Sustainable Operations Management (SOM) : design, modelling and analysis

Nevertheless, there are not many articles that deal with modelling and analysis of SOM decision making at strategic, tactical and operational levels that are important for implementation of SOM decisions. The aim of this special issue is to help researchers and decision makers to understand the strategies, tactics and implementation processes involved in SOM decisions and the performance measures and metrics through modelling and analysis of SOM. With the help of these articles appearing in this special issue, one should be able to gain a better understanding of the issues involved in SOM and how to model and evaluate SOM decision-making environments and decisions through appropriate modelling and analysis of both manufacturing and service supply chains. The scope of the special issue is to present researchers and senior managers with conceptual modelling and analysis of various sustainable operations decisions and their performance outcomes in supply chains. This includes optimisation related to closed-loop chains, carbon footprinting of supply chains, life-cycle management, greening supply chains, green and reverse logistics, product and process development towards improving energy savings, efficiency of transport and other related areas. Emphasis is placed on sustainable operations design, modelling and analysis, optimisation, and their performance measurement in a supply chain. The special issue contains articles that cover the following topics:

1. Implications of SOM in the 21st century organisational competitiveness;
2. Modelling of performance measures and metrics in SOM;
3. Modelling and assessment of life-cycle perspectives of SOM;
4. Modelling of cost/benefit and risk considerations/realizsations in SOM;
5. Macro-economic or industry-wide modelling and assessment of sustainable policies and actions;
6. Justification for SOM through conceptual modelling and analysis through the use of OR techniques;
7. Selecting SOM alternatives through appropriate Operations Research modelling and analysis;
8. Models for studying the impact of sustainable operations initiatives and policies;
9. Optimal supply chain configuration from a strategic, tactical or operational perspective;
10. Performance measures and models for SOM decisions;
11. Partnership development for SOM through modelling and optimisation.

The 11 papers appearing in this special issue deal with the above issues of modelling and analysis of SOM. A brief summary of each article is presented below.

SOM can be defined as the operations strategies, tactics and techniques, and operational policies to support both the economic and the environmental objectives and goals. The subject of sustainability has gained much attention from both researchers and practitioners over the past 6–8 years. Most of the articles deal with sustainability from an environmental perspective, but not many of them integrate both economic and environmental implications. Moreover, there is a limited focus on modelling and analysis of SOM integrating the interests of both economic and environmental interests. To address this, Gunasekaran, Irani, Papadopoulos in their paper entitled Modelling and Analysis of Sustainable Operations Management: Certain Investigations for Research and Applications review the papers on modelling and analysis of SOM. Therefore, an attempt has been made in this paper to review the extant literature on SOM. The objective is to understand the definition of SOM and present the current status of research in modelling and analysis, as well as future research directions in the field. Considering the recent focus on the subject, they review the literature beginning in 2000 in order to make the study current and more relevant for both researchers and practitioners.

Further more information about this articles, please you check on Journal of the Operational Research Society.


By Angappa Gunasekaran & Zahir Irani
Repost by Acarre Community Media

Identifying revenue opportunities via capacity analysis - Introduction

Capacity is defined as the output- or revenue-generating ability of an entity or a component thereof. It is a measure of the ability to produce goods, services and revenue.

Not all capacity concepts or components are created equal. Capacity's several components include, of course, the physical facilities that exist 24/7 although they may not be utilized 24/7 for various reasons. Because physical capacity is not easily adjusted in the short term, the notion of fixed physical capacity is central to much of the RM literature. Another component of capacity is personnel or the level of staffing provided to make the physical facilities operational. The amount of personnel capacity is discretionary and in many cases may be easily modified in the short term. Processes employed constitute a third component that affects how physical facilities and personnel are utilized to produce output.

