This marketing dog must have done its research, understood its market segment and delivered its unique selling proposition in a memorable manner. See it to believe it. Enjoy.
harvey the marketing dog
Marketing lessons from a dog:
Surround yourself with people
Cherie Blair’s group proves women’s economic disadvantage of reduced ownership — and potential profits to firms in fixing…
Source: Womenomics www.20-first.com
Inhale the future, exhale the past
The US Latino market tends to over-index in mobile content and US Hispanics are accessing the Internet through more and varied devices than non-Hispanics. Are you monitoring what they say about their Telecom services?
BOONTON, N.J., June 28 — Over the next five years, US Hispanic communities will spend $257 billion on telecommunications services, accounting for 17 percent of all residential telecom expenditures, according to a new market research study from The Insight Research Corporation. Early analysis of Census 2010 data suggests that Hispanics will surpass the 50 million mark and that they will command over $1 trillion in buying power. Hispanics are the youngest race/ethnicity segment and, more importantly, have the largest percentage of people under the age of 18, a market demographic that the study says will be crucial to the survival of telecommunications providers over the next five years.
Insight Research’s market analysis study, “US Hispanic Use of Telecommunications Services 2010-2015,” takes a close look at the purchasing habits and telecommunications usage patterns of the Hispanic segment of the US population, as well as other ethnic communities in the US. The study emphasizes that the US Latino market tends to over-index in mobile content and also notes that US Hispanics are accessing the Internet through more and varied devices than non-Hispanics.
“If the future of mobile carriers depends on their getting consumers to buy their data plans, then the US Hispanic community is right in the sweet spot, and will be receiving increasing attention from both wireline and wireless carriers’ marketing departments,” says Robert Rosenberg, Insight Research. “Our study demonstrates that Hispanics are one of the most social groups online, and given the youth-orientated demographic of the US Hispanic community, they become a prime target for the newer 3G and 4G cellular services,” Rosenberg concluded.
“US Hispanic Use of Telecommunication Services 2010-2015” examines spending and usage patterns of US Hispanics for wireline, cellular, and pre-paid cellular services, and compares these spending patterns to those of the general population aswell as other minority segments, including Asian-Americans and African-Americans.
An excerpt of this Hispanic market research report, table of contents, and ordering information are online at www.insight-corp.com/reports/hisp10.asp .
NEWS SOURCE: Insight Research Corporation
too many walls
To many, the process of developing a successful product can be a mystery. Sometimes companies will spend months of development time to create a product that doesn’t reflect the needs or the scope of its intended market. And other times, successful products are developed completely on accident. Because of this, it can often seem impossible to develop successful products. However, if one takes the time to listen to their marketplace and plan the development process accordingly, they are more likely to succeed.
In this post, I would like to discuss how to use social media monitoring tools to aid in product development and market research.
There are many steps to developing a successful product. But the first step is always concept creation. Here we are thinking about broad-based ideas. Using social media monitoring at this step can help form a direction and scope for the rest of the development process. For example, if we want to develop a product focused on online video, we might monitor such terms as “video”, “video sharing”, or “video rating”. During this first stage of monitoring, we will want to focus on what aspects of online video people are talking about most.
How To Use Social Media Monitoring Tools To Aid Product Development
Identifying trends and audiences is extremely important to defining the scope and direction of your product. With our example, we might find that the largest demographic for video consumption are young adults and predominately focus on music and entertainment.
After we have used our monitoring tools to identify trends and audiences, we now begin to monitor scope and direction. Understanding how your target audience is using products is important in your planning process. With our example above, we might monitor conversations to determine where and when video content is being viewed the most. Questions such as “are the users using handheld devices or traditional desktop machines?” can be helpful when determining the scope and direction of your product.
While observing how the market uses similar products, you can begin to make a potential features list. For example, you might observe some users prefer video playlist and some prefer video sharing. Making a features list based on actual user conversations/engagement can be extremely powerful when deciding how to delegate resources during the development process.
After you’ve completed your features list, research other companies and products that meet the needs of your target audience. Use this list of companies and products to begin brand monitoring to aid in competitive analysis. Here, we will be looking at users reactions and sentiment towards competitors in your marketplace. Pay attention to any gaps between your target’s dialog and what your competitors are offering understanding these gaps can help develop a strong point of difference with your product.
