Final blog post

This final blog post is to accompany and assist the Pecha Kucha, the main information necessary to explain HPs background was directly HPs website and social media accounts. Other background information was supplied by an article published by Kelly Fiveash, a news editor at Arts Technica UK (Fiveash, K. 2016). HP’s competitor data was also supplied by the competitor’s direct websites and social media pages.

The first strategy is to implement HPs community into one place, active community participation such as a community hub tends to be vital for today’s organisations according to Fournier & Lee (2009). They continue to note that a successful brand community is one with passionate consumers surrounded by their lifestyles, activities and style of the brand (Fournier, S. & Lee, L. 2009). Xheng et al (2015) analyses the loyalty that consumers feel when online brands focus on user engagement through their social networking sites and finds matching evidence stating the results revealed brand loyalty could be influenced by user engagement (Xheng, Z. et al. 2015).

For HP to gain traction using a brand-new hub or ‘central point’ content will not just need to be provided but also promotion of this content to a wider audience. To advocate this promotion, HP’s already established and future influencers will need to attract, excite and focus consumer’s attention on the hub.

A case study drawn up by an Advisory company named Latinum Network stresses that social media influencers are now able to bring the same level of force celebrities can by creating their own content. In some cases, YouTube influencers are becoming a celebrity in its own right. (Latinum Networks, 2015)
Rahim (2017) also focuses interest in influencers, believing social media influencers are seen as a more authentic celebrity and a trusted source. He also mentions using them can be an effective marketing strategy with 81% of marketing and communication professionals said influencers were effective (Rahim, H. 2017).

The second strategy implemented to entice consumers over to the hub is with giveaways and competitions. Peattie (1999) found evidence suggesting that promotional tools such as competitions can help with communication between consumer and organisation (Peattie, S. 1999)

 

References

Fiveash, K. (2016). HP Inc to axe up to 4,000 jobs over next three years. Available: https://arstechnica.co.uk/business/2016/10/hp-inc-4000-job-cuts-planned/. Last accessed 08/05/2017.

Fournier, S & Lee, L. (2009). Getting Brand Communities Right. Available: https://hbr.org/2009/04/getting-brand-communities-right. Last accessed 09/05/2017.

Latinum Network. (2015). Latinum Case Study: HP Partners with Online Influencers to Bend the Rules of Traditional Advertising. Available: http://www.latinumnetwork.com/latinum-case-study-hp-partners-with-online-influencers-to-bend-the-rules-of-traditional-advertising/. Last accessed 08/05/2017.

Peattie, S. (1). The Use of Sales Promotion Competitions in Social Marketing. Social Marketing Quarterly. 5 (1), 22-33.

Rahim, H. (2017). How to use influencers in your next marketing campaign. Available: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/connect/better-business/how-to-use-influencers-in-your-marketing-campaign/. Last accessed 08/05/2017.

Xheng, Z. et al. (2015). Building brand loyalty through user engagement in online brand communities in social networking sites. Information Technology and People. 28 (1), 90-106.

 

May 25, 2017 Uncategorized No Comments on Final blog post

Are influencers worth the time and investment?

An influencer is an individual with an audience, it can be someone with a relatively average following or a huge A list celebrity, as long as they have an audience and an audience that can trust them, they have the ability to sway people’s decisions surrounding products and services and even boost sales to huge amounts in single days. (Weiss, 2016)
According to James (2016) a recent survey revealed 82% of marketing professionals were using influencers, with the most popular use of these influencers being used towards audiences in platforms such as Youtube, Twitter and Facebook.

So why are businesses now using influencers? One of the main reasons is that the audience is captured by a single entity, to capture such a niche audience, which links directly with the company’s product could cost the company a huge amount of money and time to even get half of the potential target demographic. Using an already established audience who feel a personal connection with the influencer allows the company to use a ‘middle man’ as there front and increase customers trust.

Another reason using an influencer is deemed a good idea is the sheer amount of platforms that are used these days to market products, with there only being Television commercials, radio and magazine adverts available for a company to sell their product a couple of decades ago, customers have now fragmented into other media platforms such as watching YouTube videos instead of TV programs, listening to Podcasts instead of the radio and reading or watching blogs / vlogs instead of reading magazines.

