Fragmented New-Age Marketing

Fragmented New-Age Marketing

In recent times, the media has become increasingly fragmented with several hundred television and radio channels, as well as a large variety of print media, including newspapers, magazines, and trade publications.

Moreover, since the late 1990s, with the increased popularity of the internet and, more recently, smartphones, many options now exist for advertisers to reach a global audience using digital media marketing methods such as mobile phone apps, Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, QR codes, gamification, and proximity marketing.

With all of these options, many marketers find it beneficial to use an integrated approach to marketing by leveraging the strengths of various types of media. Companies must evaluate all media in terms of who the target audience is and what media resonates with them best. In many cases, assumptions will need to be made and incorporated into the media-testing framework.

It is a fact that people now spend more time on the internet using smartphones, tablets, or computers than they spend through conventional mass media, such as television, radio, or newspapers. This is especially true for the thirty-year-old and younger market segment. Since Sales and Marketing is most successful when it meets the demands of consumers, this change in consumer preferences is significantly altering the Sales and Marketing landscape for established companies.

Businesses are discovering that conventional mass media marketing has limited effectiveness and some customer segments are not even reachable using these traditional media forms. Fragmented new-age marketing generally supports new, small brands with much smaller budgets targeted directly to customers in a global marketplace. This represents a significant distinction from conventional mass media marketing, where achieving a global reach for a small company may have been prohibitively expensive.

While mass media marketing is less targeted and primarily focused on affecting emotional attitudes about the brand, new-age marketing is data-driven and more focused on driving specific calls to action.

Also, while mass media marketing typically involves interruption, new-age marketing is about engagement. Unlike older media options where Sales and Marketing communications were primarily uni-directional, communications have increasingly become multi-directional.

Although generally a benefit to both producers and consumers, this trend can make brand management challenging for companies if actual or potential customers perceive that a product does not reflect the brand message intended by marketing efforts.

Due to the nature of new-age marketing, consisting of multiple media forms and the ability to generate significant information, huge amounts of data commonly referred to as big data are now available to companies. The ability to process this data through proper marketing analytic, and assimilate such data to generate valuable insights, can become a significant differentiator for ensuring that companies engage in smart marketing.

http://www.smstudy.com/Article/Fragmented-New-Age-Marketing

Porters Five Forces Model for Evaluating Industry Attractiveness

Porters Five Forces Model for Evaluating Industry Attractiveness

Porter’s Five Forces model is used to analyze the long-term attractiveness of an industry. Understanding the interaction of these forces with the existing competing organizations helps explain the differences in profitability amongst industries. It also helps a company decide whether or not to enter an industry. If a company already has a presence in a particular industry, then using this model enables strategies that achieve and maintain profitability. A company should be capable of applying its core competencies, business model, or channel network to achieve a competitive advantage in its industry.

Let’s study these five forces one by one:

Threat of New Entrants

New entrants in an industry increase the level of competition as existing players try to defend their market share against them. The higher the threat of new entrants, the lower the attractiveness of an industry. Highly profitable markets tend to attract many new players. However, for new entrants to an industry where established players are taking advantage of economies of scale and high product differentiation, several additional obstacles make entering the industry unattractive, including high upfront investment requirements and the time and cost of establishing distribution channels.

Threat of Substitutes

Substitutes are those products or service that meet the same need as another product but which belong to different industries or product categories. Substitutes provide consumers with choice in industries where demand exceeds supply and, as a result, limit profitability within the industry. If substitutes offer equal or greater benefits at a lower cost, they can make an entire industry obsolete. Conversely, factors such as high conversion costs and low value perception result in a low buyer willingness to convert, and consequently a low threat of substitutes.

Bargaining Power of Customers

Customers generally demand high product quality, low costs, quick delivery, and personalized customer support, among other things. As a result, competition is created in the industry as players in the market try to satisfy these demands. Customers use this competition to obtain the best value. Conversely, a number of factors can reduce the bargaining power of customers, for example, high cost of switching to another supplier, low number of suppliers, fragmented customer segments, lack of substitute products, and low threat of backward integration.