Because they are internal to the organization, these three components of capacity depend on decisions made by management. A fourth capacity component is at least partially external: the supply chain (purchases) that reliably provides the goods and services necessary for the organization's outputs. Thus, we may think of the ‘four Ps’ of capacity:

1. Physical
2. Personnel
3. Processes
4. Purchases

 

Capacity illustration

To illustrate, observe that from a physical facilities viewpoint a restaurant's capacity consists of the size of its dining area and its kitchen. The number and capabilities of food preparation and service personnel also affect capacity. Processes utilized include the various techniques of preparing and delivering output. Although a fast-food restaurant's capacity differs from that of a fine dining restaurant of comparable size – a fast food outlet's physical capacity is able to serve more customers due to shorter preparation and service times – it will not necessarily produce more revenue. Finally, the ability to service customers depends on a steady and reliable supply of food and service products.

All four restaurant capacity components – physical facilities, personnel, processes and supply chain – interact to create the restaurant's revenue potential. Thus managing the revenue process requires measuring capacity on the various dimensions discussed above, and to analyze how those dimensions of capacity are being utilized. The CAM-I capacity model, discussed next, offers a useful framework for such analysis.

Summary and Conclusion

Building on the theme that proper consideration of capacity and its components is central to any effective RM scheme, we examined the insights provided by the CAM-I capacity model. The breakdown of capacity utilization into idle, non-productive and productive components provides a convenient framework for managerial review and analysis. Why is capacity idle? Are there impediments to its use? Should previous conclusions about the non-marketability of idle capacity be re-examined? Are there new and creative ways to put some idle capacity to work? How much capacity is non-productive and why? Can ways be found to convert non-productive time to productive? Analyses such as these can help identify new revenue opportunities. A CAM-I capacity analysis provides a straightforward framework for identifying revenue-generating enhancements without sophisticated mathematical analysis.

A further impact of capacity analysis is the recognition that capacity to generate revenues does not depend solely on physical facilities. Personnel, supply chain and processes also play a role; all four components should be considered.

Capacity analysis has its limitations. The analysis works best for entities where physical capacity directly limits revenues. Thus it is most readily applied in industries that have been the mainstream of the RM literature – airlines, hotels, restaurants, golf courses and the like. The analysis is also relevant to most manufacturing environments, although complicated by how multiple products impact the use of physical facilities. The most challenging applications lie in retail and service businesses, where physical assets play less of a role in RM. However, in such environments the other elements of capacity – personnel, supply chain and processes – may take on greater importance. More study is needed on these dimensions of capacity analysis.

Overall, capacity analysis, especially the CAM-I framework, can be a valuable tool for RM.

Further more information about this articles, please you check on Journal of Revenue and Pricing Management or e-mail to rhuefne@buffalo.edu.

By Ronald J Huefner & James A Largay III

Repost by Acarre Community Media

Corporate blogs as e-CRM tools – Building consumer engagement through content management

Corporate Blogs are fast emerging as new organizational tools for marketing, building brand relationships and Customer Relationship Management. This study has been conducted to analyse the ability of an organization to use its Corporate Blog as an e-CRM tool. We attempt to study the impact of brand communication (content type and volume), hosted on an organizational blog, on its ability to induce consumer engagement. Organizations can build relationships with their prospective and current consumers through posts on a Corporate Blog, and encourage them to participate by commenting on the blog, thereby stimulating consumer engagement. The variation in the organizational objective behind hosting each post on the blog is used to categorize the content posted on the blog. An exploratory study enables us to deduce the importance of content typologies in building a relationship with the customer. We are able to identify three types of content typologies – Organizational, Promotional and Relational. We further observe that Relational content hosted by an organization is able to induce greater volumes of consumer engagement (measured in terms of number of consumer comments) than any other content typology. The analysis of dependency of consumer engagement on the volume of content posted by the organization indicates a positive correlation between number of posts and volume of comments.

