Big Winner and Loser for 2011

As 2011 quickly comes to an end, it is perhaps a good time to look back and ponder who the big winner and losers are for the year.

Although there were many incredible successes for 2011 I think it would be difficult to go past Google as a worthy winner.

Google continued to refine and develop all its existing products, and significantly brought out Google + where it now legitimately has a product that can in the not too distant future, rival Facebook as the worlds leading social networking site.

Through this the value of perseverance was also highlighted as Google learned from earlier mistakes and brought out a quality alternative with some true aspects of differentiation and genuine business insight.

That is not to say that the product is complete. Far from it there is still a long way for Google to to in refining its platform such as allowing businesses to generate vanity URL's for their business pages as seen on Facebook.No doubt this and other refinements will come in the not too distant future. Suffice to say Google + is an enormous achievement and worthy of your attention.

The biggest loser on the other hand (on a more abstract level), is all of us collectively with the death of Steve Jobs and the loss of one of the worlds great developers and pioneers.

It is now well known that Apple were all but broke after Jobs left the firm, and were it
not for his timely return to the firm, Apple would today would almost certainly be gone.

So the baton for its future success now passes to others that must sure that the iPhone 5, The iPad 3 and all the other cascade of products continues at the cutting edge of computer and IT standards.

What about you. Who would you nominate for the best and the worst of 2911?

And as 2011 quickly draws to a close, let me say a Happy New Year to you all and until next time, good luck and good marketing.

Twitter Announces New Improved Profile Pages

Last Week Twitter announced on it's blog a new version of Twitter
where they have attempted to simplify the design in an attempt to make it even easier to follow the people and organisations you are interested in, connect with those people and generally expolre the Twitterverse.

This new layout willbe seen both from computer and mobile access to ensure a consistensy for each member regardless of the platform. Accordingly TweetDeck has also been modified to reflect this latest set of changes.

Twitter has made it clear that it will gradually roll out these changes in the next few weeks, however you can seen the changes now on mobile.twitter.com, Twitter for iPhone, and Twitter for Android.

To obtain early access for your computer, you can log into Twitter for iPhone or Twitter for Android and download the updates.

Let us know how useful you think these changes are.
And finally let me wish everyone out their in the wonderful world of the blogosphere a wonderful Christmas and New Year.

So until next time, good luck and good marketing.

Daniele.

Recent Survey Confirms SEO is the Most Sought After Promotion for Small Businesses

The recent “merchant confidence survey” from US based lead-gen company MerchantCircle/Reply.com, conducted a survey in November 2011 with 2,500 US small businesses, and has found that search engine optimization (SEO) is the most preferred marketing channel that SME's would choose if they could choose only one.

The businesses being surveyed were each asked the question: “If you had to put all your marketing time and budget into only one channel, what would it be?”

Understandably the choices included several possibilities reflecting the wide variety of choice available to businesses today including: Social media platforms, PPC, SEO, mobile and traditional advertising media. With a staggering 70%, SEO was clearly well ahead of the chasing pack of other key options.

As well it is highly significant to think that coming into 2012, “traditional media” defined as radio, TV, newspapers, magazines and direct mail, was ranked ahead of both Social Media and Paid Media, with newspapers being the highest ranked of the traditional options.

What's even more interesting is that the most common tool used amongst 70% all the respondents was Facebook. Apparently the conclusion here,is that even though SME's are using social media but to less than spectacular effect.

What we need to ask then is, is SEO more powerful or is it that we need to better educate SME's on how to effectively monetarise social media tools such as Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube?

What are your thoughts? Until next time, good luck and good marketing.

Daniele.

Census Data Provides A Rare Opportunity For Perfect Demographic Data

Rarely are we in a better position than right now as marketers to be able to be more certain about the specific potential size of any target market locally based on either demographics or psychographics. This is of course because of the recently conducted statistical, national census.

We all know how difficult it is to be sure about the data that we base our decision making on, but for now at least we all have access to an almost perfect representation of the national profile.

Incredibly when I ask students and clients about how they go about breaking down their market and validating segment sizes and attitudinal and behavioural data, rarely if ever do people respond with the answer that I'm looking for. Namely "I call the ABS and purchase the latest report".