Bargaining Power of Suppliers

Suppliers can impact the cost of production by changing the prices of raw materials or intermediate goods. A significant increase in raw material prices can force smaller businesses or less profitable firms to exit the market, as they are not as well positioned as larger more established and more profitable firms to absorb such drastic price changes. In addition, a number of factors can result in low bargaining power of suppliers, for example, availability of low-cost substitutes, low cost of switching to another supplier, low threat of forward integration that is a situation in which a supplier directly reaches out to the end customer, and a low necessity for the supplier’s product in the organization’s final product.

Competitive Rivalry

This concept refers to the intensity of competition among existing organizations in an industry. A high degree of competition reduces industry profitability, thereby making the industry less attractive for potential new entrants. There are some factors that can result in a low level of competition, for example, high fixed costs, high level of product differentiation, high customer conversion costs, and the existence of a monopoly, duopoly, or oligopoly. 

http://www.smstudy.com/Article/Porters-Five-Forces-Model-for-Evaluating-Industry-Attractiveness

Importance of Questions During Lead Generation Process

Importance of Questions During Lead Generation Process

Questions are an effective tool for the Needs Assessment for Each Qualified Lead process. Asking questions is especially useful when the qualified lead does not have clearly stated needs.

Even in cases where requirements are documented, questions are an effective approach to gain a better understanding of the need or needs driving those requirements. Questions are also helpful in conveying a better understanding of the lead’s industry. Answers to the questions during this phase serve as inputs for designing, creating, or customizing a solution.

The questions asked during the Needs Assessment for Each Qualified Lead process are generally classified into two types:

Closed Questions - Closed questions can be answered with either a simple “yes” or “no,” or the answer may lie in a single word or phrase. Typical examples of closed questions include the following:

• Is your annual revenue above $5 million?
• Does your company use an ERP system?

Open Questions - Open questions require longer answers and cannot be answered with a “yes” or “no.” Typical examples of open questions include the following:

• What can you tell me about your current business environment?
• What can you tell me about your manufacturing process?

Needs assessment uses a combination of closed and open questions

.http://www.smstudy.com/Article/Importance-of-Questions-During-Lead-Generation-Process

Play Poker, Not Chess with VMEdu

Play Poker, Not Chess with VMEdu

How many articles on leadership include advisories to “Play Poker, Not Chess” and “Blow up the Enterprise”? Not many, and certainly not as many as this author would like. However, in a series of articles on leadership for Forbes Magazine in 2012, Alex Knapp gave these two bits of advice using episodes from the Star Trek and Star Wars franchises as source material.

Knapp used Starfleet captains James T. Kirk and Jean-Luc Picard as positive leadership examples in articles titled “Five Leadership Lessons from James T. Kirk” and “Five Leadership Lessons from Jean-Luc Picard,” respectively.  For negative examples, he visited Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi’s nemesis in an article called “Five Leadership Mistakes of the Galactic Empire.” Besides an affinity for the number five, Knapp gives an interesting twist to traits of leadership that are far from unfamiliar territory. His unique insights, dead-on applications and intriguing examples give this well-discussed topic new spirit and made reviewing some old saws interesting and enjoyable.

Giving well-discussed topics new spirit and making them both interesting and enjoyable is the challenge for all writers and educators.  While writers are more or less on their own, there is help for professional trainers and educators.

The Internet provides opportunities for new ideas and new discussions of old topics. It also simultaneously presents multitudes of people talking about these same things. Ideas, terms, and examples are bound to be repeated and repeated and repeated. The challenge for professional trainers is to keep their material fresh, relevant, and attractive. This requires knowing one’s students and this is where playing poker instead of chess comes in. Knapp writes, “For all of its intricacies, chess is a game of defined rules that can be mathematically determined. A far better analogy to strategy is poker, not chess. Life is a game of probabilities, not defined rules. And often understanding your opponents [students] is a much greater advantage than the cards you have in your hand.”

This isn’t to say that the “the cards you have in your hand” are not important; trainers and educators put most of their attention on them, and rightly so. However, in addition to knowing one’s subject matter, professional educators must share it in evocative and effective ways. And those are not the only things professional training providers must do. Each must also prepare knowledge assessments and track student progress. Aligning tests to the requirements of appropriate, associated certifications is often more than a trainer can handle. For this, the educator needs to follow the advice one learns from Jean-Luc Picard, “When you’re overwhelmed, ask for help.” 

