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5.26.2010

Salt? How about Soap?

Salt sales go up during winter, not because people cook more during winter lockdowns but to melt snow and prevent re-freezing. Salt has a dual purpose. How about soap?

Are you perhaps P&G Selling soap? Make sure your customers know its intended use


Entering a new market can be tricky but analyzing data is even harder.

Market characteristics and transaction characteristics can be a bases for segmentation. For soap a market characteristic segmented on usage is an ideal market to be in, if people use soap. But a blunder occurred when research was being conducted on which soap brand people preferred. The research mentions that Irish Spring is by far the best seller by results of a sample taken near the university where the study was being held. Local stores attested to Irish Spring brand soap being hard to keep on there shelfs.

This research was great news to Irish Spring, may even show how effective its marketing campaign was.

The reality is customer usage of the product was not its original intended use. In this town where the research was conducted locals were buying Irish Spring to prevent deers from browsing in there properties. Soap bars were hanging from trees and repelled deers due to the strong perfume scent Irish Spring had. Even worse the deer browsing was seasonal. Had the study been done in another season Irish Spring may have been sitting on that store shelf.

Effectiveness of Soap

On a lighter note, know what this really means?
when it rains it pours...

Is your Brand OFFLINE?

If your Brand is offline does it exist in todays dynamic global marketplace? Maybe. 


Maybe?! well a good Brand can be the embodiment of a great product and it may strive without connecting to todays online market, but the chance that it may survive the long haul without connecting to online social medias are slim to none. Besides, the chance a competitor is offering their competing brand online is higher than ever these days...

not sure where to find a social media channel? look here



These key social media channels are essential to housing the power of e-marketing in todays dynamic global market. Lets take CNN for example, would a media news company need to use external social media channels when it has its own TV channel along with a website which includes great web-tools for media and discussion? perhaps Rick can tell you...

CNN now tells television viewers to join the conversation and talk to Rick on twitter, facebook, and myspace

What is more important to you (a startup e-store owner) to showing up on Google's first few pages for your products search or sending a tweet on twitter about a on going promotion on your product?

Hopefully you (a startup e-store owner) have been doing your homework and choose the latter. Google now includes tweet updates on their search results page. It was only a few months ago when google reached an agreement with twitter. 

Personalization and customization of messages via threads, post or tweets can significant make a Brand thrive if the audience accepts it. Also there are several ways to communicate with fans, customers and spectator within the online communities. Jordan's suggestion of 5 models a "Brand" can utilize to communicate with its audience is clear and to the point. The framework illustrates the simplest form of e-marketing down to what every brand hopefully strives for "Brand Embodiment". 

5.19.2010

US newspaper circulation falls 8.7%



The spark: The New York Times just confirmed that it will start charging for at least some of its content in January 2011.

US newspaper circulation falls 8.7% in latest 6-months.
The Wall Street Journal      2,092,523
USA Today                             1,826,622
The New York Times               951,063
Los Angeles Times                   616,606
The Washington Post              578,482

An old tale...
Suzy in her blog mentions that the move towards a subscription based pay-per-read method to generate revenues for newspaper companies is nothing new. New Century Newspaper was established in 1995 which was a year before Larry Page and Sergey Brin were working on their project at Stanford that became Google. NCN one of the first attempts to collaborate all news paper giants in a consortium of sorts. 
According to this Business Week article from 1998, none of the nine new media companies could agree on a business model to follow and were seeking other streams of revenue; the adventure lasted three years and did very little for the online world.
It works for WSJ...
The Wall Street Journal, famously, charges about $100 a year to about 1.1 million online subscribers, for more than $100 million in revenue. That's good money, but it's a unique circumstance, driven by the Journal's high-quality business-targeted content, expense-account-paid subscriptions and nearly 15 years with a paid model. It's highly unlikely that any other paper could match numbers like that (yet).


Answers to several raised questions:
  • A paywall revenue model will add to the several revenue streams which include advertising and print circulation. Readers may flock to “free” news which may decrease advertising dollars since it is mostly tied with site traffic. Most people just look elsewhere for the news they want when faced with a paywall.  
  • The new phase of subscriptions and paywalls from online content providers will allow smaller news and entertainment media outlets to gain on advertising dollars if they attract those who hit the “wall” on media gaints. YouTube and Blogger will not be the only source of free intellectual content.
  • Subscriptions work for WSJ so it may work for NYT. The impact will be felt as the advertising revenues shrink from less site traffic but the revenues from subscriptions will balance it off if NYT plays its cards right.

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Sources:





5.13.2010

E-Commerce: Business Models



Major Types of e-Commerce business models include B2C B2B C2C, and all these existed in completely different forms before Commerce evolved into what it is today. 


P2P e-commerce is referred to as having a unusual business model due to its peer-to-peer technology which may or may not have a central location for data gathering. During this youtube video (which is also posted above) over 15 different P2P applications are showcased together which shows the evolved nature of web 2.0 and web 3.0.


Lately, M-commerce has taken a positive stride toward shaping the future of e-commerce transactions. M-commerce will continue to grow as wireless device technology adapts and creates an easier way to access the web.


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5.08.2010

Connect with others...

Easily connect with other bloggers and see their latest postings 
   -Use any of the links on the right just below e-marketers..


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