So being a marketing student, you get pretty bogged down with marketing homework, and other misc. projects and forget you even have a blog. Sorry.To aid you guys in an attempt to redeem myself from my absence, here are a few resources to help you with some marketing research on the cheap; GOVERNMENTAL RESOURCES|put those tax dollars to workOne thing a lot of people either don’t know or realize is that there is a plethora of information available to them for free from the U.S. Government. A key example is anything and everything here census.gov. Now this website is pretty hard to understand, I will admit, but one of the key things to note when using the information from this site is that it’s best used in conjunction with something else. For instance, a great cross reference would be mybestsegments.com. Mybestsegments is information compiled by a company called Claritas and it breaks down information for you by zip code. A good cross reference would be grabbing census information about say Abilene, TX and then cross referencing that with the demographic information on Claritas. you would be surprised how much this little combo can tell you about your target market with just two little websites. More to come. 

One thing about every person that is unique is that we can all sit alone in a room and think about something that will make us smile. Everyone has the power to control their own happiness and can unlock the beautiful expression that is a smile.

I purpose to you this: If you want to make your product successful, if possible, your product should be transparent. So much so that your consumer when they are in their own little world–alone–your product is a cause of such happiness inside of them that it creates, or is able to stimulate a feeling of happiness that isn’t plagued by anything.

Anything being the worry about batteries that might die, buttons that might not allow the customer to get from point A to point B when interacting with your product, nothing.

When you have a product, that creates a complete, and utter release from reality. A product that allows your customer to suspend themselves within themselves, and to find instances in their life that make them happy, when they are in their element; you will have a product that will make you rich.

My goal for this blog/website is to challenge you as industry professionals, or industry infants, to think critically about your  trade and how you execute your daily activities pertaining to marketing, advertising, and management.

I hope to effectively engage you in any way possible, and in doing so, I will entertain any and all comments and or suggestions I receive that will help me further the cause of creating better viewer interaction with my present product: this website.

I will entertain any and all comments, be they harsh or content, with the same open mindedness with which I have created this website.

Optimism is my tool, and conflict is my medium of creating a better and more effective website.

This is my pledge to you — Jonathan Davis

Selling Yourself and Your Company.

I am a student at Abilene Christian University, and as such some of my friends are professors. One in particular is a gentlemen named Matt Boisvert (pronounced Boi-verr, It’s French or something). Anyways, he is my Marketing professor, and as I was talking to him about some of my outside studies, he introduced me to a concept of selling yourself that changed how I thought about presentation.

The full-story on presentation at the click.

Specifically we were talking about resumes but this can apply–and does– apply to anything involving marketing, or advertisements.

I asked him how I should send out my resume, e-mail or snail mail. He replied;

Well let’s think. Should you send it e-mail, snail mail, or Fed-Ex?

E-mail. Something that when you send it, it’s instantaneous. You press “send” and BAM, it’s there, in their inbox ready to be read, and reviewed almost immediately. But who are you sending this resume too? Is it someone high up in the company, because if so, how many e-mails do you think they are getting in a day? 50, 60, 200? Who knows how many, but what do you do with e-mails? Open, scan for nit-bits, and then maybe flag a few here and there that you want to go back to and read later, but you never really have full on interaction with an e-mail. So e-mail, is probably not the best avenue for a resume.

Snail-Mail. It’s pretty cool right, everyone likes getting a little snail-mail now and again. But how much snail-mail is this company getting in a day? How many of those are landing on the desk of the person you just sent that resume to via e-mail? Sure sending a thank you card or something for reading your resume would be nice but, do you really know if they read it if you sent it via e-mail? Sure you sent it, and you know where you sent it, and your computer says it was sent, but was it really even opened… did it make it past the junk-mail filter even? And also, if you are sending your actual resume via snail-mail, how long is that going to take to get there? 5 - 7 days? By then interviews could have been scheduled and done with, and you could be sitting in a new windowed office with a steady salary and or nice hourly wage. So snail-mail isn’t the best avenue either.

Fed-Ex. What happens when you get something from Fed-Ex. You get excited. You see an envelope from Fed-Ex on your desk, it’s big, it’s colored, and says “NEXT DAY” really big on the front, and so it creates a sense of urgency just it’s appearance. Not only that, but how are you actually sending this Fed-Ex message? Is your resume boxed or enveloped? Is the envelope lined with bubble-wrap or is it just plain? How much time did you spend on the packaging and presentation of your resume? All of this factors go into how your resume, your message or advertisement for yourself, is going to be received–and more importantly how you are going to be viewed as a potential employee. Sure, you are going to be spending a little more on the Fed-Ex box and the presentation, but what does that say about you? Quality, professionalism, this person is willing to go the extra mile–and if they do it with their resume, God only knows how much farther they will go with an actual career at my company.

So what’s the best choice?

Think about this one yourself. What’s the best choice? What’s the best ad? Who is marketing themselves the best? The person who e-mails their Microsoft Word Templated Resume, the guy who snail-mailed it a week back when the interviews happened this week, or the guy who overnighted it via Fed-Ex in the Coconut CD case with the resume cleverly folded and packaged to get my attention, and keep me interested from the time I noticed I had a package.

Presentation–More important than most give it credit for.

Here is an ad by Doritos, how are they packaging themselves?

This one doesn’t pertain as much to creating good ads or marketing strategies as it does learning to do so: not at this  website.

X-Train Studios (www.xtrain.com), a division of Splash Media Inc, has a few phenominal courses on Graphic design. One in particular is about “Document Creation Workflow” which is taught by Shellie Hall. In the first introductory video, I didn’t learn anything, but as the course has been moving forward, there is a lot in there that deals with creating documents; that has more to deal with marketing than most people would give you credit for thinking.

