In my e-marketing class, we had guest speaker Chris Brogan talking to us. He’s a very well known professional in the marketing space. One of the big things he said that stayed with me, is the fact that the mobile device is the new smoking habit. 

What he meant by this is the fact that when you take a break during the day, or wake up in the morning, what’s the first thing you do? Check your phone. If you’re not building your marketing and business messages to look good and get the point across on a mobile device, then you’re missing out.

After compiling and analyzing several years worth data, StudentUniverse, the leading resource for student deals and travel discounts, has revealed that “international Chinese students procrastinate the least when it comes to booking travel”, said Amy Lidstone, Head of Business Intelligence. StudentUniverse found that unlike many other customer segments, Chinese students book their return flights immediately after arriving on campus. “For the fall semester we see Chinese students booking their holiday flights significantly earlier than their fellow American and Latin American students.”

“We constantly advocate for college student discounts, and smart student shopping. We are happy to see that our Chinese audience understands the value of planning. It is our fastest growing segment with 47% growth YOY,” said Atle Skalleberg, CEO of StudentUniverse.

Chinese Version:

通过编辑和分析大量的资料，StudentUniverse发现机票预定最有效率的群体是中国留学生。StudentUniverse公司是为给学生提供一个搜寻旅游以及购物优惠的平台。关于预订机票，本公司的商业智能主任Amy Lidstone提出“其实与其他消费群体相比，中国留学生会较早订好机票而不会拖到时间紧迫时才开始搜寻机票。”“中国留学生通常抵达校园安顿后便会立即预定回国机票。”“即便是美国国内旅行，中国留学生相对而言也比美国和拉丁美洲的学生要早预定机票。

StudentUniverse 的首席执行官Atle Skalleberg透露，“我们一直以来都提倡聪明消费以及要给大学生优惠。我们也很高兴得知我们的中国观众了解计划安排的重要性。我们的中国消费者人数较去年同期增47％，是我们增长幅度最快的群体。

Being a part of “Generation Y” I always thought it was too broad of a categorization. My sister, 31 years old, who is technically within Generation Y, couldn’t be any more different than me. I’m 24 years old and am smack dab in the middle of Generation Y categorization; but yet, we’re two completely different with almost opposite goals due to very different experiences we’ve had growing up. Therefore, I always thought that there should be a different categorization for those 25-years-old and under in Gen Y because we were playing on AOL at the age of 5 years old, had cell phones in middle school, had access to Facebook back in 2004, and were the first to understand Twitter. My 31 year old sister… not so much.

And now, it looks Nielsen agrees… to a degree. They have changed the “Generation Y” description to “Generation C” meaning “connected”. Although they include 18- to 34-year-olds, there is a focus on the 18- to 24-year-old demographic. They point out that 18- to 24-year-olds make up 23% of the population. Apparently, we also watch 27% of online videos, account for 27% of visitors to social networking sites, own 33% of tablets and use 39% of smartphones. Those are some fun facts! I mostly love my generation because we’re so fascinating when it comes to being consumers. This generation presents a new and exciting challenge for marketers and content providers because “Generation C” is always on the move but CONSTANTLY connected through all sorts of devices. This generation is used to having knowledge at their fingertips and if they don’t know the answer to something, there’s always a way to find it in 30 seconds or less. We (Generation C) need to be engaged, but at a quick pace because we’re moving and multi-tasking between tweeting, facebooking, blogging, texting, pinning, emailing, chatting… you name it!

This is the time for marketers to stand out and shine… and I believe that if you’re a part of this generation, that you have an edge because you understand the uniqueness “Generation C” brings to the table.

Article found on Mashable: http://mashable.com/2012/02/23/generation-c/

(Source: Mashable)

A great article analyzing the impact of social media, the possibility of a bubble, and where the social media frenzy is headed.

‘As Yogi Berra once wisely observed, “the future isn’t what it used to be,” and, right now, the future is internet technology; effortlessly connecting users to friends, colleagues, commerce, discounts, food, music, news and entertainment.’

Read the article here

Many companies don’t want to look back at their product failures and analyze what went wrong - and this is why so many companies are doomed to repeat their mistakes. So I think it’s time to look at what causes so many failures… and keep in mind that I’m not saying we need to try to eliminate failures, we just need to try to reduce the risk of failures and perform a postmortem.

There are six items that can lead to product failure… one of them being uncontrollable, and one that can be an area where you can prevent the other four things from happening.

1. Inadequate Market Analysis 
If you fail here, chances are that the product will fail. Many companies lose in this stage because the market size is smaller than anticipated, market development is slower than anticipated, no real benefit perceived with the product or service, there is no uniqueness, and the product quality, performance and price did not match customer expectations. And all of these issues can be attributed to poor market analysis. Ask if the customer would want it! This is the best time to prove concept will be accepted and the best chance to prevent failure.

2. Insufficient Marketing Effort (Awareness & Availability)
Not putting enough money, time and effort into the launch could prove to be detrimental. Inadequate promotional resources and selling effort, as well as distribution weaknesses will also lead to product failure.

3. Product Deficiencies
Poor design, poor performance, poor durability. this is the only non-marketing related area that can cause a product failure.

4. Competitive Actions/Reactions
External competitive marketing strategies can hurt the product. Moreover, how you allocate resources to new AND existing products can become an issue when you launch new products. Lastly, not having support from management is another cause for failure.

5. Higher Costs Than Anticipated
Under-budgeting and over-engineering can lead to issues. If the price and value to customers doesn’t match then they won’t buy and could lead to bad return for the organization. 

6. Poor Timing (uncontrollable instances)
When the introduction is too slow or too fast for the market, it won’t succeed - take eBook readers for example. They were introduced back in 2000 and didn’t succeed because it was too soon for the market. Lastly, market conditions and environmental changes can cause failure.

Compliments of my awesome professor.

A great article on Businessweek about why “A Marketer Is a Terrible Thing to Waste.” It illustrates all the alues I’ve been trying to portray during my young career. I graduated from college during one of the toughest times to try to get a job. Many companies slashed their marketing departments because they thought it would be the most beneficial area to start to cut costs. Oh how they were wrong. It’s marketing that can keep your company alive and even moving forward when the economy goes sour. If you can’t distinguish yourself among the crowd, then you’ll get lost.

I could go on forever about this article because it’s so great, but I’ll let you read it for yourself :)

http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/sep2009/id20090921_471157.htm