Innovative Internet-Enabled Business Models

In this digital age, businesses that fail to operate online risk going offline for good.

The growing popularity of smartphones, tablets and digital media provides opportunities for a company not only to use fragmented new-age marketing effectively to promote existing products, but also to come up with innovative business models where product demo, customer acquisition and order fulfillment can take place online.

Innovative business models might include the following:

Online Marketplaces—Several e-commerce companies have created global online marketplaces for selling books, consumer goods and other products. In such business models, customer acquisition is usually initiated through the company’s website. The company coordinates with its multiple suppliers to source products; samples, demos and product reviews are provided on the website; customers make their purchases online; and items are shipped directly to customers.

Here is an example of Online Marketplaces:

• Book publishing and retail businesses, which historically gained much success using traditional business models, have been significantly affected by the advent of online marketplaces such as Amazon, eBay, Alibaba and Flipkart.

Online Services—Online services have significantly impacted many traditional product and service industries by transforming existing business models and creating new ways to conduct business.

Here are examples of Online Services:

• Global Positioning Systems (GPS) and online maps have made physical maps redundant.
• Online learning tools have gained popularity and, at times, can complement or even replace physical classroom training.

Online Networking—The Internet has made the world a smaller place. People can now access their networks at all times. These changes have significantly impacted the way in which people communicate with each other and, in turn, have created new possibilities for innovative business models.

Here is an example of Online Networking:

• Social media channels such as LinkedIn, Twitter, WhatsApp, Facebook and Google+ have significantly changed the way in which people communicate with each other.

Business Models Using Smartphones and Tablets—Smartphones and tablets are Internet-enabled devices that allow people to have an ongoing connection to the Internet. Since individuals usually carry their smartphones and tablets with them, mobile apps are becoming increasingly popular. Innovative business models based on the use of mobile devices can disrupt several existing business models—more so in industries that rely on other forms of communications and networking. 

Here are examples of Business Models Using Smartphones and Tablets:

• Social media channels such as Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn provide mobile apps that enable users to easily share photos and updates or chat with friends.
• Some mobile apps allow users to locate nearby restaurants, read reviews and also post reviews about their experiences.

In terms of business, the popularity of the Internet has fueled the “adapt or die” landscape more than ever. Business models that integrate online marketplaces, online services and online networking, and that allow for compatibility with smartphones and tablets, offer businesses excellent opportunities for sustained success.

Customer Business Outcome Evaluation

Evaluation of business outcomes is not easy. For a corporate customer, products are purchased to deliver positive business outcomes. So it is very important for the selling company to come up with a product that significantly and quantifiably brings positive business outcomes for its customer or their business. It is therefore necessary to identify quantifiable, positive business outcomes that the product can provide, to develop the sales value proposition.

A quantifiable outcome represents the tangible value of the offering to the customer. This value is typically expressed in numbers, percentages, and timeframes. In addition to this, there are also intangible outcomes. E.g. Opportunity Cost. Opportunity cost is the loss that is incurred when one option is chosen over the other. It is something that must be identified and considered in establishing the sales value proposition.

The information that the company gathers after evaluation helps it to understand the desired attributes of the offerings according to market segments. The customer business outcome evaluation documents business outcomes based on these attributes.

Another way of doing customer business outcome evaluation is by interviewing existing customers. Customers being the user of the product validate the evaluation process by their practical experience. Interviews can be conducted across different areas and positions in the customer organization to determine the impact of the offering. New, desired, business outcomes may emerge and existing business outcomes can be validated.

Internal analysis is another way to do customer evaluation. The collective sapience combined with experience of the company holds a broad overview of business outcomes from a customer’s perspective. However internal analysis must be validated by customers to escape the risk factors associated in it. Direct input provided by the customers is typically more valuable and reliable input when determining customers’ business outcomes.

Strategists evaluate investments and actions in terms of likely cost and benefit outcomes. The product offering must draw substantial improvements in client’s business in terms of customer satisfaction, service delivery etc. The seller must narrow down its focus and align sales and marketing activities around its customer. The segment specific sales attempt combined with customized offering helps develop sales value proposition.

"To learn more about Customer Business Outcome Evaluation and related analytics, visit “SMstudy.com”.

Plan B: Assessing Social Marketing Future Scenarios

No one likes to contemplate a worst-case scenario, but it is wise to have a plan B. Any digital marketing strategy should think optimistically, but preparation for future scenarios that may look very different from today’s digital marketing landscape is vital to a brand’s survival.

“Anticipated future scenarios” is an output of the Evaluate Digital Marketing Channels process and is described by SMstudy®Guide, Digital Marketing as the analysis of the most likely future changes to take place in each digital marketing channel; analysis of the potential impact of defined changes; and proposed actions. 