Creating documents for your company–IS marketing. Anything you do for you or your company that goes out to others is marketing, and will reflect on your company in some way shape or form, so if you want to shed some light on great ways to do good for your company with how you present things hit up xtrain.com and their graphic design course. It’s well worth every penny.

Quick. Witty. Funny. Insane. Touching. Just a few words I would just a few words I would use to describe the advertising world of today. But who cares?

Consumers.

You. Me. Everyone else who spends money on products or services day in and day out. But what drives these ads, and why are they created?

The basic part of being a consumer: The need.

We need basic faculties in life such as food, and water, and shelter. We have wants, based on demands for these needs, but in short that’s how marketing starts; consumers have a need, and a want that fuels that need and a demand to back up that want.

Ex. I need food, I want Starbucks, I have $10. Need + want + demand = good idea for a product. Now that doesn’t mean any time someone has ten bucks you should create a product for them but hear me out, there is a point to this.

Good Ads. Good Ads, and in really good and effective Ads are based on good products. And good Companies. Smart companies that know what you want, maybe even more than you do.

Ex. Starbucks. Not a lot of television advertising, but lots of paper ads everywhere. Smart because they have a product that fulfills a need of thirst that everyone naturally has by nature. A need which is backed by a want that has a demanding public with the capital to back up that desire for a good cup of double-shot-low-fat-cinnamon-dolce-lattes every now and again.

Good Ads. Smart Ads, are based on smart products, products that meet the need and demand of an ever changing public need and desire.

Keep that in mind the next time you are looking to create and ad, or a product for that matter, because it should be done the other way. What you are making a product be smart about it, create something that the market needs, and use your Ads to help your market understand why it needs your product.

And always remember that Ads aren’t the end of the line; the line doesn’t end until the last customer you have dies. So get to work; there are relationships to till and money to be had.

Marketing was namely what I talked about in my last post, with the products being centered around that Customers, but what about the ads?

What different ways are there to make better People Centric Ads? Ads that scream, “Hey Mr. Anderson, Nice Car; Wanna get the most out of it” or “Molly, you’re looking sharp today, but you know what you look like you need”, and to do this without a hitch, in a single ad, a few million times over.

How this can be accomplished, I honestly don’t know, but that is the question I am hoping to find an answer to myself sometime this semester. I am interested in figuring out the best way to advertise to a group of people, and yet make each person in that group feel like I am speaking directly to them, because I am speaking directly to them.

Easier said then done I know but, any thoughts?

If you want to succeed as a business everything you do must depend on your boss; the customer. This concept is from a quote by Wal-Mart creator Sam Walton, and has been tried and tried again, and proven correct, over and over again in today’s ever changing market.

What is it about this customer centric style of marketing and management though?

I recently read an article from what I believe was the New York Times about “Build-a-Bear” and it’s creator and how they market themselves and their products. I don’t know if you know about Build-a-Bear, but if you have heard of them think: where? Television–Probably not. Magazine Ads–unlikely. Build-a-Bear’s founder Maxine Clark depends on the power of word of mouth advertising from her customers. A non-traditional style of advertising that most would assume isn’t very effective; however the $100 million plus dollar figure in the profits category of Build-a-Bears Financial Statements begs to differ with this assumption.

Advertising and marketing is about and idea. But not just that, it’s about an idea that you stick with and execute the crap out of, molding it to better fit your demographic and the needs of your customers. If your customers like cars, find a way to get your ads in and around cars. If your customers don’t like e-mail, but like getting personally addressed letters from you or your company–get those interns crack’n and give those mail clerks a run for their money. Marketing and Advertising are only as good as you are at giving your customers what they want–an experience.

American’s are what this blog is focused on, so if you are reading this in Russia or elsewhere, this might not work for you. But for Capital increases, just think about what you like. Don’t you like it when someone pays attention to you as an advertiser? Well guess what, you’re customers the same way. They enjoy, love, and adore being noticed but more so being listened to.

Listen to your number one boss. Because without them; there’s no need for you.

There will be days that you make a multi-million Dollar Ad campaign that is praised for years to come. There will be days you can’t sell a product that almost sells itself.

The key is learning to adapt to what kind of a day you are having, and being able to make either type of day a productive one.

Today is not one of those productive days for me. I spent all day in bed. And being sick is a horrible excuse. The world never sleeps.

Good Ads have Good Stories.

Presently I am in the middle of “Story” by Robert McKee. To be blunt, the book is brilliant.  However it is thicker than almost 95% of the Amazon in most places, and thus takes quite some time to wade through. But it’s well worth the time.

The key to keeping anyone’s attention is story. Period. If I want to know more, I will pay attention. If I want to understand why Person A is standing on or around Person B’s head, I will wait and find out. That’s the skinny.

Stories are what make everything we do–well, everything we do. Right now, if you have gotten this far, you are curious about the story, and thus you are continuing in your trek to understand what I am talking about. Good ads have this sense of drive, of flow, of story if you will. Something that the Audience is looking for, whether it’s information about the product or more information about what is happening in the ad.

The brilliance behind the Geico Ad’s is the hiatus in the stories of them. They are brilliantly concocted to drive themselves nowhere. From start to finish, the story is completely ridiculous, and thus all of the attention if changed from the content of the story to the fact behind to story–Gieco 15 Minutes could save you 15 percent or more. That’s it. And you remember it because it doesn’t follow the mold of story.

Interesting way to play with story–not to have one.

*Sigh* Oh to complexities in this God-Created World–What a tangled web we need to survive.