Do you have a feeling that sometimes, someone is watching you? If you do, then you are not wrong. Someone, somewhere, might be watching you without you noticing. Now, I do not mean watching literally, but watching digitally. If you think you’re private enough on the internet just by setting your Instagram account to private, think again.

Do you remember about my blog post on Internet of Things? Devices get information about you by tracking what you do physically as well as on the internet, then coverts them into data. These data can be accessed by another party to personalize your experience the next time you use these devices, making it more convenient for the user. What about cookies? Have you heard of them and do you know what they are? If you don’t then, Cookies are used to help websites keep track and remember information about the users and their browsing activities.

I bet you have seen this before. You may find this bothersome and click accept anyways just to access the website, but do you know exactly have you done? You have just allowed yourself to be monitored the whole time you are on that website. However, it may not be a bad thing, it is just data stored by the website on your browser, not malware. This may seem harmless, but you may or may not like what the site does with that data about you.

Why is data privacy important?

It is important as these data can be personal information that you do not want other people to know. You certainly do not want any tom, dick or harry to know where you live, who are your family, or what hospital you were born in. These kind of information are best kept as private as possible to prevent anyone from misusing it. Huge companies like, Google and Facebook, have personal information on millions of people around the world, abide to privacy policy to keep these information safe. This build trust between them and their customer who expects privacy. Every individual deserve a right to privacy and to be free from any form of surveillance.

However, without sharing of information, marketers would not be able to obtain valuable information on their consumers to know whether or not to introduce a new product or service. What do you think about data privacy? Is it bad or good thing? Do let me know your thoughts in the comments. Thank you for reading.

Hello, and welcome back!

In this post, I will be talking about how marketing communicates. Now, what is Integrated Marketing Communications(IMC)? Some of you might know, some might not. Take a look at the image above. Have a rough idea on what is it? If you don’t, then IMC is the combination of traditional offline marketing with digital marketing with elements of social strategies, all of which work together in harmony. This is an all-rounded approach that makes your entire marketing strategy more accomplished and functional.

Based on  International Journal of Advertising: Review of Marketing Communications, “IMC plays an important role in cross-channel synchronization. IMC has been defined as “an audience-driven business process of strategically managing stakeholders, content, channels, and results of brand communication programs” “(Kliatchko, 2008).

The more effective an IMC strategy is, the more likely to increase profit, retain and bring in new customers. However, this is easier said than done. An IMC needs a crystal clear message that can penetrate the other commercials that is already flooding consumers every day. A consumer can be exposed to hundreds of marketing efforts on a daily basis, so it is very difficult for one to stand out.

Have you seen this ad? If you have not, please go take a look at it. This right here, is one of the best example of IMC that came out in 2010. Till this day, it is still widely talked about. The campaign title was “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like”, simple yet full of impact. Even though the product’s target market was male, their marketing campaign’s target market was female. This due to the company identifying females make purchasing decisions on hygiene products even for male. The campaign title paired up with handsome actor clad in a towel convincing viewers to buy the product, it was a hit among females who wish that their man who be like him, smell like him. Old Spice’s sales increase by a whooping 107%.

Old Spice did not just stop at there. They carried on with a responses campaign on YouTube where the same actor replies to questions for him on various social media platforms, which included Twitter and Facebook. The actor gave humorous responses which led to many users of social media asking questions hoping he would respond to them. It became successful as a result, garnering 5.9 million views on its 1st day of campaign. Twitter and Facebook followers of the brand soared, with 2700% and 800% respectively.

I feel the campaign was so successful because of the way the brand/campaign interacted with the audience, on a personal level. In conclusion, knowing who to communicate to will definitely able to get the right message to them. Have you heard of any interesting campaigns? Do share them with me and let me know what you think of this post? Thank you for reading, hope to hear from you.

Have you ever wondered how google search engine works? Why do some results appear when you search for a certain keyword? How does one find what they need on search engines?

Well, this is all done through search engine optimization(SEO). Now you might ask what exactly is SEO? SEO is the method of making adjustments to the design and content of your website to make it appear in search engines. Why is this needed? It is to increase visibility of your website in the organic search engine results. Where people searches for a certain keyword and it matches your website, making it appear in the results page. This method will increase traffic to your website.

So here is an example of how it works below

I searched flower shops on Google and this is the first page of the results. So, the keywords i have typed are “flower shops” and Google has displayed results that are related to said keywords. Typically, the top section will show paid ads of companies that pay Google to display ads of their website to appear on the top. However, by using SEO, you can have your website be displayed in the bottom section highlighted by the red box, which are the organic search results. This means that these results are not paid ads.

What is happening now?

Is Search Engine Optimization still relevant or dead? Well, it may not be dead but maybe certain element of it is. When SEO first became an important strategy for marketers to use, they were spamming keywords on their websites just so they would appear as the top result on search engines. However, marketers at that time failed to recognize that focusing on click-through rate was far more important that focusing on top spot of results. Having the top spot may not guarantee that people will click on it. Currently, web surfers know to scroll through the page to look for organic results, as such, the top few results (which are the ads) are avoided.

Is SEO still relevant?

Here are some stats to show whether SEO is still relevant now. From above, we can see that SEO still plays a huge part in providing traffic and overall business to organizations. Companies still see the need to use SEO for their business and recognizes it to be an important strategy.

With all these said, marketers should take note that although that this may be an effective strategy, it may not work if they do not know modern day web surfers.

Importance of web surfers for marketers

Did you know that most online experience started with search engines? Yes, when people look for something online, their first thought would be to go to search engines. Even though they search for something, 75% of them do not go beyond the first page of the results. Additionally, most of them ignore the ads above and scroll down to view the organic search results. This is a very important information that marketers should remember. Knowing how people surf the net and use search engines, can help marketer plan a strategy that allows bridging between their target consumer and their website.

