For companies it is a very important step to define the marketing objectives as it helps create a path for all marketing plans going forward. Companies will need to decide what result they want their marketing objective to help achieve. Some examples for marketing objectives are:
-Increase revenue
-Drive traffic to website
-Increase brand awareness
-Increase customer interaction

Companies will want to use marketing objectives as it allows them to focus on a goal (for example Increase Brand Awareness) and make sure that their marketing drives towards that goal. With the goal of increasing brand awareness the company knows the goal it wishes to achieve and now will plan different marketing activities to push towards that goal.

With this goal in mind, the company will want to look at how they can plan out the marketing ideas to strive towards this goal. They could look to increase social media posts and interactions with consumers. They could look to sponsor athletes, events, and other public things in order to increase the brand awareness.

As with any marketing activity, it is important to watch out for any legal or ethical issues. One major thing to always watch for is transparency with consumers about any practices your business partakes in. It is also important to protect consumer data and be transparent on what the company is using the data for. Companies will also want to be aware of any Federal trade commission laws and regulations.

It will be vitally important to the success of marketing the Go Low Nike Spikeless golf shoe to identify the target market for the product. There are a few different ways to help identify the target market for the new product.

With Nike being an established company, we can look to use Google analytics to view who visits the website. Using the analytics we could see which type of customers look at the golf related pages on the website. This will give us a great idea of who we should target as they are already going to the pages where our product will be located. Google analytics will allow us to see the age range, location and other vital information so that we can properly market the new golf shoe.

Another great way to find the target market would be through direct interaction with possible consumers. By utilizing social media we could look to post interactive posts and see how customers respond. This could include surveys, polls or other such ways to find out who may be likely to purchase the new golf shoe. These posts could also feature sponsored athletes wearing the product and look to see what type of reaction we get from the post comments. In addition, we could send surveys to past golf customers and get their feedback on the new product and what designs, colors, features they may want to see for current or future versions of the golf shoe.

In today’s World it is very important to stay up to date on all trends that are happening with data analytics. In looking at new trends for 2022 there are a few that stick out and should be watched.

In looking at the article “Top 6 trends in data analytics for 2022” by Kumar Goswami, the trend of “right data” over “Big data” will be something to watch. This means the effort to find the “right data” to analyze versus collecting too much data and just having “big data”. This is important as having right data will allow time and effort to be saved while analyzing data. While businesses will still want to collect a lot of data, it will be worth the effort to focus on the “right data” (Goswami, 2021).

This trend is very important as it is a change of how to collect and analyze data. Most companies collect every piece of data they can on users. This is considered “big data”and while it is not a bad practice, the massive amount of data can be very overwhelming and take a large amount of time and effort to decipher and analyze all the data. If companies are able to focus on the “right data” versus just “big data” it will allow them to more effective.

In my opinion this is a very important trend to watch and follow. Being able to focus on the “right data” and analyze that data before other data allows for less time and money to be spent for data analyzation. Having too much data can be a bad thing as it clouds the vision of the data as there is just too much to focus on. Being able to add clarity to the data analyzation will allow more effective results and better business decisions.

References:

Goswami, K. (2021, December 24). Top 6 trends in Data Analytics for 2022. Dataconomy. Retrieved February 27, 2022, from https://dataconomy.com/2021/12/top-6-trends-data-analytics-2022/ 

In the digital marketing world creating successful marketing campaigns does not end once the campaign launches. In fact, once the campaign launches the next part is just as important. When the campaign launches it is very important to identify Key Performance Indicators (KPI) that you want to watch and to define some KPI goals you want your campaign to hit.

As mentioned, it is very important to identify KPI’s that align with your company’s goals. It would be a waste of time to focus on online sales if your company did not have an online ordering system. This means you need to establish which KPI’s align with your campaign and goals. In order to do this you need to establish what your campaign is trying to do. For example is your campaign trying to sell products? Increase website visits? Drive people to your Social Media?

Let’s look at how KPI’s can be used for a marketing campaign. If Company A creates a marketing campaign that includes using their Social Media accounts to drive traffic to their website and specific pages on their website, we need to establish what KPI’s are best to look at. Once great way this can be done is using Google Analytics and focusing on specific things. In this example Company A will want to look at the following 3 things:

Click-Through Rate (CTR): This is a great analytic to focus on and see how many users are clicking links listed in Google ads, Social Posts, Social profiles. This KPI is a great way to see how effective your campaign is. If your main goal is to have the user click the link to get to your website you will want a high CTR % showing that users are in fact clicking the link. If your CTR% is low, you will need to examine your campaign and see why users are not clicking the link. Is your link broken? Is it hidden? Is it confusing? (CTR, 2021).