A Corporate Blog is an online repository serving as a virtual storehouse of information, where organizations post content for consumer consumption. Objectives include – providing a solution to exploratory consumer browsing, aiding a consumer's quest for information, helping consumers gain access to organizational promotional campaigns and responding to controversies regarding organization/product. This creates consumer involvement with this organizational endeavour and eventually achieves consumer engagement for the organization, as the consumer commences participation. Content categorization is done to enable organizations to post consumer-relevant content to induce greater consumer participation. Dependency analysis and regression are used to study the relationship between volume of content posted by the organization and its ability to stimulate greater consumer engagement. This article addresses the need for hosting the appropriate content on an organizational initiative, which, by matching consumer requirements, helps develop a relationship between organization and consumer. The scope of future work is outlined, wherein the knowledge capital created through exchange with consumers can be mined to extract explicit information, which can be leveraged from the organizational perspective for diffusion and exploitation, for subsequent competitive advantage. According to the Gartner Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies, 2009 (Figure 1), Corporate Blogging has moved up from the Trough of Disillusionment and is now in the Slope of Enlightenment, inching slowly towards wide-scale mainstream adoption as more and more benefits become visible.

Further information about this articles, please you check on Journal of Database Marketing & Customer Strategy Management.

By Vandana Ahuja & Yajulu Medury

Repost by Acarre Community Media

Marketing Ideas #4 : Quantitative Market Research

Quantitative market research involves some type of data gathering or the development of some method of measuring and analysing marketing information. One of the best starting places for quantitative market research is the collection of demographic data.

People sometimes get very nervous about the idea of doing market research. While it is true that market research can be very complex and involve substantial statistical analysis, it's also possible to gather information systematically but more simply and gain good marketing intelligence that you can put to practical use. In this article we will look at some quantitative methods for gathering market information.

In general, quantitative market research involves some type of data gathering or the development of some method of measuring and analysing marketing information. One of the best starting places for quantitative market research is the collection of demographic data.

Demographic information
Demographic information is usually defined as age, gender, race, income, marital status, geographic residence, work residence, household data and so on. There are several ways to gather this data, large group data gleaned from your country's census or small group data gathered from your customer base.

Unique Customer Database Development
It is very, very, (are you getting this ?) very important to know who your customers are. You can obtain this information by asking for it and making it worthwhile for your site users to provide the information to you. How do you do it ?

Registration:
Make it easy for people to register to get something from your site, name and email address, that's enough for you to know who's visiting and be able to contact them again. However, if you can, offer something worthwhile in exchange for a more complete set of registration information. Give users a discount in exchange for learning age range, income range, marital status, geographic location, how they found your site, occupation and so on.

Customer Satisfaction Survey:
Once again, use an incentive to get feedback from your purchasers. In this situation, you will be able to tie the type and amount of purchase and type of payment mechanism to other demographic data.

Aggregate Demographic Information
Once you know something about your customers or you have established a demographic group as your intended customers, tweens in the UK from families with income over for example, it's often useful to understand what the market potential is by determining the number of people in your market segment. Here are the sites to go to for census data.

UK - The government of the UK provides a statistical data site that provides demographic information across many categories of inquiry and allows you to create your own data tables as well.

U.S. - Although the U.S. Census publishes census data in aggregate form, you will need specific information that is compiled for your unique needs. The best way to obtain that information is through the Factfinder site

Canada - Canada provides both raw census data as well as tabulated data in many forms. Go to Statcan website to access the information.

Australia - Australia's Bureau of Statistics' website is a storehouse of demographic information.

Surveys
You are in a unique position to discover customised information from your customers through formal surveys. Online traders have a strong advantage over bricks and mortar retailers who have great difficulty enticing customers to fill out and return survey forms or respond to surveys by telephone. Web users, on the other hand, are much more likely to provide information when asked. And, you already have an audience of website users to draw into your data gathering efforts.

The subject of constructing surveys is an enormous field of study, much too complex to even begin to discuss in this article. Formal surveys should be carefully designed with questions tested for validity (Does each question elicit a response that answers the research question ?) and reliability (Will the question be answered in a consistent way when asked by different surveyors at different times under different circumstances. Does this mean that formal surveys are out of the question as a tool for you unless you can afford the services of a survey design group? Not necessarily.