So, what do you think of SEO? What are your thoughts on it being beneficial to businesses? Do you think companies should continue using SEO as a strategy to pull in consumer? Let me know what you think in the comments. Thank you for reading this post. Stay tune. 🙂

What is “Internet of Things”(IOT)?

It means a group of interrelated mechanical, digital and automated computing devices with the capability to transfer data over a network (internet) without the need for human-to-human or computer-to-human interaction.

You might be familiar with some of these devices or appliances such as the Refrigerator, Air-Conditioner, Television, Speaker, Cars, alarm clocks, even watches. However, in the past decade, these objects has been transformed and innovated into Smart devices and appliances. Having sensors to hear, see, touch everything around them and collecting tangible information to be converted into digital data.

Most smart watches often offer wellness fitness application (containing sensors to monitor the user) to track steps taken, track heart rate and even monitor sleeping. While they serve as a fashion accessory, they are bought usually for their practical uses. Smart watches can be paired up with smart phones (connectively) to handle task more efficiently, receiving information from the phone and imputing them into the watch. Users can read text messages from smart watches on their wrist without having the need to unlock their phone to do so. Other functions include, event scheduling, answering phone calls and listening to music.

Why is IOT important for marketers?

The Internet of Things connects devices together across multiple platform, giving marketers opportunity to obtain data and information that are otherwise not able to get. Advertisers can create completely different experiences by connecting the physical and digital world, which has been made possible with The Internet of Things. For example, as I mentioned in my previous post, Starbucks sending a message to users of smart devices a notification that they are near a Starbucks outlet. This situation refers to the bridging of physical and digital world by using location sensing. Not only that, marketers are able to get instant response from consumer. As more and more consumer get “connected” (using IOT), marketers will increasingly have a huge source of data that can be conveniently retrieved and to ultimately use for marketing.

Big Data

So what is Big Data? Why do marketers need to know about it and what can they do with it? Big Data refers to large volume of data that cannot be stored or processed with traditional methods. Most of you are aware of social networking sites like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter, but do you know how much data these sites receive? Twitter alone receives around 400 million tweet each day and YouTube receives 48 hours of video each minute. “The importance of big data doesn’t revolve around how much data you have, but what you do with it.” This is important for marketers as after analyzing such data, they can obtain useful information regarding consumers and carry out activities relating to their industry. Which in turns may help them achieve certain objectives such as cost reductions or new product development.

Internet of Things + Big Data

How do these two help one another? Internet of Things retrieves these huge amount of data (Big Data) from users of smart devices and shares the data among devices through a common platform (internet) to be processed. They work hand in hand, where Big Data “powers” the Internet of Things. With these two, organizations are able to gain insights on how to improve the way they may operate. An example of this which is in development is, Singapore pursuing a smart nation using IOT sensors for interconnected cameras to build a data platform for the entire nation.

What do you think about IOT and Big Data? Do you own a smart device/appliance and what experience do you have with them? Do let me know in the comments. Thank you for reading.

Mobile devices has infiltrated all parts of out lives. Almost everyone owns a mobile device, be it mobile phones or tablets. They have become a huge part of us as they assists us in our daily lives, such as getting information on certain things, shop online, help us get from one place to another, connect us to our friends and family, or even help us plan our days. In another words, we can’t go on about our day without mobile devices.

These devices allow us to communicate, commerce, and reach out to one another at a whole new level as compared to any form of media. This proves to be an important source of communication as well as a excellent opportunity for marketers to take advantage of. Why so? People treat their mobile devices like a person who is closer to them than their friends, family or lovers. They carry them around wherever they go, always keeping them by their sides. Mobile devices will also have every bit of information of the person owning them, such as personal details, information on what they searched online and search patterns. These kind of information are critical for marketers as they tell them who and what kind of customers they are.

Why Mobile Marketing?

Mobile marketing is a groundbreaking entrepreneurial marketing strategy. Considering almost everyone has a mobile phone, this provides an easier and better way of directly interacting with consumers and of advertising products. Business in eCommerce could be easily enhanced. Marketers find out what kind of product and services customers are looking for according to their needs and nature, before marketing to them. 54% of marketers reported using mobile apps for marketing in 2016, up from about 27% in 2014

Starbucks’ Mobile Marketing

Starbucks’ mobile marketing strategy consist of the use of its mobile application through personalized recommendations. They found out that by offering special offers and free stuffs such as incentives, they could engage better with their customers. They offered birthday gifts, discounts and even free drinks for customers using the app for purchases in store . It made customers use the app more often to receive such benefits.

Having loyalty or reward programs also helped them retain their customers as they tend to continue buying Starbucks’ beverages in order to earn a free one when they accumulate a certain number of reward points(or in this case, stars). This also allowed Starbucks to gather information on customer’s buying habits, like what drinks they purchased the most, or even what sizes of drinks they like. Marketers benefit from this as what was once a long and grueling task of gathering information on customers, now shorten with a simple feature on their application.

Direct Messages

In-app messages allowed Starbucks to directly tell customers when new drinks or promotions are available. This is a much more efficient and effective method of marketing as compared to traditional media marketing.

Location

Starbucks also managed to create a location based service, where they connect the app with their stores. Users of the app will get notifications telling them that they are near a certain outlet, along with the current promotions the store may have. The notification also acts as an invite for them to visit the store, remind them their brand and entice them with discounts. I feel this is an effective in way to market their brand and products to customer directly while they are on the go.

What do you think of Starbucks’ mobile marketing? What other mobile marketing have you came across? Share with me your thoughts on mobile marketing by commenting below. Thank you for reading and have a nice day.