From these platforms and newer devices being released yearly, word of mouth between people has also become increasingly easier. Influencers who use blog posts and YouTube channels have the ability to enable or disable comments surrounding their content. With only a few good reviews or interest being stated by ‘fans’ or ‘regular people’ more people will feel inclined to see what the fuss is about and purchase the product. For some, just seeing their favourite ‘celebrity’ they watch religiously everyday using a product they also feel they may need that product in the same way people purchase merchandise of their favourite bands, television shows and movies.

Although, influencer marketing is not as easy as it sounds on paper. First marketers must be clear in choosing who their influencer will be, if the influencer has no association with the product or clearly doesn’t like it – in most cases the audience will also feel the same way, either not being interested in the product itself or just due to seeing their content creator ‘sell out’ for something they obviously don’t care about.

                                                                                 TheDAWStudio

Another problem faced is the fact that some companies feel that because they are the organisation who created the product, they understand the audience and ask the influencer to do a list of things they feel is correct. In some cases, this can work if both the influencer and company see common ground and the organisation has done it’s research into the target demographic although, the influencer is the one with the audience the organisation is trying to get to, if they knew so much about their audience why haven’t they been able to grasp it while someone who uploads videos or write blogs every now and then has. They cannot implement too many restrictions or guidelines and expect the influencer to be ok with it.

                                                                                       Fiverr Urdu Hindi

The final problem is the longevity of the influencer, some people who are influencers now have the potential to completely lose all of their marketing powers through something they may have done or said that due to so many platforms and technology people will know about and spreads very quickly.
Problems in the past with influencers such as Tiger woods and Jared Fogle are proof that not every influencer is how they are marketed and are still human and more than capable of doing things some audiences may not approve of.

Influencers are not a relatively new idea, but due to more platforms of media, being an influencer is more accessible to ‘everyday people’ businesses need to be aware of exactly who the influencer is and how they behave before trusting their reputation and product with these content creators. Being aware of the demographic and trends also plays a key part as one of the most obvious problems ‘hiring’ an influencer poses is the fact they may not be great at selling and using analytic data, companies may come to find barely any traffic increased at all.

References

James, S. (2016). Social influencers now more popular for brand campaigns than traditional celebs Read more at http://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/social-influencers-popular-brand-campaigns-traditional-celebs/1398680. Available: http://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/social-influencers-popular-brand-campaigns-traditional-celebs/1398680. Last accessed 22/02/2017.

Weiss, G. (2016). A Snapchat Story by this beauty influencer sold $17,500 worth of product in one day. Available: http://www.businessinsider.com/snapchat-influencer-story-sells-17500-worth-of-product-in-one-day-2016-8?IR=T. Last accessed 22/02/2017.

 

March 1, 2017 Uncategorized No Comments on Are influencers worth the time and investment?

One example of an email most would probably delete without thinking twice, why is this?

For this entry, I used my ‘second’ email account. The one which you use to sign up for something you’re not that fussed about (Hotmail).
The email to be discussed is from Cheap flights Travel Deals. Straight off the bat I have never actually purchased flights from this website; given this I wouldn’t open it out of principal.
Although, with Christmas in a month it might be nice to go on holiday but financially that’s probably not viable.

A year or two down the line, I probably would open this email but that brings me to the personalisation of the email once opened, it may as well be a poster on the window of a travel agents. Judging by the lack of any introductory text, it’s very likely the email was sent without any knowledge of the recipients apart from the email address they are sending it to making it feel more like a script sending emails out periodically to as many email addresses as possible.
Saying this, only economy class is shown so they may know more than I think.

Personalisation aside, the design on the page and the colours which fill it are well done.  A simple, eye-catching layout. Granted, that is usually the case for posters. All subheadings and prices are hyperlinks. Which, is handy and certainly saves time instead of going through tedious odd sets of links some companies place amongst a mess of text. With this, they are straight down to the point.  Scrolling down the email there is a long enough list (with pictures) of places that I assume a lot of people travel to. Making it that easy to navigate straight to a booking, especially if a listed destination was already on my mind. If not, there is an option to view more offers in large writing at the bottom.

