De-Mystifying Marketing
By many, marketing seems like a mystic art form full of ambiguous and unvalidated metrics; creative gurus; and flavor-of-the-month tactics. Marketing should be no different than any other business function and held to the same levels of accountability and profitability. To think of marketing any other way is a less effective and negligent business practice.
Sophisticated marketers are able to de-mystify marketing by using research, statistical analysis, effective strategy, efficient tactical mixes, and continuous refinement in an effort to create marketing campaigns that provide measureble and attributable positive return on marketing investment. De-Mystifying Marketing will help you become a sophisticated, analytical, innovative, and effective marketer.
Join us for the De-Mystifying Marketing Workshop
Date: April 7th
Time: 9am to 1pm
Location: Salt Lake Community College Miller Campus (9750 So. 300 West, Suite 330) in Sandy, UT.
Your business may qualify for a discounted rate to this event and other Custom Fit events. Custom Fit is a state operated provider of training services for small businesses. Full priced admission is $126 per person. For more information regarding Custom Fit qualification and/or to sign-up for this event contact:
Custom Fit Salt Lake County
Shannon Strickland
801.957.5293 or SPEDRegistration@slcc.edu
Register here.
When my family first started renting movies back in the 80’s we went to a small mom-and-pop establishment called Carmen Video in Camarillo, CA. It was decked out like a movie theatre complete with a popcorn machine – something modern movie rental establishments look nothing like.
Sometime in the mid-80’s the first Blockbuster video opened up in town and within 18 months Carmen Video closed its doors forever. Between you and me- I think the only reason it stayed in business as long as it did is due to a selection of adult videos that they kept locked up in an adults only section (more like a cellar) of the store, which I never went into.
Blockbuster put Carmen Video out of business, and dominated the home movie rental business for years, because it had the lots of copies of the latest movies. They also had a huge selection of video games.
In September 2010 Blockbuster filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. In early 2011 they approached their creditors for more money- more debt, which is bad when you are already bankrupt.
What happened? Karma? Poor management? Bad investments? Antiquated business model? Competition? A combination of all these things? Continue reading 'What Went Wrong at Blockbuster?'»
For over 3 ½ years AT&T was the sole mobile phone network to carry the most iconic phone in the history of mobile phones, the iPhone.
All of that has now changed as Verizon executives have officially announced that they will begin carrying the iPhone 4 on their CDMA network. A quick visit to Verizon’s website revealed a huge banner featuring the iPhone 4 with the copy reading “iPhone 4. Verizon. It begins.” Sales start 2.10.11.
The move has been rumored for months and AT&T has spent millions of dollars during this time to beef up its network and tout other smart phones like the Blackberry Torch from mobile phone manufacturer RIM, as well as other phones based on Android and Windows mobile operating systems. In addition, AT&T pushed early upgrades in an effort to lock those craving an iPhone 4 into 2-year contracts. Smart, but short-term. Continue reading 'AT&T’s New Stance After iPhone Exclusivity'»
According to an article by Ann Zimmerman of WSJ.com, people bought $36.4B of stuff from online retailers this holiday season (between October 31and December 23).
This represents an increase of 15.4% over the same period last year. Online retail sales now account for about 10% of all retail sales – excluding gas and automobile purchases. 1 in 10 dollars made in retail this holiday season was made over the internet via ecommerce enabled websites.
Perhaps the most interesting part of the article is that the sector that experienced the largest growth was specialty clothing retailers –up 25% over last year. This is interesting because most of us like to try stuff out – especially things we need to wear.
What does this say about our perceptions of the buying experience? Continue reading '36.4B Reasons to Like eCommerce'»
People like to use January 1st as the starting line for new goals or resolutions. What better time of the year to resolve to do a better job at marketing your own business, your employer, or yourself.
Here is a list of Marketing Resolutions we think that every small business owner or marketing professional should at least consider and possibly adopt:
1. I’m going start understanding how things really work
In our experience, lots of smart business people do a poor job at tracking key performance metrics. This is not only poor business, it is poor marketing. This is because your key performance metrics, like sales revenue, gross profit margin, asset turnover ratio, etc, can be your friends in marketing your business. They help you understand how things really work. By identifying significantly high or low periods of time, your key performance metrics can tell you how well your marketing is or isn’t doing.
By resolving to understand how things really work you resolve to identify your key performance metrics. You then resolve to evaluate those metrics to see how well your marketing is working. Continue reading '5 Marketing Resolutions for the New Year'»
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