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The problem with best practices
On 29, Jun 2005 | In Uncategorized | By Marcia K
When reviewing the guidelines for new projects, it’s amazing how many times the catch phrase “best practices” creeps into the text. The problem with best practices is this: That approach lulls people into thinking that a best practice really exists that can be successfully transplanted? When you import best practices, the team’s thinking immediately focuses on *how* to do the work, rather than first addressing *what* should be done and *why.* If you start with a predetermined solution, it’s easy to gloss over more innovative approaches?Ķ One company’s best practice can too easily become another company’s sunk cost.” Not only that, but the most successful change comes from within — people rarely respond well to …
The demise of social networking sites
On 16, Jun 2005 | In Social Media, Uncategorized | By Marcia K
CNET section editor Molly Wood says, “The word on the street lately is that social networking is in trouble.” Friendster CEO Scott Sassa recently left in the wake of a rapidly declining user base, and the launch of the Yahoo 360 beta has bloggers predicting Friendster’s ultimate demise. Meanwhile, business networking site LinkedIn has begun charging for its job listings—a sure sign the bottom line needs boosting. Wood lists five problems that she thinks are contributing to the phenomenon’s decline: There’s nothing to do at the site once you get there. It takes too much time, and there are too many other things you could be checking out instead. Social networking sites are conglomerates, whereas …
Do-it-yourself Entrepreneurship
On 16, Jun 2005 | In Uncategorized | By Marcia K
It used to be that creative types with a good idea had to shop it around to big corporations, hoping to land a deal and “sell out.” But a number of factors are converging today that give do-it-yourselfers new capabilities to go it alone. “Before, only the rich had access to tools and so only the rich were professionals, and the rest were amateurs,” says Noah Glass, co-founder of podcasting firm Odeo. “But now, as the creation tools have become easier to use and more freely distributed through open source, through the Internet, through awareness, more people have more access to more tools, so the whole amateur-professional dichotomy is dissolving.” Tools like cheap computer-aided-design (CAD) …
Build a Knowledge Base of Best Practices
On 07, Jun 2005 | In Uncategorized | By Marcia K
Be open and honest about what works and what doesn’t Some people don’t like the term “test-and-learn” because this makes it sound like the experts in the marketing department aren’t so expert after all. Actually, nothing could be farther from the truth. More and more, marketing is becoming a science. And as scientists, it makes sense to build experimentation into what we do. Some tests are fielded to validate what we think we know about customer behavior, others because we don’t know how specific customers will respond when presented with a particular message, offer, or value proposition. What is critical is to build a knowledge base of the learning accumulated through testing and make that …
Customers increasingly rely on purchasing advice from fellow consumers they don’t personally know
On 06, Jun 2005 | In Uncategorized | By Marcia K
While we hate the name the editors at Trendwatching assigned to the trend – TWINSUMER sounds like something the Olsen twins would sport on their ever so thin wrists! – the write up of this trend is well worth reading. They define the trend like so: consumers looking for items that are most relevant for them increasingly don’t rely on traditional press or editorial reviews nor on just any word of mouth but are going out of their way to seek out their taste ‘twins’; fellow consumers who are likeminded in that they think, react, enjoy and consume the way they do. In the write up they discuss advances in collaborative filtering technology and how …
Types of Statistical Analysis used for Marketing Analytics
On 02, Jun 2005 | In Uncategorized | By Marcia K
Multi-variate modelsIdentifies the relationship between a group of explanatory variables (eg, billing, call center operations, on-site service or employee performance) and the variable of interest (eg, profitability by customer segment) Market segmentation Divides the market into groups that are like-minded enough that all customers in a given segment can be marketed to as if they were a single entity. The methodology of choice for segmentation is cluster analysis or discriminate analysis. Conjoint and discrete-choice models Models customer choice behavior or the trade-offs customers will make between different product features, including price Structural-equation models A powerful, visually represented, multivariate analysis technique that combines factor analysis and regression to study direct and indirect relationships between variables of …
Finally a decent marketing blog!
On 02, Jun 2005 | In Uncategorized | By Marcia K
From an actual practioner, that is someone who works in a corporation and spends their time doing marketing for a living. I for one was beginning to give up hope! Here’s the URL from a guy named Sam Decker who works at Dell. Even more impressive … people actually leave comments on his blog. Most of the marketing blogs out there don’t seem to solicit any response at all, ours included. Of course this may be a function of the size of the Dell marketing community, which has the critical mass to get and keep a conversation going. See especially this entry on Six Sigma and its applications to Marketing.
Getting Real
On 01, Jun 2005 | In Uncategorized | By Marcia K
As a result of these trends, it is no longer possible to place television ads on the major networks in prime time and automatically reach 50% of households in the US. Like it or not, marketing is no longer about mass media but about precision targeting. And some targets are becoming almost impossible to reach. An example is young men age 18-34 who are becoming hard to reach using traditional media including not just television but also newspapers and magazines.5 While these trends are real, advertisers and ad agencies are reluctant to face reality. The vast majority of marketing dollars continue to be spent on brand advertising in general and on television advertising in particular. …
