Marketing these days

Marketing these days is equally amusing and scary. Amusing because of the modern techniques used in marketing with mostly social media and internet and Scary because we wouldn't know which enterprise has our data with them and what kind of information they have about us. Well, it is not scary form enterprise’s point of view. It actually make things more effective for them. How? Enterprises today, can do targeted marketing using inbound marketing tools such as social media, youtube, e-books, newsletters, SEO etc which will bring customers closer to the company with less cost. Unlike traditional advertising methods such as Radio, TV and Newspapers which are called Outbound Marketing, Inbound Marketing will make customers walk in to the website where the company can build an ongoing relationship with the customer.

Have you ever wondered how Facebook, Google ..make money? When this question was raised at a workshop in my office, the first answer was, they have a very large customer base and these internet giants can make other companies access their customer base to do all sort of advertisements. This answer was not really correct. It’s not really about having access to massive number of data they hold but the CONNECTIONS they have.For example, Facebook will know where you are from, where you are working, what sort of pages you are following, who are your friends, your email account, what are you sharing, what will you be interested, who you might know etc. Actually Facebook will know a person better than his best friend.

If you think about it, Facebook can nicely analyze and categorize a person. This information is useful for other companies when they want to advertise. For example, my brother will never receive advertisements on women’s clothing or makeup in his newsfeed. Companies these days have the possibility to do target marketing. They can select the gender, age group, preferences, country, etc when they want to advertise. This will make their advertisements more responsive.

Back in the days, businessmen had to pay extra if they are sending out too many emails. But now it’s mostly free. G-mail gave this facility for all their users while others questioned how they will make money. What G-mail did was they opened their analytics for companies to do advertisements. Once again, G-mail would know what type of mails we are following , what industry we are in etc. So It’s just not about having massive data but knowing the connections and preferences.

Customers will not realize that they are been piled up with all sort of advertisements because they would mostly receive what interests them. They aren't ‘advertisements’ for us anymore but fascinating bits of information. It’s actually fair by both parties if you really think of it.

So who else have the ability to connect the dots using a large customer base? What about Mobile Operators such as Orange, MTN, Dialog, Etisalat etc? They will have useful 'local' information of their subscribers which will interest local enterprises. Actually, mobile operators have more sensitive and relevant data than Facebook or G-mail since mobile operators can track user's activities every minute. They even know information like whether a particular subscriber is a businessmen, housewife, in a relationship, socialized based on the number of calls , data usage, types of applications used, amount of messaging etc.  Moreover, the mobile operator will know the type of phone you are using, your mobile bill, other bill payments etc which can be very valuable information in order to profile customers. Surprisingly, we don’t see Mobile Operators exploiting their assets and data in a way that will make mobile advertisements more attractive and appropriate. They need to think from a different angle on how their data can be useful to other enterprises without manipulating customer’s privacy. Concepts such as Big Data , Analytics, Profiling, Loyalty Management can be used and mastered by mobile operators to create a new source of advertisement platform. They have the potential to be a part of inbound marketing where mobile marketing can be easily adapted by all enterprises. 

Mobile Operators also have their own Mobile Wallets and Point Systems which also can be used by other enterprises to carry out promotions, loyalty and reward their customers. Bottom line, marketing these days have no rules. It's time that Mobile Operators start sharing and caring more. 

What is Model View Controller?

 MVC is a software architecture. It’s a design pattern used to achieve customizability in our application. This design pattern separates an application into three main components: the model, the view, and the controller

View  

Is used to,

• draw the model
•  update the model’s display
• determine which objects are selected.

Ex:- Html , Scripts

Controller

The controller contains the control-flow logic. It interacts with the Model and Views to control the flow of information and execution of the application

Model

The model contains the core information for an application. This includes the data and validation rules as well as data access and aggregation logic. Frequently, a model maps to a database table with the entries in

 Problem Statement

Ø  Employee master screen, which takes Name and Age as inputs and save the same in our database.

The right way to solve this problem is by having a good design pattern in place and make sure that the entire team clearly understands the design and implements the same in their code. We can solve this by doing a layered approach using MVC and Visual Inheritance.

1.       View Layer

Our View /UI layer should only have UI related validations in it. We should not have any Business Logic in to it. This gives us the flexibility to change the UI at any time and we can also have different UI for different customers.

2.       Controller /Director

Controller is the layer, which responds to the events in the UI. For example Save button click on my employee master screen. This layer should act as an intermediate between our View and Model.

