist then that most people have access to today. Answer:  Social Media. The perfect tool to eviscerate any business failing to achieve adequate standards of customer care and comportment.  Perhaps Wednesday Addams said it best with her now famous line:
 "Be afraid, be very afraid".

Until next time, good luck and good marketing.
Regards,
Daniele.

Another Major Review Site in the form of Google+ Local

As a continuing trend to the evolution of review sites you will now be able to write up to date consumer reviews based on your experiences, using the Google+ Local review site.  

For example If you visit to a local franchise and are blown away by them or alternatively very let down, you can review the quality of their products, service and the general experience you get through dealing with them.  

You will be able to have a choice of  "poor - fair," “good,” “very good,” or "excellent" categories.

 Google will then take the raw review data and process the individual ratings into averages and factor them into the business' precise 30-point score that shows up in Google+, Search and Maps.

You can start providing to the consumer universe by logging on the Google+ Local icon in the left navigation bar, search for a local spot and click "Write a review.” That's it. So go to it and start reading and reviewing till your heart's content.

Until next time, good luck and good marketing.

Regards
Daniele

 

For Small Businesses, Half The Business Now Coming From Social Media

Amazing results from a recent study conducted by Northwestern Academic, Professor Rich Gordon and Syndio Social CEO Zachary Johnson, that set out to determine  how websites regardless of size interact on the web. To achieve this, the study looked at  links between over 300  based news sites and looked at analytics data and referral sources for 100 of them.

The results of the study were both copious in number and importance, but beyond this, there were some pivotal findings for business owners and managers with respect to social media is now such an important tool in promoting businesses regardless of type, size or location. 

The most revealing findings were as follows:

Access to Key Social Media Sites Are Vital to Generate Traffic

The study clearly showed that the big boys such as Facebook and Twitter drive more than half of all referred visits for small business sites, three times the percentage of larger sites. Facebook, specifically, was shown to be extremely important to smaller sites.

The bottom line here is that the waiting is over, if you are in business in 2012 and beyond you need to get on board. Game over.

Drive Links and Traffic First to Get Links and Traffic

You need to send links outwards first to other websites to respond. Give to get as they say.

The laws of reciprocity apply here as they do in the rest of the universe.

Smaller Sites Rely on Traffic From the Local Ecosystem More Than Larger Sites

The study wanted to understand how fit into the larger local system of sites. For example, do sites owned and operated by the same organization tend to link to one another more than they do outsider sites? If yes, what percentage of their traffic do those links make up?

On this the research clearly showed that the share of traffic that smaller sites get from other related niche sites more than 10 times as great as that of larger sites. 

This clearly underpinning the importance for SMEs's to integrate with the local community landscape. Simply put if you are a local business you need to become apart of the local e-landscape and participate in the discussion, sharing and general participation.

The implication for SME's is to start to ramp up strategic alliances and other forms of cross promotion activities to drive the synergy between you.  

And until next time, good luck and good marketing.

Regards
Daniele.

LinkedIn Endorsements Now Available

No doubt by now you will already have seen the new LinkedIn Endorsements feature being put to use in recent weeks, whereby you have been asked to endorse connections based on specific skills that you feel they possess.  This practical feature now makes it easier to recognise them for their skills, knowledge and expertise.

Essentially with a single click you can endorse your connections for a skill that they have listed on their profile or recommend one they haven’t added yet. so for example if a specific connection is a wonderful presenter and orator you can endorse them for that.

To endorse your connections is very simple. 

• On the top of a connection’s profile, you’ll see recommended endorsements for them. You can suggest additional skills as well.
• You can also endorse them from the new Skills & Amp; Expertise section that now showcases these endorsements.

If anyone endorses you, LinkedIn will notify you via email. As well, you can  also scroll to the bottom of your profile page under “Skills and Expertise” to see the faces of people who have endorsed you in the various areas of skill either you or they nominated. You can also accept any new skills recommended by your peers that you may not have thought to include on your profile. At any stage you can also add a new skill by clicking on “add a skill” on your profile page. 

