Week 4...Creating a Marketing Plan

http://www.slideshare.net/lauracapes/building-blocks-for-marketing-success

The slide show that I found on slideshare on the link above agreed with some of the information provided in our week 4 course materials.  This slide show breaks down the importance of having a marketing plan and the steps to complete it similar to some of the examples in "Creating a Social Marketing Plan" slide show in our materials.  I agree with a lot of the ideas and points from both of these, it seems to me that you have to have a clear and set plan that way you can achieve your marketing goal, which would disagree with the other example about not needing a marketing plan.  For something as important as setting up marketing goals and developing your target audience and going after new customers as well as retaining old ones should require some kind of a plan and not a "go with the flow" type of attitude.  

Two suggestions for the Marketing Plan Project Format would be to have a brand strategy and also find a way to measure loyalty.  While doing research and going over the material for this weeks assignments I discovered that one important thing you need in your marketing plan is to have a brand strategy.  What this basically means to understand who you and to clarify your purpose and you can do that by coming up with a clear vision statement.  Many of the leading companies now have a vision statement, I worked for AT&T for four years and our company statement was connecting people with their world, everywhere they live and work and do it better than anyone else.  With this vision statement AT&T promised to lead the way in smart phone technology and many other aspects of the wireless industry.  Another example is Burger King and their "BK have it your way" slogan.  A simple vision statement can set the tone for the whole company so I think it is import to have this be in the format for our project.  Also being able to measure loyalty is important, not just the loyalty of customers but also loyalty of employees.  Unhappy employees lead to an unproductive workplace.  So to have a well oiled machine its important to make sure everything is running smoothly within.  I believe this too would be a good addition into our format.  

Since we're crowdsourcing our ideas this week about the project, I believe it's a good idea to ask the class for our feedback because after all we are the ones who are going to be doing the project.  However I think that using a different business besides the LCCC Business Division would be a better idea.  I think something a little more random would be a better fit for this project.  Such as a creating a business plan for a lawn and garden business or a pet grooming business.  I think something like this would give us a greater opportunity to get creative with the project.

Marshal Mcluhan takes a look into the future...

I learned a lot of interesting things this week about a man that I knew nothing about.  Marshal McLuhan was very advanced for his time and even predicted what would happen with our Social Media today and how we would communicate with one another.  This relates a lot to different things that we have learned so far this year.  We are constantly talking about facebook and other Social Media sites that have changed our lives, but we never really break it down into figuring out how it actually changes our lives like the way McLuhan does with his tetrad theory.  With the tetrad theory we need to actually take a look into enhancement, obsolescence, retrieval and reversal that comes into play with our everyday social networking sites such as facebook or twitter.  What does it actually do for us?  What is it replacing?  All these questions are things we never really take a look at.  It's funny now after reading more into McLuhan's revolations that I realize how much of this I've already seen in the short time I've been alive.  I remember when we used to use ICQ and AOL instant messenger as forms of communications and now those are things of the past.  Kids now a days have probably never even heard of AOL let alone AOL instant messenger.  It's funny how right on que McLuhan was because the introduction of AOL instant messenger into my life took me from using my home phone (which is almost obselete) to communicate to instead coming home and immediately jumping on my computer to instant message my friends that I just left school with not even 30 minutes priar.  It's funny to me how I never took any notice to this cycle that McLuhan predicted long before the technology ever existed.  For me AOL replaced phone calls, then myspace replaced AOL, then facebook replaced myspace.  All of these have slowly replaced and altered the way we communicate to other people.  His theory easily applies to Social Media Marketing as well.  We used to rely on news papers for advertising and now they're becoming a thing of the past.  People read more online news papers then actually picking up a good old paper hot of the press and taking the time to read it.  It seems that pop ups or ads on websites are the new form of news paper advertising.  People don't sit around and take time to read the morning paper anymore, instead we get automatic updates to the email on or iphones or ipads, which someday not to far away will be replaced by something more advanced.  It seems to me like its a never ending cycle.

http://www.newinfluencer.com/mediapedia/marshall-mcluhan/

http://www.marshallmcluhanspeaks.com/prophecies/1968-the-future-of-the-future-is-the-present.php

http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/innis-mcluhan/030003-2030-e.html

Social Media Marketing...the do's and don'ts

Is Social Media Marketing really effective?  The clear answer to this question is yes!  Even simply based on the responses from the interviews Mike did for this weeks assignment it seems pretty hands down when it comes to everyone's feelings about the effectiveness of using sites like facebook, twitter, and google+.  It seems like a clear consensus that most of the class feels the same way and in a lot of the blogs I read many other classmates also shared experiences on how social media marketing is in their lives and how it impacts them.  To me it seemed as though there were several reoccurring themes that seemed to pop up while reading the interviews as well as my research online...these include target your audience, make that personal connection, manage your time wisely, don't waste your time on sites that aren't going to do anything for you and measure your results to gage what's really working for you.


Do Do Do Do Do's...


*Find your target audience and stick with them.  If you target people who you know will enjoy your product then spend time keeping the customers you already have. 


*Practice proper time management.  If you pick a few specific sites to reach your client base then you'll be able to dedicate the proper amount of time to those instead of trying to put yourself out there on every social media and marketing sites and keep up with them.  In Mike's interviews Sally Whitwell said, "It does take a constant time commitment to make it effective."  In another interview David Gutowski had a very similar view on the subject, "Social media can be a time sink, especially Twitter and Facebook. Focus is important, or you can get lost in the details."


*Keep the people involved!  It's very important to have personal interaction that way your customers can feel like they're looked as an individual and not a number.  Coming up with ways to let fans rate things like new songs for artist or new flavors for coffee houses helps keep your customers feeling like their opinions really do matter.


*Keep track of your results.  Sites like google+ let you keep track of site hits and these things are an important way to find out if what you're doing is actually working.

Dont's...


*Don't waste your time with Myspace, that ship has long sailed.  Staying up to date on sites like facebook and twitter can be a full time job, so don't waste time on sites that aren't going to get you anywhere such as Myspace.  David Gutowski even said, "I have given up on MySpace. I generate almost no traffic from the site, and even at the height of its popularity the user interface didn't engender traffic or interaction."  It's very important to utilize the sites that are going to get the most traffic.




http://www.clickz.com/clickz/column/1733635/ways-make-your-social-media-marketing-work-harder


http://everythingpublicrelations.com/how-to-create-an-effective-social-media-marketing-plan


http://www.socialmediaexplorer.com/social-media-marketing/the-anatomy-of-a-social-media-policy/


http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2008/02/19/what-makes-a-marketing-campaign-on-social-networks-successful/