Bounce Rate: This is another great KPI to focus on. Bounce rate “indicates the percentage of visitors that come to the site and leave versus those who come and view multiple pages” (Bounce rate, 2021). What this means is of the users who click your link and visit your website, how many stay on the site versus leaving right after they visit. If your goal is to have users visit multiple pages on your website then you want a low bounce rate as you want users to stay on your site. If you have a high bounce rate you need to see if it is ok given the landing page. For example, if your campaign is about driving users to a specific page on your site and you only care that they are seeing that one page then a high bounce rate is ok. If your goal is to have them visit multiple pages then a high bounce rate means that either the wrong users are seeing the campaign, the webpage/site is confusing.

Acquisitions: This is a great section to pay attention to as this will show you where users are coming from. This would be a great KPI for Company A to watch as it will show if the campaign is successful. If they are running the campaign on Social media and they notice most web traffic is coming from another source then they can look into why users aren’t visiting the site from the social posts. This is a good way to make sure campaigns are effective and to make sure money is not being wasted if users are not finding the site through the sources you are putting the money into.

Refrences:

Bounce Rate. (2022, January 21). Bounce rate. Corporate Finance Institute. Retrieved January 23, 2022, from https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/knowledge/other/bounce-rate/ 

CTR. (2022, January 21). Click-through rate (CTR). Corporate Finance Institute. Retrieved January 23, 2022, from https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/knowledge/ecommerce-saas/click-through-rate-ctr/

When looking at how successful companies auction, one key similarity is they aim to prevent organizational silos which limit the sharing of information. When companies do not effectively communicate what is going on, it causes numerous issues. These issues can be everything from product issues, sales issues to larger financial issues. In order to prevent these silos, companies can implement a hub and spoke model.

The hub and spoke method is set up so there is a center where information is shared between departments. This hub can include senior members who report up to the CEO keeping them as well as all other departments updated on what is going on. Off of the hub are spokes. These spokes can be departments, projects or any other groups. While having the hub and spokes is important, there are other key things that make sure things are successful.

One important thing is to make sure departments are sharing information so they are working together and not against each other. One way this can be achieved is if members of the departments are placed with other departments. For example, if you place an analytics analyst within the marketing department this can help the business understand what is blocking the marketing efforts as well as creating different reports, benchmarks and help optimize the efforts (Jackson, 2016).

For marketers, it is very important to consider other departments when developing digital marketing campaigns. The reason it is so important is to ensure that goals are shared and efforts are not going against each other. For example, if a company is using the hub and spoke method and the sales and marketing teams are communicating, then it may be found the sales team wants to promote a new product. This would be communicated to the marketing team where they can start creating a new digital marketing campaign to best support the sales team. Through this, the company can move as one and have multiple departments working together to achieve the larger goal.

While it is great for the departments to communicate to get the campaign going, it is also important that the departments communicate as the campaign is going on. This means the analytics team needs to share results of the campaign as it is going on to make sure the marketing team knows if they need to adjust anything (things such as key words, landing pages, social media posts, etc). It also will allow the sales team to know if they need to adjust anything on their end.

In conclusion, by making sure communication is happening across departments it will help ensure information silos do not occur and the company can successfully function.

References:

Jackson, S. (2016). Cult of Analytics: Data Analytics for marketing. Routledge. 

The world of digital advertising is forever changing. Changes in technology, consumer trends, and consumer habits all impact how marketers need to advertise. Three examples of changes that may impact the digital landscape are Virtual Reality (VR), voice Artificial Intelligence, and Social Media.

Virtual Reality (VR) has been around for a very long time, but did not become widely seen until the 1990’s. In 1993, SEGA announced their VR glasses which was one of the first attempts at a consumer VR product. Unfortunately, the SEGA VR glasses had issues and never made it to mainstream development. The first real look at a World with VR was in 1999 when The Matrix came out. Years later in 2007 Google introduced “Street view” which allowed users to see locations in 3D. By 2012 Oculus came out and was finally a successful consumer product for VR . Since then more companies have created VR headsets for consumers (Virtual Reality Society, 2020).