This style of design does work though, considering the premise and product this company is trying to sell, there isn’t a reason to have a lot of text. In marketing terms they use a catalogue approach to fit as many products on the email so the customer has plenty of choice to purchase. (Ellis-Chadwick, F., & Doherty, N. F. 2012)
To accompany this, the use of hyperlinks and images are reasonable as well. A more complex approach of using too many hyperlinks and images scattered over a website have a negative effect on the customer according to Geissler, Zinkhan and Watson(2006) with the rate of technological impact of speed and processing power emails are basically websites. (Ellis-Chadwick, F., & Doherty, N. F. 2012)

With this in mind, the designers have created a relatively sleek and good job; I feel the problem with the email itself relies on the personalisation and the text. For instance, the subject of the email:-
“Emirates Offers fr £299 rt”
That to me just looks lazy, without the use of a large brand such as Emirates I probably wouldn’t of seen the subject or completely glossed over it. With 69% of email recipients reporting emails as spam and 47% only opening them based on the subject line alone. That kind of subject line doesn’t do the email many favours. (Khalid, S. 2016)

Apart from of course, the price. Once hooked by this price into the email, only one destination is listed at that price, the rest being on average £200 more. Another strategy I can only assume is over centuries old.

But the main point, which I feel if picked up will require more work and would be expensive, but in the end may be worth it is personalising to either the customer directly or the demographic they are part of.
Finding this information of course relies through conversation or survey from the customer, without these details either being bought from a 3rd party seller or by using nefarious techniques it is simply impossible for businesses to understand the customer if they have never purchased a product from them or in any way contacted them directly. Which makes me wonder if someone who has purchased a flight from their website would receive destinations more suited to their past travels Or maybe a personalised message before the adverts in the email. Without knowing this, I shouldn’t comment. But I will – probably not.

cheapflightuntitled

Ellis-Chadwick, F., & Doherty, N. F. (2012). Web advertising: The role of e-mail marketing. Journal of Business Research, 65(6), 843-848.

Khalid, S. (2016). Email Subject Lines – Statistics and Trends.Available: http://www.invespcro.com/blog/email-subject-lines-statistics-and-trends/. Last accessed 01/11/2016.

November 4, 2016 Uncategorized No Comments on One example of an email most would probably delete without thinking twice, why is this?

A final year students case study regarding Argos and its use of Digital customer service

 

Argos, a company founded in 1972 by Richard Tompkins is one of the largest high street stores in the United Kingdom. Trading through both physical stores and online, it has over 750 stores and around 800 million website visits each year. Known for its unique in store catalogue ordering system and modernised click and collect system, it was estimated in 2013 there was an Argos branch within 10 miles of 96% of the United Kingdom population.
Although, recently Argos had been acquired by Sainsburys for £1.4 billion with a new strategy of shutting down some Argos branches and integrating them inside Sainsburys stores.

Despite Argos originally being a High street store concentrating on its physical orders from people willing to stand inside their shops and scroll through catalogues, checking if the product they were after was in stock. Then having to wait for their product on wooden chairs waiting for their numbers to be called. Argos transformed into a giant digital player and has done well to preserve it’s presence in retail shopping by spending the last few years embracing a digital first approach and projecting into the future the opening of 53 digital stores.

But, this wasn’t enough for Argos, recently they have set out the task of listening to customers and making sure their customer service is the best they can possibly offer. Although this came with a problem, with over 123 million customers a year, how were they able to listen to every comment that their customers may have whether it good or bad.
Intelligent sentiment analysis based on rules or simply put ‘magic’ helps Argos understand the basic sentiments of which consumers felt about their stores.

(Essentially segments data by location, stores, gender of customer, why they said it, which store is performing best, real time information, able to give instant response, able to link comment straight to the correct store.)

October 20, 2016 Uncategorized No Comments on A final year students case study regarding Argos and its use of Digital customer service