So what are you waiting for, go to it and start endorsing those that deserve it and until next time, good luck and good marketing.

Regards,
Daniele

Grand Final Weekend

Here we are for another year, where regardless of where you live in Australia (at least), it becomes almost impossible to avoid the ceremony, fervor, hype and if your interested, the gargantuan amount of social media that is being generated about the game, the players and every other conceivable aspect of the historic matches about to be played in the respective codes where legends are made.

So why should we care as marketers you may ask.  Well it's simple.  At times like these people are their most engaged and completely switched on to what's going on around them and yes for one of the few times they are actually listening.

How then can we enter the discussion. How can we align our product or service to what's going on. How can we leverage any communal theme and link it back to what we do?

Certainly food for thought and for those clever enough to:
a. Come up with something and
b. Anticipate the event in a proactive way the spoils will be yours.

Regardless of  whether or not you have been proactive this time round, be on full alert and listen in on the discussion and this may provide you with some real insights for the next sports bonanza down the line.

And until next time, good luck and good marketing (and if your team is playing) good luck :)

Regards
Daniele

LinkedIn and Scoop.it Form a Strategic Alliance

As of now, you will be able to integrate your slide share presentations into Scoop.it to allow you to curate your slide share presentations. 

This will allow you specifically embed the presentations through the site, and subsequently share them through your various social media networks that you are aligned with.


The aim is to provide these curator sites like Scoop.it to drive the content to others who are interested in the subject matter you are presenting in your slide share presentations.

When your presentation is added to Scoop.it, they get added to their topic pages, and by inference receive the endorsement of the portal and subsequently reading it to their social networks, and getting it in front of interested audiences made available to the  networks following them. 

Once you join Scoop.it you simply click on the toolbar widget to scoop a presentation, right from the SlideShare page. 

Until next time, good luck and good marketing.
Regards
Daniele

New LinkedIn Notifications Function

LinkedIn's new Notification section will allow users to be notified of relevant discourse in real time as people like anything that you have put up through your LinkedIn account.

Simply you will see a notification flag that appears at the top of the homepage as shown in the picture below.

If you have any new updates such as connection requests, comments, etc, you will get a red circle to highlight this.

As well LinkedIn have advised through their updates that this new notification functionality will also be available on  mobile devices, including Android, iPhone and iPad applications, thereby ensuring additional convenience for the traveler requiring portable access.

These updates highlight LinkedIn's continuing efforts to stay current and drive business focused utility that is time effective and ultimately improves your effectiveness in the real world.

Until next time, good luck and good marketing.

Regards
Daniele.

Facebook Launches Its New Recommendations Bar

Facebook has now officially made available its new plugin called the Facebook Recommendations Bar, which gives Facebook users an additional sharing tool on top of the other more established options such as The Like Button and the Recommendation Box.

The way this new sharing feature works is along the lines of the  the Like Button. Basically as someone reads for example a blog post, by using the Recommendations Bar, the readers who read their time line.

The way it works in practice is that  the box as per the picture below literally pops up as the person is reading down the article or post, and in fact you have the power to control exactly how far down the post you want the reader to see the box.

The pop up will align with your post or article, and there is also the facility to chose between the words Like or Recommend to appear.  If a reader then goes on to click the button within the top left hand corner, the material is transferred directly to the readers Facebook timeline, where their network can also read the material liked or recommended. In the opposite right hand corner there is also a box that can minimise the box as needed.

Also of importance is the fact that the box will only ever open under specific circumstances. If for example they are logged in as their page, the box will appear, but if they are not logged into Facebook, the box will appear but if they click Like, they will have to log into Facebook to complete the Like process.

So if you have a blog you may wish to install the plugin and potentially drive more traffic through the Facebook network.

So until next time, good luck and good marketing.

Daniele.

Facebook To Follow Google Adwords With Its Own Sponsored Result Search Ads

It has been reported recently by TechCrunch, that Facebook has been launched its own version of sponsored ads similar to Google's Adwords, with its own version of Sponsored Result Search Ads.