Assessing possible changes in future digital channels that could affect revenue, production, access to resources and so on is primary. But a thorough analysis should also take into consideration the way technologies come together to create a brand new scenario, even though most changes occur incrementally, according to Andrew Frank, analysts with Gartner for Marketing Leaders.

“When this happens, brands that anticipate these transformational scenarios will thrive; incrementalists will lose out,” Frank said.

As Frank points out, it may be tempting to want to keep a set digital marketing channel strategy, but agility and open-mindedness will benefit today’s marketing strategists. Staying on top of trends and recognizing where they converge with a company’s product or brand is also a component of future scenario assessments.

With that in mind, here are the top 2016 digital marketing trends noted by Adam Fridman, founder of MeetAdvisors, published on Inc. Dec. 1, 2015:

Data, data, data. Learn to love it.

"In short, data is behavior. Learning from this behavior drives creative messaging and strategic campaigns. Tracking behavior and tapping into the emotional connection through messaging, ads, social, and design makes all the difference in the digital space.” 

Forget the funnel. The funnel is flawed.

“There's little opportunity to share the research and buying experience which is crucial for interacting with fans and getting more people into your funnel, or ecosystem. too much work on consumers and consumers hate doing too much work.”

Test with laser-like focus. Technology now allows for deep research on target audiences. Even detailed aspects of an ad can now be picked apart and analyzed for demographic appeal.

“Targeting is a crucial aspect of any marketing strategy and by marketing directly to your ideal audience, you're effectively and efficiently spending only what's ”

Social engagement. This isn’t new, but it’s definitely continuing.

Two things to know: 1. Encourage audience participation through creative engaging campaigns and 2. Spare them the mediocre content.

"Each social channel, blog post, e-mail, web link must have a purpose and drive towards something. Never post simply to post. Without engagement or traffic, those posts are a waste of time and money.”

Expand the team. Start to think about a marketing team as more than just the marketers for a company or brand. Every “share” received through social media channels is an endorsement, each person “reposting” is an ambassador. 

“Single marketing voices only reach the people already in their networks. To break through, companies and causes will increasingly need to partner with suppliers, brand and others to reach more people, more often.”

For more interesting articles on sales and marketing, visit smstudy.com.

Photo provided courtesy of  Anoop Kumar, Flickr. Image has been cropped. https://www.flickr.com/photos/anoopkumar/

Sources:

SMstudy® Guide, Digital Marketing, pg. 63-64.

“Agenda Overview for Emerging Marketing Technology and Trends, 2015,” Andrew Frank, Dec. 18, 2014. https://www.gartner.com/imagesrv/digital marketing/pdfs/Emerging_Marketing_Technology_and_Trends.pdf

“The Future of Digital Marketing- How It’s Changing in 2016,“ Andrew Fridman, Dec. 1, 2015. http://www.inc.com/adam-fridman/the-future-of-digital-marketing-how-it-s-changing-in-2016.html

Jet Streamlining: Southwest Style

Early in the life of Southwest Airlines key success factors were identified that propelled the startup airline to become the number one domestic carrier in the United States.

For Southwest, key success factors were a commitment to efficiency in all aspects of the company and the fastest turnaround time of any airline. This allowed Southwest to log more flight time which meant more profit compared to other airlines that maintained longer ground time.

Over time Southwest has managed to keep to these simple key success factors and has seen sustained growth over its 45-year history. A true success story considering the airline industry is notoriously dicey and many run afoul and end up taking major losses or worse, bankruptcy.

Discussed in Marketing Strategy, the first book of the six-book SMstudy Guide, key success factors are one of the six components to be considered when conducting a market analysis.

The book states: Identifying key success factors helps an organization focus on existing strengths that have contributed to success and seize opportunities that can give it a competitive advantage. Such factors might include accessibility to essential resources, distribution channels, patents, operational efficiencies, technological superiority, and so on.

The other five components include: assessing distribution channels; cost structure analysis; understanding future growth rate; market trends and knowing the market size.

A thorough analysis of the airline industry allowed Southwest Airlines founder Herb Kelleher and team to clearly identify what they were up against in regards to the industry's pros and cons and where efficiencies could be incorporated to the benefit of both the company and its customers.

Sales training, not just for sales teams anymore. SMstudy is for everyone.

As companies continue the eternal pursuit of streamlining, a little bit of universal sales training can yield major benefits. Basic understanding of the aspects of the sales process is a benefit for all members of a company regardless of position or department.

Some very real advances in efficiency can be achieved when everyone speaks the same language.

Ever feel important communications get lost in translation from one branch of a company to the other? Since sales is usually a crucial element of any company, it benefits everyone to have an understanding of sales processes and its terminology.  When everyone speaks the same language, everything goes more smoothly.

