Maggie Bossingham's Marketing Blog

Consumer Behavior In order to adequately sell to consumers, companies need to know their behavior. But how does a company do that? The answer is they have to study their consumers. Either in a broad way or more targeted. Some of the ways companies do this is by using surveys, blogs, focus groups, and individual interviews. Ultimately a company needs to know how people make decisions about what they buy, want, need, or act in regards to their company, products, and/or service.  One of the ways to study consumer behavior is through surveys. They are a great tool in today's online and fast-paced world. Personally when I get a survey in the mail, it immediately goes in recycling, but when I get a survey online, I am more prone to fill it out. SurveyMonkey is a site dedicated to creating surveys, and it's pretty darn easy to use. The tag line on the website says " We get answers for 16 million questions daily. Get the feedback you need with the world's leading ...

Blogs Chapter 5 of the book The New Rules of Marketing & PR is solely about blogs. If you are like me, I did not read nor care much about blogs, prior to taking this marketing class. My sister even mentioned wanting to start a blog of her own, and I thought why? The book mentions this. Many people, not just myself, feel blogs are dead, or at least useless. BUT they aren't. The author of the book even states "blogs are often misperceived by people who don't read them". That pretty much summed me up. So how are blogs useful? From a marketing and PR standpoint, they can be the most important tool. Blogs can easily be used to monitor what people are saying about your company or your company's products. Blogs give you an opportunity to respond and have a conversation by real-time commenting. Blogs also allow you to work with people who are blogging about you. Plus, by having your own blog, you can personally shape the conversation surrounding your...

Social Media In chapter 4 of the book, The New Rules of Marketing & PR , social media and targeting your audience is discussed. The book defines social media as "the superset and how we refer to the various online media that people use to communicate online in a social way." This definition is broad, but so is social media. Social media is not just Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Although those are a part of it, social media encompasses much more. It includes other social networking sites such as LinkedIn, blogs, video and image sharing sites such as YouTube, chat rooms and message boards, review sites such as Yelp or Rotten Tomato, Wikis, and social bookmarking sites like Reddit. Seeing social media as all of these forms, helps to realize how social media use is vital for a company. Helpful Tips This chapter is full of useful information for businesses or individuals using social media, so here are some of the tips I found most helpful: Respond in a timely m...

Marketing Environment Internal and External Environments Internal environments work inside of a company. It consists of 5 M's: Men (staff), Money, Machinery, Materials, and Markets. Internal environments are easily controllable for a company.  There is also the external environments. Broken down into two categories: Macroenvironment and Microenvironment.  Microenvironment includes factors closer to the company that directly impact the customers, such as the suppliers, the competition, and advertising agencies. Macroenvironment includes large and all-encompassing factors, such as culture, politics, economics, demographics, technology and the natural environment. These factors are obviously less easily controlled. (more information found on Marketing Environment YouTube video) Marketing Fails Often times a marketing fail can happen when a company does not fully consider or investigate the current macroenvironment. For instance, current social issues....

Marketing Strategy An effective marketing strategy in today's world is to use a targeted method. In order to do this a company needs to understand their customers. Without fully understanding your customers, you can't successfully engage and sell to them. Buyer Personas In the book The New Rules of Marketing & PR and in the YouTube video HubSpot's Stephen Higgins Explains Buyer Personas  the idea of buyer personas is discussed. Buyer personas should be based on real data and with as little assumptions as possible. A buyer persona directly targets a specific demographic. Being able to do this helps the specific buyer feel heard and understood. Buyers are more likely to buy or use a company that is directly 'talking' to them.

Taking Action In order to fully understand what is going on in the world of Artificial Intelligence, taking action is needed. We can no longer say AI is not involved in my life right now so I won't worry about it until I have to because AI is continuously progressing. At some point, AI is going to be involved in daily life and we do not want to be blind sided. Thus some action is required in order to understand what AI is about and what is happening. That action simply comes down to research. The book Surfing the Tsunami: An Introduction to Artificial Intelligence and Options for Responding states "I recommend digging. Sometimes when you dig into data, you can find treasure." Cartoon image aside, digging into data is a major aspect of research. With all the information on the internet, there can be false data, biases, and opinions that cloud the truth. And of course, that applies to research on Artificial Intelligence too. People can have very different p...

The Four A's of Artificial Intelligence (from Surfing the Tsunami: An Introduction to Artificial Intelligence and Options for Responding ) Autos Currently artificial intelligence is making significant advances in self-driving cars. It is also making advance in drones. These are both very visual applications of artificial intelligence that many people are aware of. Advice Another application of artificial intelligence that many people are aware of is voice-based digital assistants. In layman's terms, Siri, Alexa or the like. The machines behind the voice of Siri or Alexa are capable of processing voice thanks to artificial intelligence and machine learning.      Automation Automation is something more complex, there is physical and digital automation. Physical automation is more obvious, such as a robot being able to complete routine actions. Digital automation is inside the software that allows programs to be capable of doing routine actions as wel...

Growth and Success in Business In order to grow a successful business, there are three main areas that should be focused on: marketing, sales, and customer service. In the YouTube video, The Role of Marketing, Sales & Customer Success , Dan Martell explains that these are three distinct buckets that need to be on a company's radar. They also all feed into one another. Marketing Marketing is about generating demand. In order to do this people need to be aware of your business. Dan Martell in his YouTube video gives examples of sponsoring a little league team, posting ads on Facebook, and attending events. The role of marketing and its value cannot be underestimated. In order to get to sales, there needs to be a demand and in order to get a demand, there needs to be marketing. The book The New Rules of Marketing & PR talks about how marketing has changed due to the internet so a business needs to keep up with these changes. Demand is less likely to come f...