3.       Model

This layer has all our business logic. This is the most important layer. This layer will have our core functionality.

4.       Database Operations

All the database operations should be done in the Model base class.

Conclusion

Rather than quarrying in a single code base we separate it to 3 parts. Layering Approach helps us a lot and we need to enhance it to get full customizability.

 More details

Features of MVC

•          Separation of application tasks

•          An extensible and pluggable framework

•                     •          Good Layering Approach

Benefits of MVC

•                     •         Flexibility -  Easier to create multiple views of same model

•          It makes it easier to manage complexity by dividing an application into the model, the view, and the controller.

•          It does not use view state or server-based forms. This makes the MVC framework ideal for developers who want full control over the behavior of an application.

•          Easy Communication through layers

•          It provides better support for test-driven development (TDD).

•          It works well for Web applications that are supported by large teams of developers and for Web designers who need a high degree of control over the application behavior 

Watchout when writing technical articles!

Writing involves different styles and we all should be aware of it. Today I am focusing on Technical writing. What are these? need some examples? Press releases, newsletters, datasheets, whitepapers, case studies, articles for business magazines etc.

Before writing or planning, these are the four main things you need to focus.

Purpose - Why are you writing the article? What is the objective of the article.

Audience - to what extent they understand technical jargon, why are they reading this, the importance of the article to them.

Key info/ Level of details - What are the main points and how much to be explained. 

Organize - There should be a flow, and readers should not be trying hard to connect the points. We should connect for them.



In addition,

Don't use "he/she". Use plural form..

Eg:- It enables the user to transfer funds. He / She also can transfer via mobile phone. 
This sounds weird. Try this.
It enables the users to transfer funds. They also can transfer via mobile phone.



Do not give too much detail, give links to long stories/videos. (*Depends on the type of article)



Spell out Abbreviation when using for the first time.



Maintain a parallel structure.  This means, if you are using sentences keep on using sentences(with fullstops.) If you are using phrases, keep doing the same. Don't mix. Eg:-

• Innovative

• Easily implemented

• It gives faster access.

• Customers can save time.

The last two are sentences. The points don't have consistency. It's a must to do lot of research and read as much as possible to improve writing skills.


Quote for the Day - "Do What You Do Do Well!"

You think you know marketing?

What we know as marketing is having a marketing plan before launching a product, arranging marketing campaigns, looking for ways to reach customers. But, that is now old school. Do you know 60% of our customers' decisions are not influenced by us directly? For example, if you are going to buy a camera, would you go to the shop and decide or have you already decided what exactly to buy? Customer's decisions are influenced mostly by information presented on media, internet and recommendations.


Relationship marketing, where person A tells Person B, since we know each other for a long time, we can trust each other so you should get involved with my business.... this concept hardly works now. What works now is, Person A telling Person B "I know your industry, these are the good points and these are the weak points. You can add value by merging with my business since I know what to do to improve. " What matters now is what is on the table. Relationship marketing is still important when maintaining relationships.


What businesses should do is, make information available where customers or potential customers can reach when they are searching for the product or the company. Search Engine Optimization, social media, webinars, datasheets, blogs are some major ways on how to make yourself presented.   

Last moment

Hi everyone, yesterday, I listened to a presentation which made all of us emotional. I was blinking so hard to fight back the tears. She is a senior at our office, and yesterday she proved that she is also a loving friend, daughter and a mother. (I'm guessing a good wife too ;) ) Anyway, she related two stories about her last moments with her friend and her father. She sacrificed her time and work and went to see them, it happened to be the last moment she spent with them. This made us realize how our choices can have a significant impact on our life. If she hadn't gone for the last meal that she had with her dad, she will be regretting still. She didn't know it was the last dinner that she was ever gona have with her dad. This made me think when was the last meal I had with my dad? I can't remember. I regret to this date..., I could have spent more time with thaththi. Still I see him in my dreams, talking, sitting on the back seat of his motor bike, making fun of my mom, playing with our dog.. All these are memories and I wish I had more..




So we should all start to give time to our family and people who matter to us. She (The  senior business solutions engineer) also told how she spent time with her daughter playing scrabble and some games while having so much of work. She sacrificed and she gave priority to her daughter. That night the 5 year old daughter told, "Ammi I had a great time, Thank You"! These words must have meant sooo much to her because her voice started to crack and that made our eyes welled with tears. We work to make us and our family happy, but the time we share with them matters more. We should not make choices which will make us regret later.