For those of you that are familiar with Google's version (i.e. Adwords), you know that these types of ads provide businesses the ability to specifically target people who are searching for specific topics by way of keywords, apps, page names.  With the Facebook ads advertisers would be able to direct people who may be searching for specific pages, apps and Places and then insert a link into the search box that directs them to their own app, Page, custom Page tab, or post.

However it has been reported that marketers will not be able to drive direct these users off-site with the ads yet, though they can appear above the top organic result providing them with a position of great prominence.

The ads now have a black-bordered section in the typeahead results. That’s makes the fact that they’re paid advertising obvious as opposed to organically positioned results. 

Potential marketers interested in this type of promotional option will soon be invest part of their promotional budget into Facebook's Sponsored  Ads. The option will be found in the power editor.

With over one hundred million search queries a month, Google is till obviously our first port of call today, so it will be interesting to see how effective this new feature becomes and how much people want to use it to do something that they have traditionally done elsewhere. 

Until next time, good luck and good marketing.

Daniele.

Facebook Share Price Continues to Fall

Facebook's share price (despite getting a little lift from it's all time low of $18.75) still sits at an unrecognisable $19.41.

.

Since we first reported on the Facebook share launch at $38 on the first day of issue, the price has continued to gradually decline.

There are some strong parallels between this and the dot com experiences of the past. In the end you always need to invest in businesses that have a proven model for income generation. 

Facebook strength of course is that hundreds of millions of people use it. No argument there. But how will the company continue to generate money and how will the continuing trend away from lap tops to mobiles and tablets.

As well as per recent reports, there will be upcomming expirations of the IPO lock-up periods which for a fixed period prevent Facebook employees from selling their own shares. When they do sell it is possible that the market will be flooded which may put further downward pressure on the share price.

Time will tell both long and short term what where it goes from here, but if history is any guide, I'm betting that Facebook will find a way to keep adding to it's value adding.

Until next time, good luck and good marketing.

Daniele.

Vanity (Custom) URLs for Google Profiles and Pages

Your Google+ profile is a place for you to share your passions with the millions of people who come to Google each day. Whether you're a clothing brand showing off your latest fashions (google.com/+hugoboss), an athlete talking about the game (google.com/+davidbeckham), or an actor recalling a favorite role (google.com/+hughjackman), your Google+ profile helps you connect with the people who share your interests. Today we’re introducing custom URLs to make it even easier for people to find your profile on Google+.

A custom URL is a short, easy to remember web address that links directly to your profile or page on Google+. For instance, +TOYOTA  can now usegoogle.com/+toyota to unveil their latest models, +Britney Spears  can share her upcoming appearances at google.com/+britneyspears, +Ubisoft  can share game trailers and videos at google.com/+assassinscreed, and +Delta  can help travellers find great deals at google.com/+delta. 

Custom URLs will also be available to people and pages worldwide, so brands like Globo can point readers to google.com/+epoca, or any of their other Brazilian publications.

At first,Google are  introducing custom URLs to a limited number of verified profiles and pages. But over time, they plan to offer custom URLs to many more brands and individuals, so watch this space.

Original story from: https://plus.google.com/u/0/109179785755319022525/posts/aWREtiDhse2

Facebook Business Pages Become More Targeted

How great would it be if you could target your organic Facebook business page updates by more than just users' location and language? That'd probably be pretty valuable -- and more effective -- right? If you're nodding your head in agreement, we've got some great news for you. According to TechCrunch, it looks like Facebook has started rolling out powerful new post targeting options today called 'Page Post Targeting Enhanced.'

New Facebook Post Targeting Options

Facebook hasn't released a ton of details about its new targeting options yet, but TechCrunch reports that Facebook page admins will soon be able to target posts to segments of fans by a variety of characteristics in addition to the basic location and language targeting options admins are already used to.

Below is a list of the full set of targeting options that will soon be available to marketers.

