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Running head: ICG’S SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING & ADVERTISING 1 Social Media Integration into ICG’s Marketing and Advertising Campaigns Joel Westfield Kaplan University Dr. Martin’s grading feedback: Joel, good work getting your Unit 2 individual assignment submitted. I hope that you found this assignment valuable, especially from the standpoint it covers current phenomena that we are all experiencing in terms of social media in marketing and advertising campaigns. Following is my feedback. Excellent introduction! I could clearly understand your purpose. You did a nice job discussing social media trends, and I was especially happy to see you use multiple sources. Your recommendations section was fantastic because you linked them to your simulation segments, you offered many suggestions, and also had a good discussion about integrating strategies. Your paper was the last one that I graded out of about 37 students (sorry!) but I can tell you that you were the only one to get 100%! Way to go – have a great Unit 3! Dr. Martin ICG’S SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING & ADVERTISING 2 Social Media Integration into ICG’s Marketing and Advertising Campaigns Social media must be a part of Innovative Computer solution’s (ICG) marketing strategy because consumers are spending their time online (Manternach, 2011). ICG’s participation in social media advertising will send a clear message to consumers that the organization desires to connect and engage with them. ICG is likely to be talked about in the social media. This makes it essential that ICG participate in social media to influence the conversation so as to develop a strong brand (Munger, 2012). If an organization like ICG is not talked about on Facebook, Yelp, LinkedIn, and other social media sites, then it is losing business. Integrating social media into ICG’s traditional marketing and advertising campaigns is essential for enhancing awareness of the company’s Workhorse and Traveler brands, demonstrating the company’s interest in what consumers have to say, and ultimately, enhancing ICG’s bottom line (Kotler & Keller, 2009; Munger, 2012). Toward the end of developing an effective integrated marketing communication strategy and differentiating the ad campaign to accommodate IGC’s Workhorse and Traveler market segments, this paper has two primary objectives: 1) Explore leading edge trends in integrating social media into traditional marketing and advertising campaigns, and 2) Make recommendations for most effectively incorporating social media into the Workhorse and Traveler market segments to develop an overall integrated and differentiated marketing strategy. Integrate Social Media into an IMC Strategy: Leading Edge Trends Determining what consumers want in a product, responding to the demand with the right products, and going to where the consumers are to inform them that ICG has the products they want are important factors in marketing (Cadotte, 2008). Traditional marketing and advertising campaigns involving cost and price considerations, consumer satisfaction, promotions, and mass market advertising are important to ICG’s marketing strategy. It is becoming increasingly important for companies like ICG to support the traditional marketing strategies by integrating ICG’S SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING & ADVERTISING 3 internet communication into the overall marketing strategy. Social media marketing is relatively new and in its formative stages. As such, organizations are experimenting with it to find the right recipes for success (Gunelius, 2011). Marketing strategies involving social media are still evolving, but some trends offer tremendous opportunities for organizations among the first to capitalize on them. The first leading edge trend is the proliferation of new social media platforms that offer different flavors of marketing (Simone, 2012). Businesses have moved toward social media in droves (Manternach, 2011). In addition to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn, which 70%, 40%, and 58% of businesses use, respectively, there are relatively new arrivals. These new arrivals include Google+ and Pinterest, to name just two. Google+ connects marketers to consumers through circles (created by Google or the company) and hangouts that allow video chats. Pinterest is a visually focused platform that allows organizations to showcase products, specials, blogs, and other favorites or topics of interest by pinning them to virtual boards (Simone, 2012). A second leading edge trend is the consumer location service (Gardner, 2012). This technology involves social applications such as Foursquare, Ban.jo, and Path. Add near field communication (NFC) technology to the equation and the result is a treasure trove of consumer data just waiting to be mined. One example of what these technologies can do is that one can see when someone is on social media talking about something of interest such as ICG or its products. This allows a company to connect with that consumer in real time. The popularity of smart phones and tablets is giving rise to mobile marketing (Gunelius, 2011). Mobile marketing allows organizations like ICG to connect with consumers in real time (Lewis, 2012). Much