With the rise of VR, virtual events are becoming more popular. Due to the pandemic and cancellation of in person events, virtual events have become a large topic of conversation. More and more people work from home and now use different types of virtual technology to attend meetings or interact with co workers. Large scale events are working on technology where users can wear VR headsets and feel like they are actually at the event. With the interest in these VR events, there are opportunities for digital advertisements in the virtual arenas, theaters, cities, or other locations these events take place (Hecks, 2021). Soon you could see your business or product advertised on a virtual billboard, or many other places in a virtual world.

Another trend that could change digital advertising is Voice Artificial Intelligence. This would refer to the AI in Google home devices, Alexa, and Siri. More and more people have one of these products in their home. In a Keynote by Gary Vaynerchuk he mentions that voice AI will be the next big this as consumers are looking for quicker more convienient ways to do things. Soon everything you can do on your smartphone you will be able to do through voice AI on Google, Alexa or Siri (Vaynerchuk, 2019). This use of AI will force marketers to find a way to advertise on these products. The world of AI is increasing and soon enough tasks will be handled through AI versus a person physically going to a website or browsing a store (Brown, 2021). Through this new technology digital advertisers would need to find ways to get ads or products into the voice AI landscape.

Lastly, social media is an ever changing product that will cause marketers to need to change digital advertising. Not too long ago Myspace was the dominate social media platform. In the blink of an eye Myspace was gone and Facebook has dominated ever since. With the constant change Social media platforms will come and go. Looking back 10 years no one thought an app that had posts that vanish after 24 hours would be successful. Today, 10 years later Snapchat is one of the most popular platforms. Consumers are always looking for the next big platform so digital advertising needs to be fluid and adjust to the changes. Marketers may need to move advertisements from Facebook and spend more money and ad space in TikTok or Twitter or some social network that hasn’t even been created yet (Forsey, 2021).

References:

Brown, A. (2021, August 8). Voice AI technology is more advanced than you might think. Forbes. Retrieved December 3, 2021, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/anniebrown/2021/08/08/voice-ai-technology-is-more-advanced-than-you-might-think/?sh=4f66f1839d3b

Forsey, C. (2021, November 30). 10 social media trends marketers should watch in 2022 [data + expert tips]. HubSpot Blog. Retrieved December 3, 2021, from https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/social-media-predictions-2017. 

Hecks, E. (2021, August 17). VR trends you should expect to see in 2021. The Glimpse Group. Retrieved December 3, 2021, from https://www.theglimpsegroup.com/vr-trends-you-should-expect-to-see-in-2021/. 

Vaynerchuk, G. (2019, July 5). How voice AI will impact business decisions in … – youtube. Retrieved December 3, 2021, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ym7UymLvZo. 

Virtual Reality Society. (2020, January 2). History of virtual reality. Virtual Reality Society. Retrieved December 3, 2021, from https://www.vrs.org.uk/virtual-reality/history.html. 

In the world of marketing it is very important to make sure you are abiding by laws and producing ethical marketing practices. If a company produces unethical or illegal marketing this can be very harmful to the company’s brand causing a poor image or even lawsuits.

One example of this is BMW and the use of doorway pages. In 2006 BMW was looking to improve its German website’s ranking through car related key words such as “used cars”. This was all fine and good, but BMW made a huge mistake on how they were boosting these keywords. BMW used doorway pages in order to inflate inbound links and increase their ranking for competitive keywords(Devaney, 2017). Doorway pages are “A page made specifically to rank well in search engines for particular keywords, serving as an entry point through which visitors pass to the main content (Doorway Pages, 2021)”. These doorway pages are looked down upon as they are only created to help boost keyword ranking as the page redirects users to the home page. In this case, these doorway pages redirected users to the BMW.DE page. Google was not impressed with this and blacklisted BMW.DE and gave them a page ranking of 0. This is a huge penalty as a 0 page rank means it will not be one of the top search results.

Another example of Unethical SEO practices is the use of rank boosting links. In 2011, Overstock.com was caught using link boosting. Overstock.com was encouraging Colleges and Universities to put their links on their websites in exchange for faculty and student discounts. Google typically sees .EDU sites highly and typically they rank high for searches. So in Overstock’s eyes, these links on educational websites would help them rank for different keywords. In regards to the issue, this causes messy results and Google does not like this. Google penalized Overstock with fines, which was one of the reasons Overstock.com’s revenue dropped $1.05 Billion in 2011 (Devaney,2017).

Ethical marketing is important and beneficial as it shows the customer that your company is truthful and not trying to hide anything. Consumers want to make sure they know exactly what website they are going to, what they are looking at and that their information if they visit or purchase anything is protected. By engaging in ethical practices consumers will trust your brand and be more likely to visit your site and in the end visit your location or purchase products/services from you.

