 Hello bloggers!
This week I’m going to talk about another business trend, called “corporate social responsibility”. We can’t deny that social responsibility and corporate social responsibility have become very important for companies these days.
During classes and seminars everybody have seen something about companies who are committed to sustainability, but I wanted to know more about it. So I’ve read a book about CSR: “Good works: Marketing and corporate initiatives that build a better world… and the bottom line” written by a very famous Marketing expert: Philip Kotler (known from the 4 P’s) in cooperation with 2 others (D.Hessekiel & N.R.Lee).
Kottler has written this book to inform managers, students, marketers, etc. about the importance of CRS (Corporate Social Responsibility). Not only the benefits are mentioned, but also the keys to success, the concerns, how you have to deal with critics, how to choose a cause, … . By my opinion every manager who is thinking about his social responsibility has to read this, because this book contains real cases of companies who already implemented CRS and a concrete action plan to implement CRS in your company.
First of all, we can determine that there has been a huge shift of the importance of CRS. Before the 90’s, companies saw CRS as an obligation, Kottler called it “doing good to look good”. With this, he means that companies only supported organizations because they were supposed to and to become in the spotlights. The decisions to support an organization were often influenced by the preferences of the managers, they didn’t really think about the relation between the donations and how it will influence their objectives.
Today, we’ve reached a new approach. Nowadays, we see that managers are really implementing CRS programs related to their business goals, objectives, the market, products,… . Because they’ve realized that they have a responsibility to help change the world. And that’s a good thing because Kottler has done a study about consumer behavior and CRS, and he says that consumers may switch brands to the one that supports social issues. The main reason for this is that consumers wants to move towards the top of Maslow’s hierarchy of Needs and seeking “self-realization”. CRS might be also a requirement to do business with suppliers or B2B consumers.
Kottler talks about “doing well, by doing good”. Because it’s possible to take your social responsibility and make profit at the same time, we can even say that CRS improves the company’s financial results. With this phrase he means that there are several benefits related to CRS. Many investigations has proven that companies who have implemented CRS , have gained financial value, increased their market share, increased their sales, strengthened their brand positioning,… .
In his book, Kottler distinguishes 2 types of social initiatives that can be implemented by companies. Both types, marketing-driven and corporate-driven initiatives, have also 3 subdivisions who each have their own CRS-goals. For every initiative there are given some objectives, benefits and cases of existing companies who have successfully implemented those initiatives (for instance P&G, Coca-cola, Starbucks,…).
Implementing CRS has also brought an increased ability to attract, motivate (by involving them in those initiatives) and retain employees.
Finally, we can say that a company can’t escape from the fact that CRS has become very important these days and that it has a lot of benefits for the company’s business. It isn’t only important to make ‘”campaign plans” to realize and implement those initiatives but a company has also to measure its outcome (return on investment) from the fact that they are supporting a project. Quoted by Kottler: “What good did we do”? . Trusting on expectations is not enough, we’ve learned that outcomes have to be measured by with the marketing plan.
Unfortunately this was my last post on our blog about trends. Finally I would like to thank you for reading my blogs, and I hope that you’ve learned something!
Grtz Thomas
Hello bloggers! This week I’m going to talk about another marketing trend, called “Integrated marketing communication” or IMC. These days there is a raising importance of IMC in companies. Why?
Because companies have to show consistency in their communication, so consumers will recognize them faster en relate the communication to their brand or products.
In business communication you have 2 possibilities, the classical approach and the contemporary approach. The classical approach isn’t such an efficient way of communication, because several departments of a company aren’t working together. In other words the different departments haven’t a mutual goal.
For instance:
- Marketing department
- Production
- Customer service
- Sales
- …
The contemporary approach is what experts call “IMC”. Integrated marketing communication is the integration of several aspects of the marketing and communication mix. This means that there is an 360° approach because all the departments of a company are working together. The 360° approach is very important, especially for marketing campaigns. Marketing campaigns have to show interaction and synergy. All marketing tools must match, like I’ve already they have to show synergy. Secondly they should reinforce each other (interaction).