According to Will Brooks, executive vice president and director of marketing at The Brooks Group, “Communication is enhanced once everyone is fluent in the selling process, when the dialogue around specific accounts and stages in the buyer’s journey becomes more efficient—both within the sales team and across departments. Congruent terminology and standard definitions of each stage in the buying process reduces miscommunication and unifies the sales and marketing departments.”

Continuity of Message = Efficiency

Another important benefit of universal sales training; the continuity of company communication, both internally and externally. A consistent informed message that permeates a company will make a stronger clearer message to potential customers. As customers are brought in to the sales cycle, they will continue to receive a consistent message that in turn leads to a seamless customer experience. 

Brooks notes, “Customer service can better understand the customer’s needs once they have received sales training, and when marketing understands the sales process, they can provide tools and resources that are aligned with how sales is selling. The promises sales makes to customers should mirror the messages that marketing sends out, and alignment between these departments ensures that’s always happening.”

SMstudy works very well for any company considering a company-wide sales training program. It’s convenient and offers flexible training opportunities that work within the timeframe of a staff members’ busy schedule. The SMstudy Guide® and all its resources, including training videos, study guides, test questions and more, is ideally positioned to provide a positive sales training experience for everyone. 

Find more interesting information on sales and marketing at smstudy.com.

Sources:

How Sales Training Can Benefit More Than the Sales Team, Will Brooks. Sept. 21, 2015. https://www.trainingindustry.com/blog/blog-entries/how-sales-training-can-benefit-more-than-the-sales-team.aspx

Marketing for a Flat World

Thomas Friedman, Pulitzer Prize-winning author made a strong case for the democratization of the global marketplace in his 2005 book, The World is Flat. Friedman named ten factors that had contributed to the leveling of the world’s economic playing field. One of the most important noted by Friedman was the advent of the Internet and its unprecedented opportunities for connection. In many ways, modern-day marketing is a microcosm of Friedman’s “flat world” where a similar “leveling” of has occurred.  

At one time (not so long ago), traditional media outlets, such as print publications and radio/TV stations received the lion’s share of all marketing dollars. They were the only game in town able to reach large swaths of potential consumers and, therefore, enjoyed a special place in the marketing hierarchy. Ad space was limited in each of these traditional marketing channels and in turn, the cost of ad space (or time) was pricey. So pricey, in fact, that it often discouraged or prevented smaller companies from participating. But, as we know, this is no longer the case.

Compare our current media “ecosystem” to 20, or even 10 years ago, and it becomes clear that as the Internet has grown, so have less expensive, more diverse channels for marketing distribution, opening up the opportunities for smaller outfits to compete with larger companies. All these new Internet-enabled marketing options that have led to the democratization of marketing can be called fragmented new age marketing.

According to SMstudy’s Digital Marketing, fragmented new age marketing supports new, small brands with much smaller budgets and it also allows for more direct targeted marketing.

The book explains that “while mass media marketing is less targeted and primarily focused on affecting emotional attitudes about the brand, new-age marketing is data-driven and focused on driving specific calls to action.”

Fragmented new age marketing allows for traditional avenues, but also includes newer channels such as websites, mobile and social media and within those categories there are numerous economical marketing options. Regardless of company size or limited budgets, there’s some form of new-age marketing that is within reach. And most likely, there’s numerous avenues available even if the budget is nearly $0. For example, online ad networks such as Google, Yahoo! Search and Microsoft AdCenter often offer promo codes that reducing their costs to as low as $25.

In addition, there are a variety of ways to approach marketing in the digital age that are not only free, but break through the limitations of traditional media and allows for greater public engagement. Many relying on creativity and a more open, responsive and organic approach such as connecting with topic bloggers or forging relationships with experts.

As author David Albert notes, “There are many ways to position yourself as an expert: guest blogging, participating on Q&A sites like Focus.com, Quora.com, LinkedIn Group Discussions, etc.”

Fragmented new age marketing recognizes that today’s marketing is, in a sense, open source, offering the ability to grow and build on marketing ideas and opportunities made possible through technology. And now with the demise of the high cost of doing business, the only limitations are the limits of the creative collective. A more democratic global “marketing-place” is here!

Sources:

"Top 10 Tactics To Marketing Your Startup Launch With $0", David Albert, Junw 2, 2014 http://www.builtinchicago.org/blog/top-10-tactics-marketing-your-product-launch-0

The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First History, Thomas Friedman. 2005

SMstudy Guide ®, Digital Marketing, Pg. 8 

The Stuff Nightmares Are Made Of... and SMstudy

Were you ever required to write a research paper in one of your classes in school?