• Age
• Gender
• Interested In
• Relationship Status
• Education
• College Grad: College Name, Major
• In College: College Name, Major, Years
• In High School
• Workplace
• In addition to existing options — Language, and Location: Country, State, City

Remember, up until this update, Facebook admins were only able to target their updates by those last options, language and location:

According to a post from a page admin who is a member of the closed Social Marketers Facebook Group, a Facebook rep has indicated that the new, 'enhanced' targeting options are available to a select number of pages today and will be rolling out to all Facebook pages over the next few weeks.

Just as with targeting by language or location, we're told that all updates a page publishes -- even if it's targeted in one way or another -- will still appear on the business' Facebook page timeline. However, targeted updates will get displayed in the news feeds of only the appropriate users being targeted.

In other words, if HubSpot chose to target only females who are at least 20 years old for a specific post about Cyndi Lauper performing at our upcoming Inbound conference (it's true!), that post will be visible to males visiting HubSpot's Facebook page, yet that post wouldn't appear in males' news feeds.

Facebook Launches Its New Recommendations Bar

Effective immediately, Facebook are launching the new Recommendations Bar, which is a  social plugin that will assist people to find articles based on what their friends like and share from your site.

As a person reads an article, a small pop-up surfaces at the bottom of the screen highlighting recommended articles and prompting them to like the page. Recommendations are based on content that friends have overtly liked and then shared in your app or website.

Just as the Like button currently works, when a person likes an article using the Recommendations Bar, a story is published back to their timeline and friends’ news feed.

Other well known sites such as Mashable are already using the Recommendations Bar. 

As with all of our social plugins, integration is easy and takes just a few lines of code. Simply configure the plug-in, copy the code and paste it on to your site. 

Until next time, good luck and good marketing.

Regards

Daniele

LinkedIn To Launch New Home Pages

LinkedIn is about to introduce a new, simpler, and more state of the art design for its home pages.  Specifically LinkedIn have revamped the its homepage  with improved functionality and usability.  The result being a new look and feel page to make it easier to scan and find the information that matters most to you. 
This simpler and cleaner design makes it easier to navigate the page and quickly find the updates you’re looking for, regardless of whether that’s a news article or an updated skill by someone in your network.

The most relevant and useful updates are now seen at the very top of the feed making it easier to stay on top of what matters most to you, such as trending topics, news, and professional updates based on what your connections and industry are reading, sharing, and discussing. This in turn will drive better time management with you being able to spend less time finding information you need professionally and spending more on the must dos.

As well LinkedIn have updated the way updates look and feel in the stream with richer visuals for better viewing. You can also see a continuous stream of updates without clicking “see more” to access all the latest updates from your network.  It’s also easier for you to see what your connections are talking about and engage in these professional conversations by liking, commenting or sharing the updates that are most important to you.

LinkedIn has continually stated its desire to continue to make its Homepage experience better, more efficient and a place where you can go each day to get what you need to be productive and successful. This is just the beginning of many more exciting, new features we plan to bring to the Homepage to offer more customization and functionality this year. We look forward to making the LinkedIn Homepage your go-to destination to discover and discuss what matters to you, your industry and your professionals network around the world.

LinkedIn have announced that these newly redesigned Homepages will rolling out to all members over the next few weeks.  Make sure you keep checking in every day and let us know what your thoughts are.

Until next time, good luck and good marketing.
Daniele.

Facebook Adds Location For Member Posts

Facebook have recently added the option for page owners to tag their posts and photos with location.There has not been an official announcement about the feature so it is unclear whether it has rolled out to all pages or if it is still being tested with a small group. 

Adding location to a post is useful for providing a more complete story, but there could be future changes that make location an even more critical aspect of posting.

Similar to personal posts, if a page post doesn’t have a photo or link included with it, a map of the location will be included. This could help text posts get noticed in News Feeds.

Pages do not yet have a map feature like personal Timelines do, so there isn’t an easy way to see all of a page’s location-tagged posts at once, but perhaps this is in the works. We wonder if Facebook will give pages even more functionality similar to personal Timelines, for example, adding Open Graph apps to share activity on behalf of the page. This would be useful for brands that are also active on networks like Instagram or Pinterest because they could display this activity within boxes on Timeline.

