Cult Beauty is a makeup brand. Sending marketing emails is a great way for Cult Beauty to reach their customers by personalising their emails based on interests and likes. This is an effective way to develop a relationship with with their consumers. Cult Beauty is advertising products for Valentines Day in the email, specifically tailoring their message towards lip products.
What is good and what works well?
The email is very interactive, with the utilisation of images and hyperlinks that direct the consumer to the Cult Beauty website.
What could be improved?
The newsletter could be improved with personal recommendations based on recent purchases, so the experience is tailored to be engaging more for existing customers. They could also include the consumer’s name in the email. Furthermore, Cult Beauty could list the prices of the products they advertise in the email, rather than only showing pictures.
A reflection on my experience of group work for the February IT282 assignment.
Planning
Creating an analysis of Women’s Best’s online business environment required planning from the outset. Planning is necessary to outline which group member would perform a specific task. It is important to decide team member roles, otherwise commitment to the planning process cannot be discussed (Randolph, 1988). I decided to analyse Women’s Best’s online marketplace (focusing on customers, competition and partners) and their business models.
Organisation
The teamwork was functionally organised with the hierarchical structure allowing members to work together. This is demonstrated in each member being in charge of their own section. The trust and accountability required in each group member is important for enabling success. As a self organising team, equality and fairness for members is imperative for successful problem solving and decision making (The Open University, 2016). Consequently, we decided that leadership would be shared, which was effective as members were in charge of themselves which minimised the risk of tension.
Process
In retrospect, this group work could have been improved if we had divided the timing of audio for each person. Since the time limit was 15 minutes, and the group consisted of 4 members, each person should have spoken for a few seconds over 3 minutes. Instead, the lack of preparation for the technical audio process resulted in some group members needing more time (which they could not have) to deliver their findings for their section. As a result, important information may have been neglected from the presentation.
Involvement + Collaboration
All group members were involved in discussions that took place regarding which company to analyse. Once a decision was made on Women’s Best, we decided upon a deadline for when our individual sections should be completed. This was to allow for collaboration between the group before the submission deadline. The group involvement was to ensure that the knowledge learnt and analysed was shared between all members, resulting in a well informed summary.
Skills
In aspiring to be an effective group member, I obtained important teamwork and communication skills which are necessary to cultivate a group climate that is healthy (University of Waterloo, 2017). I have learnt soft skills such as time management by working to several deadlines, as well as developing critical thinking skills when making difficult decisions about what pieces of information from my analysis were most relevant to include in the audio (considering the time restraint). Additionally, I have expanded my hard skills with proficient use in Microsoft Office, specifically learning how to add audio to PowerPoint. Additionally, I have acquired marketing research and social media marketing skills when carrying out competitor benchmarking.
The skills I have acquired from this group work assignment will hopefully enhance my employability opportunities.
References
University of Waterloo (2017). Teamwork Skills: Being an Effective Group Member | Centre for Teaching Excellence. [online] Centre for Teaching Excellence. Available at: https://uwaterloo.ca/centre-for-teaching-excellence/teaching-resources/teaching-tips/tips-students/being-part-team/teamwork-skills-being-effective-group-member.
Randolph WA & Posner BZ (1988) ‘What every manager needs to know about project management’, Sloan Management Review, Vol 29, No 4, p65-73.
The Open University (2016). Groups and teamwork: View as single page. [online] Available at: https://www.open.edu/openlearn/ocw/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=3302&printable=1 [Accessed 30 Jan. 2021].
Apple’s webpage enhances the ability to easily source information with the search bar. Additionally, the page layout seamlessly blends in with all pages under different headings, such as ‘Mac’, ‘iPad and ‘iPhone’. This is due to its user-centric approach which incorporates design, tracking and alaysis. Embedded text links such as ‘buy’ and ‘learn more’ are easy to spot as Apple have made the interface user friendly by placing these links in bubbles. Similarly, navigational elements are well positioned as the menus are consistently at the top of the page.
It can also be seen how the above content are a clickable menu of top page links for easy access on the website. The use of breadcrumb navigation enhances the user’s experience as pages are easier to find. Apple does not utilise this feature as their webpage design is so simple to use, that is not necessary because a user will never lose track of where they are.
As part of the health sector, The Gym Group is one of the top ten services offering fitness facilities in the UK. Their website is user friendly as its primary purpose is to market a service to potential clients.
The Micro environment is influenced by suppliers, competition, customers and the general public. For example, The Gym Group has a duty to satisfy needs of the public since they can affect the success of the business. For instance, The Gym Group has included a section on ‘Coronavirus information’ to keep the public informed of their decisions about how they are remaining safe during the pandemic.
Similarly, the Macro environment factors are affected by political, social, economic and technological forces. Social factors include The Gym Group taking demographic issues into consideration by offering students lower priced monthly subscriptions, in comparison to clients that are working full-time.
Twitter is a social networking site where users are able to directly interact with one another, in the form of tweets. If a user is registered, they may like and retweet tweets they have seen on their feed, however, if they are unregistered the user is only able to view tweets.
Twitter is a great way to make connections with an online community, made possible with the ability to utilise the ‘direct message’ feature to communicate with family and friends wanting to discuss areas of common interest.
The benchmark to assess their business value comes in the form of analysing their consumer base. Twitter currently has 330 Million active users, with 145 Million users logging on daily to interact with the service.
As a result, the ability to monetise Twitter’s assets can be very successful. Revenue made from advertisement sales is a great way to specifically target consumers, offering service/products that may enhance the user’s experience.
What is good and what works well?