                Knapp observes that seeking help “is a hard thing to do.” Because of this, there are organizations making it easier for professional training providers to get help, especially with tasks such as preparing and giving exams and tracking student progress. One such company is VMEdu, Inc., a leader in the professional training and certification industry that has developed a versatile course delivery platform and back office support. During the seven years it spent creating its Learning Management System (LMS), the company used it with its PMstudy and MyITstudy brands, whose students have achieved 98.7 and 99.2 percent pass rates, respectively, on professional certification exams. The LMS system helped PMstudy grow to be the largest PMP trainer worldwide and the SCRUMstudy brand to become the global accreditation body for Scrum with a network of more than 800 training partners. VMEdu now offers its platform and back office services and products to professional trainers across the globe.

For professional trainers in its VMEdu Authorized Training Partners (V.A.T.P.) and VMEdu Authorized Content Providers (V.A.C.P.) programs, it also develops apps designed to generate additional leads, provide immediate feedback on courses and lessons and generate up-sell and cross-sell opportunities, according to VMEdu. The training apps VMEdu has already created include interactive case studies, specialized glossaries, games, flash cards and practice exams.

                Using an episode in which Captain Kirk, a 23rd century space explorer, mixes and uses gunpowder to save himself and his crew, Knapp points out that there was no need for Kirk to know this information because “Starfleet officers fight with phasers and photon torpedoes.” However, Kirk is a voracious learner and develops expertise outside of his primary field of focus. Knapp applies this to leaders saying, “In the same way, no matter what your organization does, it helps to never stop learning. The more knowledge you have, the more creative you can be. The more you’re able to do, the more solutions you have for problems at your disposal.” During World War II, General Eisenhower of the Allied command used a group of officers to increase his own knowledge base and put more solutions at his disposal.

Creating mobile apps and databases for following student progress may not be your primary area of focus, but they are two solutions for problems facing the trainer in the technological age. Knapp tells his readers that “Kirk’s reputation at the Academy was that of a ‘walking stack of books.’” Where Kirk had Starfleet Academy and General Eisenhower had his officers, today’s professional trainers have companies such as VMEdu.

Keeping one’s training fresh and interesting with unique insights, engaging mobile apps, and intriguing examples is a huge challenge, but NOT a challenge the modern professional educator must meet alone.

http://www.smstudy.com/Article/Play-Poker-Not-Chess-with-VMEdu

Dear Educational Entrepreneurs, VMEdu is Here for You!

Dear Educational Entrepreneurs, VMEdu is Here for You!

Today’s entrepreneur must be an excellent builder. Build a brand, build a website, build a customer base, build a team, etc. etc. That’s a lot of building.

Luckily, we humans (entrepreneurs included) are natural problem solvers. We promptly come up with solutions to our predicaments and the right tools quickly follow.

For educators who’ve considered the life of an educational entrepreneur but haven’t found the right tools to build their courses (or dreams), the VMEdu Authorized Content Partner (V.A.C.P.) program is here to help.

The V.A.C.P program works with educators to build courses that are professional and offer students a valuable learning experience. Becoming a VMEdu Authorized Content Partner allows you to create and upload your courses through an easy-to-use cloud interface for free.

The VMEdu Cloud Learning Management System (LMS), built and tested over a period of seven years, is one of the best tools in the adult learning field. With the VACP program, educational entrepreneurs have access to course creation tools and assistance for a fraction of the cost of in-house production. In addition, VMEdu provides assistance for those with the desire to create educational materials but find themselves a bit “rusty” in the technical skills.

Along with helping to build courses, VMEdu will design a best-in-industry mobile app for each content partner at zero-cost for Android Phones if you have over 60 minutes of videos and $250 for iPhones.

The program also offers the opportunity to sell to VMEdu’s network of more than 800 Authorized Training Partners in more than 50 [J2] countries. Specifically, courses related to sales and marketing can be sold for additional revenue through SMstudy.com, VMEdu’s comprehensive guide to sales and marketing.  

As a VMEdu Authorized Content Partner educators can manage all student operations, financials and reporting through the user-friendly V.A.C.P. portal.

With the V.A.C.P. program, the opportunity to teach and share is closer than ever. The ease of the VMEdu platform and program guarantee that you can build the educational career you want. All the tools needed are waiting at VMEdu.com.  

For more on the benefits of joining the V.A.C.P. program, visit vmedu.com.

http://www.smstudy.com/Article/Dear-Educational-Entrepreneurs-VMEdu-is-Here-for-You