Normally in marketing you have above-the-line communication and below the line communication. Above-the-line communication, also called “one to many”, is more focused on advertising, radio, television, billboards,… . Below-the-line communication, also called “one to one”, is a more personal way of communication for instance: direct mail, e-mail, newsletters,… .
According to experts, IMC is what they call “through-the-line communication”. Because you’re combining the 2 previous methods, but with a certain consistency and synergy.
Unfortunately IMC is very difficult, so it’s better to recruit an communication manager who controls everything. The communication manager has to control if the several departments of company are working together. Because inconsistency in marketing campaigns is very confusing and ineffective.
Another important thing in IMC is that a company has to integrate and maintain their corporate communication. Corporate communication is communication about the strategy of a company and is strongly related to the company’s culture and structure. Why is this important? Well, right now companies are doing amazing efforts on “Corporate Social Responsibility”. But there aren’t’ many companies who are communicating these efforts with their stakeholders. However this is very important to improve their image.
When you’re prepared to integrate corporate communication, don’t forget to brief your employees, because they create the image of the company. There has to be a good internal communication and very important, try to avoid a gap between internal and external communication.
You can’t neglect the importance of a company’s image, because in some cases consumers are buying an image and not just a product. For instance: Coca-Cola vs. River Cola.
Unfortunately a company can’t change their marketing approach from one day to another, so there are 4 stages in IMC development:
- Tactical coordination of marketing communication
- Redefining the scope of marketing communication
- Application of IT
- Financial and strategy integration = IMC
We can conclude that IMC is the best method to avoid redundant and conflicting communications. Some good examples of IMC are ING, Rabobank, Vedett and BMW (Same look and feel, same colors,…). A good IMC-strategy is much more than communicating with your consumers. You should also take into account your stakeholders.
Unfortunately there are also some obstacles of implementing IMC, for instance:
- Too much specialization (no synergy) - Lack of communication
- Ego
- External communication agencies and their specialization
In order to avoid these obstacles it might be very clever to make an integrated communication plan. The plan consists 6 steps:
- Situational analysis en marketing objectives?
- Target? (Who)
- Communication objectives?
- Means, techniques, channels and media?
Measuring results?
Thanks for reading my blog, I hope you’ve enjoyed it. Next week I’ll entertain for the last time, with another marketing trend.
Thomas
Hello bloggers!
This week I’m going to talk about another business trend, called “Referral Recruitment”. I think we all know that it’s really hard to find the right person for the job these days. But referral recruitment might be a great solution to solve this problem.
Referral recruitment is much more than just online referral. Referral or network recruitment is a way of recruiting people in cooperation with your existing employees. It’s a very easy, but efficient way of recruiting people, because existing employees are recommending friends, family and other persons to the company.
Most companies are quiet positive about this method, because they are convinced that employees are recommending people who are really capable and perfect for the job. Employees wouldn’t recommend someone who’s very careless, because they are afraid of losing their one jobs.
In most cases these persons are rewarded when the candidate has the job. This reward can be money, but it can also be presents like a citytrip. Some companies are even raffling cars to those who’ve recruited a person.
This method of recruiting people has many advantages, for instance:
- good quality of the candidates
- the candidates are more involved
- the employees are more involved
- lower recruitment costs
Referral recruitment is very popular among graduated people, called generation Y. Because these persons prefer a personal approach and attach great importance to the atmosphere and culture within the organisation. So, they want to be well informed before they take the job. And what’s better than inside information?
As we discussed, referral recruitment can be implement offline, with the help of your friends, family or others. But there are also specific websites by which you can recommend someone to a company. First of all companies have to make a vacancy. Secondly they are supposed to add a reward to the vacancy. Famous examples of online recruitment are: Zubka, Spotajob and Friendhunter.
Thanks for reading my blog, and I’d like to entertain you next week, with another marketing trend.
Thomas
Hello bloggers!