Quote for the Day -  “It may be unfair, but what happens in a few days, sometimes even a single day, can change the course of a whole lifetime...”  ― Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

 

Use social media effectively

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction , plus a social media overreaction!" :D
(- funny quotations)

The stats says that 69% of adults use social media. This is a vast subject. Today I would like to share what I've learnt about social media, and how to use it effectively.

Classify Social Media?
Well, there is no specific classification. But, in general we can classify into collaborative projects, blogs, content communities, social networking sites, business networking sites, virtual game worlds, and virtual social worlds.

Does it generate profit?
The truth is, sometimes not really. It will have an impact indirectly provided you maintain your presence. Social Media is a long term strategy, where you can build relationships. In order to generate profit there should be a strategy to be followed and chose the best social media sites for you.

Is it free?
No. It can be argued that it is very time consuming and multitasking can lead to poor quality of work. Human resource should be invested. So it is not free. Some companies pay an annual contract or spends on advertising.

How to use it effectively?
These are some points I've picked up.

1. Focus more on quality not quantity.

2. Listen - Observe and respond to other sites.

3. Chose carefully. Know your audience. - Don't try to dominate in every social media site. We should know the difference between fb, linkedin, twitter - the major giants.

4. Be genuine, because other participants will find out and the audience is smart!

5. E-mails are not dead. The next step after having your social presence is e-mail. So we still have to manage e-mails.

6. Access for all. Employees should be a part. They help to get the word around fast.

7. Be interesting. Avoid technical jargons and professional writing unless the article needs to.

8. We do not control social media. This is a major point because, we should understand, just having a good PR will not influence social media. So we should accept the risk.

9. Search engine optimization should be still focused. SEO and social media are two marketing strategies, SEO leads to social media.

10. Be active. It should be on-going to build and maintain relationships.


Its all about social media now, knowingly or unknowingly it has become a part of our lives. Its all about how we use it to add value to the company and individually. The "reputation" is now being controlled by social media.

Quote for the Day :-  "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. What happens in fb, twitter... stays forever"




 

New version of "Product"

We have learnt that a product can be defined as a good or a service, tangible or intangible. But I think "product" has been evolved. You might all know "Angry Birds" Duh!... What is it?? It was a service initially but now there are t-shirts, toys ...... which are goods.. I define this as a "CULTURE". In order to have a sustainable growth in the market, a smart entrepreneur should implement this "culture". In other words, a life style which people embrace. So how can one develop this culture??? Simple, you should let your imagination run wild...Its all about new ideas which can capture people's heart not just the brain! It can be targeted to a particular audience or just everyone. If you actually sit and think for about an hour, you can definitely come up with a new concept. Let me tell you some examples that "I" think which have created some awesome cultures.

Harry Potter/ Twilight/ Transformers
Hello Kitty/ Micky Mouse
Harley-Davidson
Barbie

Therefore, if we are smart we should focus on creating a culture which will generate continuous cash inflow. hSenid Mobile has introduced a SMS application that can be created by anyone! No programming needed. Do you know Gossip Girl? you can actually do that in a matter of few minutes. The SMS application can be managed via the operator's site. If you are the captain of your school's Cricket team, you can create an application to your team. But you might wonder well, I can just forward the message to a list created through my phone.. Well, it will cost you! This is different. Your team members should subscribe, hence, it will actually generate an income to you! Its a win-win, It can be for all the people who are interested in cricket at school level. For example , Roy-Tho. Can create an application to all the fans who support.. lets say Royal..name "GoRoyal". This is just an example. You can create apps which targets audience, for PPA, friends, high school or just anyone. Do you know a university student in Sri Lanka, has earned Rs 200 000 per month by developing an application by etisalat's appzone? It is stated in UN Conference on Trade and development 2012, 1st time where Sri Lanka is been mentioned!! 


With this SMS application, you don't have to be a programmer, Its just a matter of clicking and filling the blanks to describe your application. It is the next level of SMS!!!! You can link the application with a website, fb page, have YouTube videos.. The uniqueness is "YOU" can do it. You can come up with different ideas and share with people, AND earn! You can either be an individual or a company targeting your customers or suppliers. This is the evolution of SMS. Its like anyone can upload a video on YouTube, Likewise anyone can create their own SMS application. How to do this... well, try to find out!! ;)  Should get back to work, which I ADORE. Well, its true, you should chose what you LIKE to do, then "work" doesn't sound so bad.

Quote for the Day:- "Innovation is immortal"