data useful in marketing can be gleaned when people are participating in social media on their phones. Mobile marketing also involves applications such as Viggle. Viggle bridges social media apps, which allow marketers to piggyback platforms (Gardner, 2012). So, for example, by watching a particular television program or video, a consumer is ICG’S SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING & ADVERTISING 4 rewarded with coupons, promotions, or other rewards by an organization like ICG. Despite there being a plethora of leading edge trends in social media marketing, the final one to be discussed in this paper is content curation. Content curation helps brands become more relevant to consumers by providing content of interest to them that they can modify to suit their needs (Gardner, 2012). Technologies such as Pulse, Flipboard, Fancy, and Foodspotting help brands to become media sources. Newsreading apps, e-magazines comprised of social media and other website content, and food favorites are among the capabilities of these technologies. Some content curation will actually accept payment for an organization’s products rather than providing a link to the company’s website. Recommendations Research has yielded a number of recommendations for incorporating social media into ICG’s Workhorse and Traveler market segments. First, the ICG marketing team must plant as many digital markers as possible (Simone, 2012). Given the proliferation of social media platforms, getting ICG’s Workhorse and Traveler brands in as many spots as possible will increase the organization’s market segments search engine rankings. This should include not only ICG Facebook & Twitter pages, but blogs, posts, pay-per-click ads on Google and Yahoo!, and informative videos on YouTube, and foreign social media platforms to name just a few. It is advisable that ICG employ people in the organization’s global markets to ensure maximization of digital plants globally. A second recommendation focuses primarily on ICG’s Traveler market segment. ICG’s Traveler customers are executives and sales persons who often participate in LinkedIn. ICG must add a LinkedIn Company Follow button to its website (Beese, 2012). In addition, ICG should develop a company page on the LinkedIn platform. The follow company feature on LinkedIn allows for links to Twitter, blogs, and other social media platforms. For this to work effectively, ICG must keep content fresh to maintain ICG’S SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING & ADVERTISING 5 relevance to what is happening at ICG and in the lives of consumers (Sannino, 2011). As the largest group of customers, ICG needs to use mobile applications in the Workhorse market segment (Lewis, 2012). Because Workhorse customers are sensitive to price, the mobile applications should include promotions such as coupons, discounts, and other price reducing offers. Social media marketing that focuses on smart phones should include Facebook news feeds, NTT DoCoMo in Japan, and the Viggle platform bridge (Gardner, 2012; Gunelius, 2011). Mobile marketing will allow ICG to better connect with consumers in the market for computers and searching for product reviews posted by other consumers. A final recommendation is to market the Workhorse and Traveler brands as media sources. Doing so will involve content and user-generated curation. Curation is editorially selecting content that the consumer audience will be interested in, and adding thoughts and expertise to that content (Gunelius, 2011). Consumers also need to be able to modify the content to suit their needs as well to create “personalized information platforms” (Gardner, 2012). ICG also needs to utilize social and visual news reader applications such as Pulse, Flipboard, and Fancy, which will also allow consumers to purchase Workhorse and Traveler products without adding the step of going to ICG’s website. The recommendations given above will achieve an integrated marketing communication (IMC) strategy as well as a differentiation of ICG’s advertising campaign to accommodate the Workhorse and Traveler market segments. There are a number of reasons for this. First, ICG’s social media marketing and advertising will force the organization to pay closer attention to what consumers are saying and to be more responsive to them (Bernstein, 2010). Essentially, ICG will need to have two-way conversations with consumers (Munger, 2012). This will set ICG’s Workhorse and Traveler segments apart as willing to connect and engage with consumers (Manternach, 2011). By planting numerous digital markers, this will be all the more relevant. ICG’S SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING & ADVERTISING 6 Second, incorporating social media into marketing the Workhorse and Traveler products will heighten brand awareness by adding additional “outlets to ensure that [ICG’s] ad campaign is seen” (Cadotte, 2008, pg. 165). Since nearly 70% of internet users also use social media, adding mobile applications and content curation to ICG’s marketing mix, will maximize the chances that the organization’s target segments see the Workhorse and Traveler products and talk about them (Kotler & Keller, 2009; Manternach, 2011). Third, by marketing the Workhorse and Traveler segments as media sources, consumers will begin to see the