Last week I was on a holiday, but this week I’m back to talk about a new business trend. During my holiday I read “Entrepreneurs”, a magazine published by Voka Belgium. In their publication of March the 29th there was an article about an advanced “Timetracking system”.
“Time is money” is a very famous quote among business men. There are many apps available by which you can register your working hours, but “Hourstracker” is the most famous one. Hourstracker is very simple to use. Once you’ve installed the app on your Apple-device, you can input the data for instance: Type of job or project. When you start working (for instance 9 a.m.) , you have to tap on the time-clock, which is integrated in the app. In the evening, when the work is finished, you have to tap again on the time-clock. The next day, the tap-process starts again.
The most important advantage of this timetracking system is that this app registers the hours that you’ve worked but also the money that you’ve earned during this period or for this specific job, because of the app’s “price integration”.
Another advantage is that you can easily generate sales reports, by which you can see what you’ve earned daily, weekly or monthly. You can watch this reports on your smartphone (with the app), but you can also export this data to a datasheet (for instance: Excell). Managers even have the possibility to mail or import the data to their accounting system.
The app is a very flexible tool, because managers can create their own tags and filters, so they can view specific data.
Hourstracker allows you to turn back time and also to add comments, by which you can see the time that you’ve spend on a specific activity of a project. When you’re afraid that you’ll lose the data, the app offers a cloud service. This cloud service ensures that your data are saved on an external server.
At this time you can download the app for free, but for the cloud service you have to pay a subscription. Right now only apple-devices can download this app, but normally android provides comparable tools (for instance: “Time Tracker” and “Job Tracker”).
Thanks for reading my blog, and I’d like to entertain you next week, with another marketing trend.
Thomas
Hello bloggers!
This week I’m going to talk about another marketing trend, called “Social Gifting”. Marketing experts are saying that this is the next big thing in e-commerce since Groupon and Living Social.
But I’m pretty sure that there aren’t many people who already know this marketing trend. Honestly I never heard of it either. I think everyone already received a “spam” mail of a site like Groupon, to inform you about a discount (on a hotel offer for instance). But while websites like SheDeals and Groupon are offering discounts, Social Gifting Apps like “Wrapp” and “Karma” are enabling you to use a social network ( for instance: Facebook) to share virtual gift cards.
A couple of years ago, it wasn’t easy to give a present to a family member or a friend who lives far away from you. The sending process took a lot of time, because you had to buy a gift, packing it, go to the post office and finally DHL or FedEx had to deliver the package to the recipient.
The internet and online webshops created a new way of giving presents, it even made it a lot easier. Webshops are offering an enormous range of gift options. People can choose a delivery with a normal “brown box’ packaging or a luxurious “white glove” packaging.
Giving presents online isn’t totally new, but the way how people give presents by using the internet is changing. Social media causes this evolution. Without “Social gifting”, the sender must know information about the recipient for instance: the shipping address, personal information like an e-mail address/ phone number… . Some of this information isn’t easy to obtain, unless you ask the recipient for this information. But then it isn’t really a surprise anymore.
To obtain personal information of the recipient, companies are using information published on social networks like Facebook. Facebook has announced that they’ll launch a social gifting service, not only for digital goods (online gift cards) but also physical goods.
There are several reasons why it might be a big success for Facebook, for instance: the fact that gift cards are very popular, consumers always spend more than the value of the gift card….
Thanks for reading my blog, and I’d like to entertain you next week, with another marketing trend.
Thomas
Hello bloggers!
Today I’ll talk about another marketing trend, called “LEAP commerce”. What is LEAP commerce? Well, Leap commerce is an application founded by some successful entrepreneurs and former employees of Facebook. The App has created a new way of mobile shopping, because people can shop in a virtual mal.
LEAP created partnerships with major retailers like Wal-Mart, Amazon…, which results in a product range of more than 110 million products. So you don’t have to browse to a webshop, but you can just order and pay something on your Smartphone.
Another advantage is the fact that this App is more personalized. First of all, when you’re downloading the App on your Smartphone, users can identify what kind of shopper they are. An algorithm processes the personal information and suggests relevant products based on several factors. For instance: products based on personal style, price, brand preferences and location.