References:

Devaney, Erik. “The Biggest SEO Blunders of All Time.” Hubspot Blog, 1 Feb. 2017, https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/biggest-seo-blunders

Doorway Pages. “What Is a Doorway Page? – Definition & Information.” Marketing Terms, 6 Oct. 2021, https://www.marketingterms.com/dictionary/doorway_page/. 

In today’s world companies are looking for every way they can to get their business out to potential customers. One major way companies are found is through search engines. Just take a minute to think of how many things you “google” on a daily basis. When we do not know something or are looking for something Google is usually our first stop. Companies also know this and that is why SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and SEM (Search Engine Marketing) is so important.

SEO is something all companies look to increase as the more visible their company is the more likely customers will find them. Search engine optimization refers to where the company falls in the search results. As we know, when we use Google and search a key word, many different results come up. Search Engine Optimization determines which companies show first. For example if you were to search “Sporting Goods” why does Dick’s Sporting Goods come up before Bob’s sporting goods? This would be due to search engine optimization and other factors which will de discussed later.

Organic search strategies refer to when a company does different free things to try and boost their SEO. This would include things such as website optimization, creating different content (blogs, videos, etc), Select keywords, use keywords in website content. These are all ways to organically help your SEO. While free options are great, especially for small businesses, there are cons to the organic approach. While Google is an amazing search engine, they change their algorithms quite often so what works one week may not work the next when it comes to how searches work. SEO also takes a while to get going, typically at least 6 months to see results. This means you will not see any immediate results. The last and probably most important con is that SEO can be complicated and sometimes hard to do correctly (McGinley, 2021).

Paid strategies are part of SEM and include things like paid ads or PPC (pay per click). By using paid strategies it will increase your visibility when someone searches for one of your selected key words. For example, a small sporting goods store could use a paid ad to appear at the top of the search results when someone searches “sporting goods”. Costs for these ads vary greatly. PPC ads are used by companies where the company pays each time a customer clicks on the link (you will see these at the top of Google search results with Ad then the website). The paid options has many pros such as quick results, your company appearing before organic rankings, as well as the ability to target specific customers. While there are pros to paid strategies, the cons may outweigh them depending on your business. Cons include the sometimes high cost to ads, lower profits due to having to spend money to gain customers, and if you run the same ad to long it may be overlooked by customers (McGinley, 2021).

In conclusion both options can be very valuable to companies. For most companies a mix of both will help your business gain customers and website traffic. It is important to remember that you need SEO as a stable base so you do not have to consistently run ads in order to gain customers. Making sure you have an effective website, create content and adjust keywords when needed you will be able to work towards your goal of great SEO.

References:

McGinley, C. (2021, June 24). SEO vs. ppc: When to optimize and when to pay for traffic. HubSpot Blog. Retrieved September 12, 2021, from https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/tabid/6307/bid/1514/paid-search-vs-organic-search.aspx

While mobile marketing is a very effective strategy for companies, it is very important to understand the ethical and legal aspects of this type of marketing. An example of a company violating mobile marketing law was AT&T when they were in violation of “mobile cramming”. Mobile cramming is “A modern version of a long-time scam in which consumers’ phone bills are used as a vehicle for unauthorized charges placed by third parties (FTC, 2019).” In this case, AT&T added third party charges to customer’s bills without their permission.

Consumers in the AT&T situation had third party charges of typically $9.99 each month. This created a bad experience for the AT&T customer as they were taken advantage of and charged money for things they were unaware of. In total more than 300,000 AT&T customers will be receiving compensation from the $88 Million refund that AT&T was ordered to return to customers. Each customer would be receiving around $31 (Katz, 2019).

Another example of mobile marketing legal issues was with Papa Johns in 2010. Papa Johns faced a $250 Million dollar lawsuit for sending unwanted text messages to customers. It was found that customer’s were getting 15-16 text messages in a row even during the night (Smith, 2012).

When marketers violate mobile marketing laws typically companies can face step penalties such as fines. In the At&T example, the company faced a $105 Million dollar fine for the mobile cramming issue (Mamiit,2016). For larger companies, such as AT&T, these types of fines are financially tough, but the company can recover. For smaller companies a fine like this could destroy the company and cause the company to fold or go bankrupt.

Companies will want to do certain things to make sure they remain ethical. First, it is important to give customers a choice on if they want to receive marketing materials such as emails or text messages. It is also important that the company remain transparent on what information they are collecting from the customer. Lastly, it is very important companies protect the information they are collecting from their customers. Companies need to do all they can to protect the customer’s information and prevent data breaches (Roesler, 2021).

