by on February 24, 2015

Marketing Miscues

Many companies and marketing teams can agree it is very easy to market to the wrong crowd which can completely throw the marketing strategy off. For example, in recent years according to HBR.org, “Suburban white men consume 80% of hip hop music, even though it’s typically considered a genre aimed at young, urban black Americans. Misconceptions like this aren’t limited to American markets.”

Marketing experts are making the mistakes of targeting different cultures incorrectly. Mangers and experts are focused on attempting to reach the right cultural groups based on their interests, not based on their locations, race, or ethnicity. Basing there strategies on the location, race, and ethnicity is what has gotten so many companies in a hole which is tough to recover from. Experts explain how this phenomenon of wrongful targeting is painful to watch considering the amount of money being allocated to marketing groups whose main goal is to find the target market and appeal to them. They explained, “First, we need to look beyond demographics. Most likely the markets for all products we think of as culturally specific are understated by a significant amount, which should have big implications for resource allocation.”

Even though experts believe targeting cultural groups is not the right and most effective way of marketing it is still the major strategy used by most marketing groups or firms. Experts hope these companies start to target consumers based on what the new popular item or group is. In a way they hope that they start to market the whole population on what the new in item  is instead of targeting one small target based on culture. Trends show that they could eventually move to what experts believe will work best, but until then our best bet is that marketers will continue their current strategies until a new breakthrough way to target consumers is revealed.

For more marketing news please visit Gorman Houston‘s official website.

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by on January 23, 2015

5 Marketing Tips Companies Must Master

With 2015 here, companies are ramping up their marketing efforts to attract new customers. Companies who cannot learn to adapt to new marketing patterns and trends will be left in the dust. Some simple tips to keep up with marketing in 2015 are as follow:

1. Social Media Marketing

With almost everyone adapting to technology, you can find everyone on social media now a days. From your kids, all the way to your grandparents. Companies have taken notice of this and are taking advantage. To date, there are thousands of social media sites out, most of which offer advertisement space on their site. With more and more companies attempting to buy out this online retail space, it would be beneficial to any company with a heavy into e-commerce. The opportunities are there, waiting for companies to pounce.

2. SEO has changed, so should your business!

Over the past five years, Google has evolved and updated its algorithms to crack down on ‘black hat’ SEO. Google now favors content based websites and advertisements rather than link and word stuffing. Companies need to understand that SEO will always be important based on how important it is to be on Google.

3. E-Mail Marketing

Social media is obviously going to be a major pipeline for marketing for companies in 2015. E-mail marketing goes hand in hand with social media marketing due to the simple fact it requires for one to have an e-mail if they sign up for a social media site. According to Capterra, “When marketed through e-mails, consumers spend 138% more than people who do not receive e-mails.”  These are just companies who send out mass e-mails, the opportunities are endless, you just have to take them!

4. Video Marketing

According to Business Insider, video marketing will be very important this upcoming year. Companies who post videos about products or services are recorded to have a 64% increase in consumers making purchases. Also, information in video is transferred to the brain almost 100,000 times faster than text. Essentially, people rather watch videos, not read the text that goes into them. In December, 2013 alone 52.4 billion videos had been viewed by Americans. The numbers speak for themselves, video marketing is a route all companies should be taking.

5. Go Above and Beyond

It is important to follow these steps since they will be helpful in your marketing strategy for 2015. Without stepping to the plate and keeping up with new trends, it will be tough to stay relevant in this competitive marketplace.

 

For more information, please read Business Insider‘s and http://gormanhouston.com

 

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by on December 1, 2014

Cyber Frenzy

After everyone gives their thanks and enjoys a hearty meal with loved ones, comes the true feeding frenzy. Every penny pinchers true holiday, Black Friday.

Every year, there are the customers who start waiting on lines outside major retail stores right after Thanksgiving dinner to try to get the hot deal. Then there are the ones who go shopping ‘casually’ on Friday morning to knit pick at the remaining sales. After all the commotion and dust settles, comes the most popular day for these shoppers. Cyber Monday, the Monday after Thanksgiving weekend, where it is expected to see revenues upwards of $2.6 billion.

Even through the rapid growth of Cyber Monday since 2005, market experts expect this trend of heavy online shopping on Cyber Monday to slowly start to decline. These experts believe this is the trend based on the rapid growth of online shopping on mobile devices. Many of these major retailers are offering deals online on either Thanksgiving Day or Black Friday to keep online revenue high on these major shopping days.

It is rumored that retailers flood inboxes of the customer to shop these two days, and these emails are forwarded to the customers phones which has boosted the sales from mobile sales on Thanksgiving and Black Friday from 20% up to around 30% in the past year alone. Also these retailers are targeting these costumers earlier in the week leading up to Thanksgiving for the sole purpose of gathering data as they all prepare for the December holiday rush.

Even though Cyber Monday will lead, in terms of revenue this Thanksgiving weekend, people are starting to skew away from waiting until Monday since many of the retailers will sell out of all the ‘hot holiday items’. According to Forbes “There’s another big downside to waiting until Cyber Monday to shop: You may not be able to buy what you want at any price. Out-of-stock messages on retail websites are expected to jump fivefold by Cyber Monday as early-bird shoppers get their iPhone 6s, Playstation 4s, Rokus, Call of Duty games, and Frozendolls.” 

Also, according to marketing experts, the biggest deals online do not occur on Cyber Monday, which only yields on average 6% discounts, compared to the Monday prior which on average has 25% in discounts.

 

For more please visit : Forbes

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by on November 5, 2014

Digital Marketing tips for 2015

Marketing strategies change quite frequently, different tactics come into play which are changing the way the industry is being ran. In the past decade or so digital marketing has skyrocketed in popularity and is changing daily. Expect this trend of change to continue as 2014 comes to an end as we roll into 2015. Here are some tips to best adapt to the changes to be coming in 2015.

Mobile driven marketing

This market has yet to be tapped in terms of digital marketing successfully. With many companies attempting to figure out Googles algorithms, it has been a difficult 2014 for companies to successfully base how to control this digital marketing. Many believe 2015 will be the year where it really starts to boost since Google has started to index their mobile applications with more authority and companies have started to optimize their sites to market to the mobile market. “I predict that B2B marketers will see their audiences cross over to “mobile first” for the first time in 2015 where greater than 50% of their marketing content will be consumed on mobile or tablet device,” claims head of Business to business (B2B) of LinkedIn, Russell Glass.

Gorman Houston Marketing

Google+ is on its way out (maybe)

With the social media marketing blitz on the rise, sites such as Facebook and Twitter taking over this field, Google+ has a ‘50% chance’ of getting killed according to the founder of Siege Media, Ross Hudgens. So a suggestion to companies is to stay away from marketing on Google+ since it may end up being a waste.

Content is key

Mentioned before, Google is starting to rank content more closely. The more useful content posted, the better Google will rank it in the search results. This tool is borderline search engine optimization (SEO) which helps rank content more preciously based on keywords and marketing terms thrown into the marketing campaign.

Practice the tips above!

This last tip is to combine all three of these into one and try to use these most affectively as possible. These tips are all tips that should be practiced in the upcoming year, but using all of these tips in unison is a great way to really optimize your digital marketing goal and make a splash in 2015.

For more tips for 2015, Forbes.com

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