Location tagging could also be a part of a potential new ad product. Facebook is working on a location based advertising program, which may involve tagging page posts with location and promoting them as Sponsored Stories.

Page owners can tag their posts with location the same way they do on their personal profiles.

Many Types of Content to Select From

It's amazing how many times people have asked me in recent times about content and how they can routinely come up with content that is consistently funny, informative, newsworthy or just plain interesting.
As someone who knows all about the pressures and stresses associated with producing a consistent weekly amount of data for the Rad Scholars marketing blog, I found it interesting that an interesting infographic was recently  developed by RecessionSolution.com and shown on the graphic below.

Depending on your market, brand and product range, different types of content listed above may well be more attractive than others, but the key point here is that over time a good blog will provide posts that reflect most if not all of these areas, thereby ensuring that occasionally all the sought after and anticipated types of content are provided to the blogs keen readers.

No doubt over time you will see from first hand experience that certain types of  content are better received, liked, shared and commented on by your specific audience, and obviously you'll also want to make sure that these are seen more often than others, but not invariably. Because with blogging, as with all other things in life, variety really is the spice of  life.

Let us know what type of posts work best for you and until next time, good luck and good marketing.
Regards
Daniele

Creating Wow Factor Means Going Beyond

Like so many other intangibles Wow Factor is difficult to define, identify and certainly quantify. But one thing that is certain is that we all know and recognise it when we see it. What is wow factor and how do we create it in the minds of our target audience, customers and prospects alike?

In simple terms, wow factor is when someone's expectations are not only achieved but significantly surpassed. As a consumer of many products and services I can honestly say that I rarely if ever see a genuine wow factor, but when I do I rave about it.

Recently I was doing an intrastate trip for business where I was due to give a presentation to a group in Portland and drove for several hours to arrive by 6pm with the scheduled starting time being 7.30pm.

On arriving I drove into the hotel I was staying at that thankfully was also the venue for the nights presentation, and on leaving the car noticed how incredibly dirty it had become through the trip and how I would need to find a car wash in the morning before starting my 6 hour journey home or else risk being stopped and fined by the police for driving an unroadworthy car. Annoying but for now I couldn't do anything about it, so I put it out of my mind and continued to prepare and focus on the workshop that I needed to deliver in an hour or so.

The next morning after having successfully negotiated the workshop the night before I went to my car and was amazed to find it clean. Under the window whipper there was a small printed note saying,
" The Management and Staff at the Premier Inn would like to express their appreciation for you staying with us and would like you to please accept this small gesture of appreciation in the hope that you have a safe trip back home." Wow Factor.

Incredible a business that is overtly interested in me and my needs, that have nothing to do with my hotel room, meals and costs me no extra.

Think about it for a while. What additional product (good and / or service) can you potentially offer to the mix to add this type can you add to your existing mix to generate this type of goodwill and excitement. There are probably plenty and all it needs is a little extra thought. And please by all means let's hear about some of your new ideas to generate some thoughts that may help others as well.

Until next time, good luck and good marketing.

Regards

Daniele.

LinkedIn Update

Stolen Passwords

Recently LinkedIn announced that LinkedIn passwords had been stolen.Some of the passwords that were compromised correspond to LinkedIn accounts. The next steps management will pursue are:

1. Members that have accounts associated with the compromised passwords will notice that their LinkedIn account password is no longer valid. 

It is worth noting that the affected members who update their passwords and members whose passwords have not been compromised benefit from the enhanced security we just recently put in place, which includes hashing and salting of our current password databases.

We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this has caused our members. We take the security of our members very seriously. If you haven’t read it already it is worth checking out my earlier blog post today 

LinkedIn Privacy Policy

Linked has recently updated its Privacy Policy and User Agreement to provide greater control over your data with further clarity.

Here are a couple of key areas the updated Policy will encompass:

• A shortened time personally identifiable information obtained through our plug-ins and our off-site advertising is kept.
• Enhanced member privacy controls by making  public profile setting information by giving greater control about what can be accessed outside of LinkedIn by search engines and third parties.

Until next time, Good marketing and good luck.

Daniele.