products as relevant to them. In this sense, ICG’s social media marketing will amplify the company’s traditional marketing by balancing the “free-form messaging” of social media with the control and consistency of the traditional (Bernstein, 2010). This will serve to foster community, loyalty, and will initiate conversations with consumers. Fourth, ICG’s presence on social media platforms, especially LinkedIn and the Company Follow feature, will become critical elements in driving product innovation, sales, research and development, customer service, and communications (Lewis, 2012). Finally, the recommendations made in this paper achieve a balance between IMC strategy and differentiated ad campaigns by using social media to clarify the messages sent through traditional marketing. Messages sent through traditional marketing can be interpreted in ways ICG did not intend. Messages sent through traditional marketing are not easy to change (Sannino, 2011). Social media will enable ICG to get the right message about Workhorse or Traveler out by creating a dialogue with consumers. Conclusion To successfully market its Workhorse and Traveler brands, ICG must get customers’ attention, build their interest in the products by convincing them of their advantages, foster desire that the products are what they want, and move them to act and make a purchase (Cadotte, 2008; Sannino, 2011). Effective marketing requires an integrated marketing communication ICG’S SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING & ADVERTISING 7 strategy balanced with a differentiated advertising campaign that accommodates ICG’s individual Workhorse and Traveler segments. Utilizing traditional marketing and incorporating social media marketing will achieve this balance. Traditional and social media marketing cannot be used exclusive on one another. Both are needed to achieve ICG’s marketing goals and to ensure the success of the company and its brands (Manternach, 2011; Sannino, 2011). By following the recommendations made in this paper, ICG will realize heightened global brand awareness, strength, and loyalty, reach more consumers, achieve message consistency, and build a reputation for being relevant to consumers and to their lives. To be sure, social media marketing has risks. Organizations cannot control what others are saying about them or their products on social media. An organization can guide the message and turn this lack of control into something positive (Bernstein, 2010). Consumers tend to trust what strangers are saying about a product more than advertisements. By leveraging the possibilities of social media marketing, especially the leading edge trends, ICG can build stronger brands and a reputation for connecting with and engaging consumers. Ultimately, by engaging consumers in conversation through social media, ICG’s Workhorse and Traveler market segments will enjoy significant sales increases and a high rate of return on marketing investment (Munger, 2012). ICG’S SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING & ADVERTISING 8 References Beese, J. (2012, Feb. 27). Increase your LinkedIn network with new follow button. Sprout Insights. Retrieved from: http://sproutsocial.com/insights/2012/02/linkedin-followcompany-button/ Bernstein, R. (2010, Jan. 20). Integrate social media with traditional advertising for higher returns. Social Media Today. Retrieved from: http://socialmediatoday.com/SMC/167993 Cadotte, E. (2008). Tactical considerations in designing marketing strategies. In E. Cadotte (Ed.), The Management of Strategy in the Marketplace (pp. 147-176). Knoxville, TN: Innovative Learning Solutions. Gardner, J. (2012, Mar. 5). Five huge digital marketing trends you can’t afford to ignore. Mashable Business. Retrieved from: http://mashable.com/2012/03/05/future-digitalmarketing-trends/ Gunelius, S. (2011, Dec. 12). Which trends will shape social media marketing in 2012? Retrieved from: http://sproutsocial.com/insights/2011/12/social-media-trends-2012/ Kotler, P., Keller, K. (2009). Marketing management (13th Ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall. Lewis, M. (2012, Jan. 26). Social marketing trends to look for in 2012: Predictions from top marketer. Social Media Today. Retrieved from: http://socialmediatoday.com/node/ 435188&utm_source=feedburner_twitter&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign =autotweets Manternach, L. (2011). Is social media in your 2012 plan? Corridor Business Journal, 8(21), 16. Retrieved from: http://web.ebscohost.com.lib.kaplan.edu/ehost/detail?sid=d5238ff84b4c-4c98-a094-bcad1657d0ab%40sessionmgr12&vid=3&hid=108&bdata=JnNpdGU9Z Whvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=bwh&AN=70294381 ICG’S SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING & ADVERTISING 9 Sannino, G. (2011). Integrate social media with traditional marketing & boost the effectiveness of both. Retrieved from: http://www.searchenginepeople.com/blog/social-mediatraditional-marketing-integration.html Simone, P. (2012). The top 5 promotional platforms you need to know about. Hudson Valley Business Journal, 23(8), 9-13. Retrieved from: http://web.ebscohost.com.lib.kaplan.edu/ ehost/detail?sid=0ec5a0a9-044d-42ba-9661-ff6746e9200d%40sessionmgr114&vid= 3&hid=25&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=bwh&AN=71944370