When you’re consulting the product catalog, you’ll see that the social layer is very important. Because products liked by your friends (on a social network) are on top of the list. There is also a possibility to share a product on Facebook for instance.
One of the biggest disadvantages of online webshops is the fact that you have to go from one website to another. With LEAP you can buy products of several websites in one transaction. But when you buy products of different suppliers they’ll still ship the products separately.
The word LEAP means: Loyalty, Engagement, Analytics and Payment. LEAP provides products of several suppliers, incorporates social media and enables dialogue. There are also several paying methods, for instance: Visa, PayPal, MasterCard…
Right now, LEAP is available on iOS and Android Smartphones.
Check out the video : http://vimeo.com/37543009
I hope you’ve enjoyed reading my blog! See you next week, with another marketing trend.
Thomas
 Hello bloggers!
This week I’m going to talk about another marketing trend, called QR-coding. I’m pretty convinced that many people already saw a “Quick Response Code”. You can see these codes on billboards (for instance: at the bus stop), but even on magazines and the packaging of certain products.
Many brands are making use of this tool to promote their brand or product, but also to inform the consumers about the specifications of a product.
On the advertisements, marketers only give information such as a brand name, a product name, a picture and a QR-code. The reason why marketers only give a small amount of information is to make consumers curious about their products. Marketing experts are convinced that a QR-code is an example of “ a call for action”. Because of the small amount of information, the consumers are curious and they want to know more about the product. For instance: Where can I buy this dress? How much does it costs? Nearest store? …
The big advantage of working with QR-codes is that consumers will not get an information overload, because only the core-message is mentioned on the advertising tools.
Another big advantage is that QR-coding creates more traffic on the website of the brand or product. So the chance that people are watching the whole product range is much bigger than a normal advertisement.
I’m a marketer, so it would be strange if I didn’t knew QR-coding. But still, I’m convinced that there are people who don’t really know the meaning of QR-codes or how to use it. That’s why it’s important that a brand communicates QR-coding to their consumers. It might be a possibility to mention a discount on the advertisement, so people will be more prepared to scan the QR.
The QR-code is linked to the website of the brand, product or service. Everyone can scan the QR-codes, the only thing you need is a Smartphone with a specific App. (For instance: Apple created “Quick scan”).
I’ve done some research and apparently there is an App where you can mention your allergies. So, when you’re scanning the QR-code of a certain product and there is an ingredient that your are allergic to, the App is warning you. Which is an amazing tool!
Thanks for reading my blog, and I’d like to entertain you next week, with another marketing trend.
Thomas
Hello Bloggers!
My First post on the blog is about social media marketing; more specifically “twitter marketing”. One of the most famous examples of an excellent twitter campaign is the “Special K Tweet shop of Kellogg’s”. Kellogg’s opened a new pop-up store in the heart of London to promote the K Cracker Crisps, their newest product.
Normally we see that brands are giving free samples of their products on the streets. Not only to show their new products but also to create lots of publicity.
But instead of giving away free samples on the streets of London, Kellogg’s launched something completely new, called “social currency”. People could collect a sample of their newest product for the price of a tweet. So, people received a free sample of the Special K Crackers if they posted that they were at the new pop-up store of Kellogg’s and that they were tasting free samples.
In the pop-up store, there were even tablets available for those who didn’t have a Smartphone.
Social currency or paying with a tweet is quiet unique, but is strongly related to what experts call “guerilla marketing”. The biggest advantage of this marketing technique is that it creates lots of publicity with a small amount of money.
Another big difference compared with giving samples on the street, is the effectiveness of the campaign. When you’re giving free samples on the streets, the campaign is only effective in that particular city or country.
But when you’re using social media, the messages are spread all over the world. Everyone (for instance: a Japanese guy) who’s following Kellogg’s on twitter will see all those messages, which results in more brand awareness and higher sales figures all over the world.
Thanks for reading my blog!
Thomas
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