Solving the Mystery - What Business Are You Really In

The first thing that the overall analysis sets out to do is to answer the question, “What business are you really in?”

On the surface this may appear to be an absurd question to ask. Certainly most if not all small business owners/managers can tell you what market their business operates in.  For example: the book market, the shoe market, the men's wear market, and so on.  However knowing this is not enough.  You must also know exactly what market segment your business caters to.  For instance, based on the examples given above, your business might be in:

1.      The educational book market for primary and secondary level schools but not tertiary (as part of the overall book market).

2.      The high–fashion, leather shoe market catering only for women and not men (as part of the overall shoe market).

3.      Affordable, medium quality/medium priced men’s wear clothing and accessories (as part of the overall men’s wear market).

In each of these three examples, the business operates in one segment and not in all segments of their respective markets. Constructing a profile with key descriptors about your business will help you to identify the specific segment to which your business belongs. You may want to create this profile by using a checklist of ‘who, what, when, why and how’ regarding your customers and their needs.

Checklist of key questions

 

1        Who are your main customers currently?

2        What other potential customers could be targeted by your business?

3        What are the main products (goods or services) sold by your business to these current customers?

4       What is the key need that is met by these products?

5        What other products could your business supply to its customers?

6        When do your customers mainly buy?

7        Why do they buy the product to begin with?

8        How do they buy?  (Buying patterns and methods).

9        Why do they buy from your business?

10     What don’t your customers like about buying from your business?

11     What related items do they buy elsewhere and why?

	EXAMPLE

 

The owner of a small but profitable computer-programming firm considered that his business specialised and catered to no particular market segment.  He believed that his business designed software with a fairly even cross section of customers from various industries. 

However, on closer examination, the owner discovered to his surprise that about 40% of his customers were accounting firms.  This realisation prompted the firm to target this area more rigorously, with the result being an increased clientele list and increased profitability.

What really happened here? :

Over time, the business had developed a superior and specialised knowledge of accounting systems in direct response to customer needs. Because the specialisation was gradual, this market segment was not identified until an analysis of the business was conducted.

(iv). Think broadly about the business you are in.

Once you have accurately determined exactly which business you are in, the next step is to take a broader look at what (beyond the actual product) the customers are buying from you.

	EXAMPLE

 

Have a look at the three columns in this example. In the first column, the names of a number of well-known businesses are listed. The second column displays their respective product offerings.  It is, however, more important to identify what the customer is actually buying beyond the product itself. This is found in the third column.

Business                                 Product offering                      What’s in it for the customer

Universal Studios                      Movies                                     Entertainment

Revlon Cosmetics                     Make-up                                   Beauty

Telstra                                     Telephones                               Communication

Carrier                                      Air-conditioning                         Comfort

Mt. Buller                                  Skiing                                       Recreation

Metrail                                      Trains/Trams/Buses                 Transportation

Coca-Cola                                Soft Drink                                 Acceptance

Club Med                                  Travel & Tourism                      Escape

From this type of analysis, the true nature of a business is quickly revealed.

Consider Cadbury Schweppes Company.  Their product offering is food and beverage.  But what are the customers really buying?

Mark Smith (Managing Director of Cadbury Schweppes – Australia & New Zealand), said:

               “I work for an outstanding company. And I'm really passionate about what we do, 

                 which put simply, is to bring delight into the lives of millions of consumers.

Therefore, Cadbury Schweppes is in the business of putting joy and fun into people’s lives.  Not simply selling confectionery. 

  

The customer’s perception of your product can be more important than the product itself. Coca-Cola is a classic example of this.  The long-term popularity of the Coca-Cola drink has been sustained over many decades. This would suggest that there is more to the drink than its taste.  The advertising is perennially the same and is targeted at young people. “Coke is it” really says, “Drink it and with it comes acceptance, status and fun.”  Not bad for a soft drink.

Similarly, once it was established by Revlon that women are really buying ‘beauty,’ Revlon tailored the marketing strategies, packaging and advertising to reinforce this perception.

By understanding what a customer is really buying, your marketing strategies and promotions will more accurately hit the mark.