For the record not only is this data incredibly current and accurate, but concurrently incredibly inexpensive and oozing with information that properly used will deliver true insight about your target audience, who they are, where they live, how much they earn, etc., etc.

It goes without saying that the more time passes the older the data will get and yes, potentially inaccurate. But for now it is the real Mc Coy.
So don't wait, don't hesitate. Either call the ABS or visit them on their website (www.abs.gov.au) and search out all the incredible data that may very well lead you to better defining your audience and what USP you may be in a position to offer them that others can't.

Let's hear how you go. And until next time, good luck and good marketing.

Daniele.

Why Are Key Success Factors So Important to Know When Target Marketing

A while back you may remember that I did a post on the key criteria for determing how you know what potential market segments are the most viable for you, as an important preface to choosing which segments your business will and wont target.

As a key step to effective target marketing, you need to be able to isolate what the key success factors (KSFs)are for each potential segment and match these up with your businesses ability to deliver this aspect of product or service.

So in other words the KSFs are essentially must haves that if you don't have or can't arrange to have, means you will lose if you compete in that segment against rivals that can provide those essential aspects of the product or service being sought after by the target market audience.

For example if you are looking to start a restaurant and are seriously considering a pizza style parlour, you will certainly need to provide the following KSFs. To begin with you will need to provide a large assortment of pizzas. They will need to come in a least 3 or 4 sizes. You will need to be able to buy soft drinks with those pizzas and probably even desserts. Etc.

Failure to consistently provide these will mean you are not providing the minimum acceptable level of service expected by your would be clients.

Now of course doing all this, still will not mean you have a meaningful point of difference to differentiate you from other rivals but at least you are in 'the ball game'.

Differentiation is another important topic which we will look at in future blog posts.

What about you and your business what are the the KSFs for you.

I hope this is of help to you and until next time, good luck and good marketing.

Daniele.

Comparing Time Spent On Each of the Big Three: Facebook, Twitter or Google +

As the debate about which of the big three social media marketing platforms (Facebook, Twitter and Google +)is more effective, some important information about the average time spent on each site has recently been released by Nielson.

Allowing for rounding up, Facebook leads the pack with 21 minutes, Twitter 13 minutes and Google + at 6 minutes.

Simply put the longer members stay on the site the more engaged they become and the more likely it is that your business objectives will eventually be met.

Obviously these numbers are averages across all members on each site and do not take into effect the specific average of superior pages and content quality of those accounts. However there is a clearly established trend demonstrated towards longer times spent each day on Facebook.

Although there is no need to select one over the others simply put, Facebook with its 800 million and longer session times remains the first choice for may social media marketing campaigns.

Until next time, good luck and good marketing.

Regards,

Daniele.

Segmentation is (Still) Not a Dirty Word

It's amazing how often segmentation gets brought up during marketing workshops or generally by clients these days. Years ago the question would be along the lines of: 'should we be segmenting our market?' I think people with greater business insight these days know that with ever increasing levels of competition and in an attempt to remain relevant to your preferred audience,the answer is most certainly yes, so the more likely question being raised these days is normally along the lines of: 'how do we know whether to pursue a specific niche or not?'

Much, much better question to be asking. And the key to answering it is to know what the key criteria for evaluating market segments are.

The criteria most commonly used to evaluate whether or not to target selected market segments are:

(1.) Ability to be quantified - A market segment must be quantifiable, e.g., what is the potential number of customers? How much are they willing and able to spend?

(2.) Ability to identify groups with similar needs – For market segmentation and subsequent target marketing to be done successfully, it is vital that you are able to identify and group together people with similar needs that the business can fulfill.

NOTE: These needs can be based on product usage, product attributes, location of business, benefits sought by customer or on any other appropriate dimension.

(3.) Actual size - A market segment must be big enough i.e. are there enough customers? Do they have enough money to spend?

(4.) Ability to communicate with the segment - With few exceptions, most market segments can be reached on both a promotional and distribution level. The critical factor is whether the net cost to achieve and sustain this communication is within acceptable levels, so that your business can effectively communicate with this segment.

When these criteria are used individually and collectively, the business will be able to gain additional insight into the respective viability of different segments.

I'd be interested to know if you have done any evaluation of segments that exist in your market place.

And until next time, good luck and good marketing.

Daniele.