One of our editors here at SMstudy used to be a public school English teacher. He remembers the anxiety that the traditional research paper assignment caused some of his students. They complained of stomachaches, headaches and sleep deprivation due to nightmares.

He recalls telling them that they still had to do the paper and do it on time, and they didn’t have to like it. He could have been nicer, but that was “back in the day,” and we all know how bad it was “back in the day.”

That experience is not very different from what some marketing professionals undergo when facing a marketing research project. Like the rare students that loved (cough cough) doing research papers, there are professionals who relish marketing research. Yet, a significant number of professionals prefer jumping directly to the creative aspects of getting a product or service to market without all the number crunching and bean counting that often accompanies market research.

The first obstacle our colleague’s students had to hurdle was understanding what a research paper is. That is also true for marketers. Simply put, “Marketing Research is the systematic process of collecting, processing, and analyzing data to provide required information to decision makers,” according to Digital Marketing, a book in the SMstudy Guide to the Sales and Marketing Body of Knowledge series (SMstudy® Guide). When this is understood, the marketer can begin the project.

The first step for the students was to answer the question, “Is my topic researchable?” To answer this, they had to determine if others had written about their topic and if those writings were in a form that the students could understand. Even though they are on similar topics, a doctoral level paper on the precipitation characteristics of hydrocarbon molecules in aerosols doesn’t help a high school student researching air pollution.

“In marketing research, the first step is to define the research problem and objectives of the research,” says Digital Marketing. Like the students checking to see if others had written about their subjects, the marketing professional will use background information to evaluate the research problem and move forward, “Background information puts the research objectives into context, helping the researcher understand why certain research objectives are being pursued… The background information provides hints to the researcher regarding what information he or she should be looking for and where to look for it.”

“Once the research problem is properly defined, the next step is to choose a research design that can address the problem and objectives,” says the SMstudy® Guide. Choosing a research design—“a set of guidelines or a blueprint that specifies the methods and procedures for obtaining and analyzing the required information”—involves many of the same concerns the students had determining if their topics were researchable. The marketing researcher checks to see if his or her own company, industry associations, educational research institutions, competitors or others have already compiled and published the needed research.  Using these resources, called secondary data sources, is also the least expensive method to provide appropriate and accurate information and data.

At times a marketing researcher may be faced with no previously published research. In this situation, primary research must be done and the researching team develops and utilizes tools for gaining data directly from the marketplace. These can be surveys, questionnaires, pilot programs, test marketing campaigns and many more. Primary research is more time extensive and dollar expensive than secondary research.

Not every marketing professional enjoys marketing research, and that’s why research companies exist. After all, research projects aren’t really scary enough to give professionals nightmares and they are easier with a bit of understanding and help.

For information on how to get a copy of Digital Marketing by SMstudy, please visit SMstudy® Guide.

For additional interesting and informational articles on sales and marketing, please visit SMstudy.com/articles.

Importance of understanding and evaluating Digital Marketing Channels

When creating an online presence, one of the initial steps for an organization is to determine the targets as defined by the Marketing Strategy and then explore the various digital marketing channels available to achieve those targets. Organizations typically market their products or services to targeted audiences that differ in demographics such as age, sex, education, marital status, geography, and income. Implementing digital marketing tactics allows a company to target very specific audiences and measure each tactic effectively.

Given the volatile nature of the online world, new channels are emerging with greater frequency, and audiences are continuously exploring new sources of online content—digital marketers must regularly assess and reassess digital marketing channels for their effectiveness. To identify the most effective marketing channels for an organization’s products or services, marketers spend a considerable amount of time and effort identifying and understanding the dynamics of all available digital marketing channels and evaluating these channels relative to their company’s overall organizational goals and objectives.

The digital marketing team analyzes the Internet behavior patterns of its target audience and identifies all possible online media that are used by those consumers being targeted. It observes macro trends that might impact the way in which the organization markets and sells a product or service to consumers. As a result of this process, the organization gains a better understanding of the digital landscape and learns how it can develop and implement its marketing strategies to be effective.

A company must understand the pros and cons of each digital marketing channel as well as the situations in which a channel is most effective or ineffective. For example, when a company wants to promote an important achievement or milestone, the use of social media forums is a good option because of the possibility of a viral effect and mass exposure, which may raise awareness of the company. When promoting a discount offer, the use of e-mail marketing is beneficial because of the fast results it can bring. On the other hand, if the company wants to inform customers about an expected delay in service (e.g., due to a scheduled routine maintenance, delay due some unavoidable circumstances), it is usually enough for the company to use e-mail or their website to notify customers, rather than initiating a social media update. Negative comments often spread faster in social media leading to loss of brand value and image. Therefore, understanding different channels is important in order to evaluate their usefulness.

To learn more about digital marketing channels, visit SMstudy.com/articles