At this point, you should now have a direction, feature list, and definitive point of difference that is all reflective of your marketplace. Now its time to send your ideas off to the engineers! But wait, don’t stop monitoring social media! After you have launched your new product, you are going to want to continue to monitor social media to identify flaws and improve with extended feature sets that are now more apparent after you have launched.
Understanding your marketplace and target audiences are important to product development. Whether it is concept creation or refining your feature list social media monitoring can help with the necessary research in building the perfect product.
Source: www.theseohelpblog.com
Reading a newspaper headline touting a product launch by your main competitor and realizing it’s the same product your company has been working on for months might rank as the worst nightmare of any business owner. Rather than waste time and effort on figuring out how you missed that one, you could try a process known as competitive intelligence to prevent future gaffs. Once reserved for big multinational companies, today’s small business owners are finding competitive intelligence extremely useful.
Hearing the phrase Competitive Intelligence may conjure visions of international spies sneaking around behind your back, tracking your every move. In actuality, the practice is simply gathering data on a competitor through any publicly available source of information. This information will serve two purposes: first to provide a solid idea of a competitor’s plans, and second to avoid any unwelcome surprises.
“There’s a whole misconception: is it industrial espionage? Is it corporate spying? There’s a real desire to move away from that thinking,” says John Parsons, a competitive intelligence consultant and researcher in Montreal, Que. “It’s becoming accepted as a legitimate management practice.”
If you decide to hire a competitive intelligence professional, they should sit down with you and discuss what you want to know and what you will do with that information. “Generally, when I’ve done work for a smaller company, it has been that they want to know what their competitor’s sales are,” says Parsons, who is also the president of the Montreal chapter of the Society of Competitive Intelligent Professionals (SCIP). “It can be a simple question such as ‘Is my competitor expanding?’ or ‘Do they have plans to add on to their facility?’ or ‘Are they coming out with any new products next year?’ You don’t want to wake up one morning and find that your competitor has released a new product.”
Once you have established your needs, the next step is to find out where you can get the right answers. When it comes to small business, this is not always an easy process, because these companies are not required to release the same information as public corporations must under the law.
“You really have to go to the basic things like looking at press interviews where someone in one department mentions one thing and someone else in another department mentions another thing. You could even go to the local city hall, for example, and inquire if planning information has been applied for. Some jurisdictions make tax filings available,” says Parsons. Other sources of information include Internet news groups, company websites, and tools such as Performance Plus.
Keep in mind that your competitor could be conducting the same exercise to discover information about your business. Make sure your employees know that confidential information must stay within the office walls. It’s also a good idea to scan your own website or publications where you advertise to see if you are offering clues.
“It’s quite common to uncover a company’s intentions by monitoring the news groups, or certain association discussion groups. You can often find members of those groups asking very pointed questions, and those questions indicate something about what the company is thinking. Both online and offline, there are often people monitoring these groups,” says Parsons.
If you have hired a competitive intelligence professional, they will have the time to do extra legwork. Parsons includes talking to different experts, going to trade shows, events, and conferences as part of his own research methods. These professionals may even contact the competitor directly. Under the SCIP code of ethics, consultants are required to identify themselves to anyone they contact.
After you or your consultant has dug into every corner and crevice available, it’s time to work with the information. This analysis can take on several different forms, depending on your original needs. It can be a basic competitive profile, or perhaps it will be used to benchmark your company’s performance.
Once you have gone through the process with a competitive intelligence professional, you may find that you know more about your competition than you realized and can conduct the analysis exercise on your own. Parsons finds most small business owners like to take the information they have acquired and move forward on their own. If you hired a consultant who is a specialist in your area, they may be able to offer recommendations and advice beyond the basic data.
“As long as you have the appreciation for what it is and can collect the information creatively, you don’t need to have a massive budget for doing this,” says Parsons.
Some small businesses may find a SWOT analysis useful. By uncovering your competitor’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats, you can decide how to best map a course of action to meet those categories. Use the information gathered through competitive intelligence to try to determine how your competitor’s weaknesses can become your strengths.
Source: Canadaone – Michelle Collins