References:

FTC. (2019, August 22). Mobile cramming. Retrieved April 11, 2021, from https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/media-resources/mobile-technology/mobile-cramming

Katz, M. (2019, May 23). FTC providing OVER $88 million in refunds to AT&T customers who were subjected to Mobile cramming. Retrieved April 11, 2021, from https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2016/12/ftc-providing-over-88-million-refunds-att-customers-who-were

Mamiit, A. (2016, December 09). AT&T to Refund $88 million to customers in Mobile Cramming settlement With FTC. Retrieved April 11, 2021, from https://www.techtimes.com/articles/188300/20161209/at-t-to-refund-88-million-to-customers-in-mobile-cramming-settlement-with-ftc.htm

Roesler, P. (2021). Three legal issues to keep in mind with mobile marketing. Retrieved April 11, 2021, from https://www.webmarketingpros.com/three-legal-issues-to-keep-in-mind-with-mobile-marketing/

Smith, O. (2012, November 13). Papa John’s FACES $250 million SPAM LAWSUIT. Retrieved April 11, 2021, from https://money.cnn.com/2012/11/13/technology/mobile/papa-johns/

When you think of your daily life and the technology you use, I can guarantee the first device you list is your cell phone. After your cell phone there is a good chance that you name a tablet (iPad, Surface etc). Why is this such a big deal to marketers? Well you see, as of 2020 there are 3.8 Billion smartphone users Worldwide (O’Dea, 2020). In the marketing world, this means that we have the opportunity to reach 3.8 Billion people through mobile marketing.

Now some of you may think why is this such an important fact? Well, it was found that TV viewing has been dramatically dropping off over the last 10 years. Almost half of Millennials and Gen X have ditched the normal TV services and instead have subscribed to streaming platforms such as Hulu and Netflix. Some even go strictly with watching things on free platforms such as YouTube (Pensworth, 2020). Due to this, these consumers are not reached with traditional TV marketing and instead need to be reached with a different form of marketing, so this is where mobile marketing comes in.

By targeting these mobile devices and streaming services, marketers can now reach these previously “untouchable” consumers. By targeting select demographics and using online habits, marketers can better target the appropriate consumers and have a better ROI. These ads are placed on social networks, streaming services and YouTube videos. For example if you recently searched “Apple headphones” in Google and then while scrolling Facebook you see ads for Apple AirPods you can thank Mobile Marketing. These targeted ads can lead consumers to look at selected products, go to company websites and even make purchases.

While this trend of marketing seems like an easy solution and a no brainer, there are constraints and limitations that occur. One of the largest ones is the mobile user themselves. While doing things on our mobile devices may be very natural to most, there are still consumers who are not technologically savvy and struggle with such devices. For marketers, it would be necessary to make websites user friendly and any ads or interactive marketing techniques (such as SMS or interactive ads) very clear and precise (Anderson, 2017).

Another constraint is the actual impact to the consumer. Consumers are flooded with ads from companies and it is very important to create mobile marketing campaigns that are targeted at the right consumer so they take the appropriate action. These actions can include visiting a website, downloading an app, purchasing a product or sharing information. By using the data available to companies it is very important to select the appropriate consumers to target rather than targeting everyone the same way.

One of the largest constraints is that of User Privacy. With so much information being shared with companies, users truly want to make sure their information is protected. It is very important for companies to disclose what data will be collected and how it will be used. It is also important to inform consumers on the protections the company will use to guard the consumer’s sensitive data (Tode, 2021).

References:

Anderson, G. O. (2017, December 1). Technology Use and Attitudes among Mid-Life and Older Americans. Retrieved March 13, 2021, from https://www.aarp.org/content/dam/aarp/research/surveys_statistics/technology/info-2018/atom-nov-2017-tech-module.doi.10.26419%252Fres.00210.001.pdf

O’Dea, S. (2020, December 10). Smartphone users 2020. Retrieved March 14, 2021, from https://www.statista.com/statistics/330695/number-of-smartphone-users-worldwide/

Pensworth, L. (2020, February 18). Why digital media is KILLING tv advertising. Retrieved March 14, 2021, from https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/why-digital-media-is-killing-tv-advertising

Tode, C. (2021). 5 legal issues that could impede MOBILE marketing’s progress. Retrieved March 14, 2021, from https://www.marketingdive.com/ex/mobilemarketer/cms/news/legal-privacy/10035.html