If you decide to conduct a survey on your site, try these strategies to improve the survey's response rate and validity :

- Keep the length to the equivalent of one page or less
- Use a dynamic format if possible so the survey adapts to the survey taker
- Write as clearly as possible

Offer confidentiality an incentive for completion Make the survey aesthetically pleasing.
One good way to test the survey's ability to retrieve the kind of information you want is to study the results of a trial run of a limited number of users. Look at individual results to see if responders became confused by the questions, if there were too many 'don't know' or 'n/a' responses to make the question useful and so on.

Remember that statistical validity doesn't really begin until you have at least 30 responses within a response. This means that if you ask a question with four possible multiple choice answers, the data begins to be reliable when each multiple choice option has at least 30 responses.

Now, you need to remember that the surveys you conduct of visitors to your site represent the people that actually made it there, it completely misses all of those people that do not seem to know that your site exists. Oftentimes, those are the people whose opinions you need to discover. In that case, you may want to try an online survey group.

There are many, many web survey businesses that will help you design, conduct and analyse a formal survey, often targeting specific markets for you. One of the more interesting offerings is www.surveymonkey.com. These folks are so sure that you will prefer their service that they encourage you to compare and give you a list of their competitors with links to their sites! So, if you think you know what you want to ask and who you want to ask, it may be worth giving one of these services a try.

Trend Analysis and Industry Research
Since many small business owners cannot afford to undertake major formal marketing surveys, this kind of market research is typically the province of trade associations. One of the many reasons to join a trade association is to gain access to the market research that is conducted on behalf of its membership.

To find macro market research, try these techniques :
- Google your product area name and the words 'trade association' or 'market research' or 'industry'
- Google your target market name and the words 'market research' or 'trends' or 'buying habits'

By eSources
Reprint : Acarre Community Media

Marketing Ideas #3 : Qualitative Market Research

Before you can conduct market research, you need to understand how to position and promote your product. Everyone can and should do market research

Some business owners start to hyperventilate when they hear the words 'market research'. They think things like :

'I don't have a master's degree in marketing; I have no idea how to do research!'
Or
'I can't afford to do market research; I have a very limited budget!'
Or
'I don't have time to do research; I can hardly keep up with everything I have to do now to keep the business growing!'

Relax. You don't need special degrees to do market research, it doesn't have to cost a lot of money and you absolutely, positively need to make time for market research if you really want to grow your business.

In this article we'll look at some simple ways for you to gather the marketing information that is very important to your business long term success.

The methods for doing market research are varied and range from the informal information gathering that every seller does on a routine basis to more systematic methods of data gathering. Research data can be divided into two types, qualitative and quantitative.

Qualitative Data Gathering Techniques
Qualitative data is information that is not subject to measurement. You may think that unquantified information is not valid and it's true, you may not be able to calculate projections with qualitative information. However, every kind of information is useful and the 'uncontrolled' nature of qualitative information can make it some of the most insightful research data you'll find.

Chat Rooms, Forums, Message Boards
First and foremost, market research can be done by listening and observing attentively. As an on-line retailer, you don't have the advantage of being able to chat with your customers over a sales counter or listen in on conversations as people stroll past your trade booth but there are ways of listening to your customers on-line.

In order to learn more about your target market's preferences, you need to determine where they are communicating on the net about subjects that are useful to your research efforts. If you sell auto parts, you should seek out auto repair chat boards, auto parts review sites and so on. If you sell craft supplies, you should explore sites that crafters tend to visit.

To find chat rooms that involve your area or involve interests within your target markets, use a good search engine such as Google and search those topics in this way (using auto parts as an example), 'car repair chat room' or 'top auto parts sites' and so on.
Go to these sites and read, read, read. Find out what your potential customers are saying, how they use sites and what's hot. You may even want to subscribe to several sites and become an 'expert', providing advice and directing people to your site, if it's allowed. (If you can't do such 'advertising', just be sure your profile lists your site info if you give good advice, people will find you.)

Review Sites
A second interesting technique is the use of review sites. There may or may not be relevant reviews available for your area but it's worth trying; you would be surprised at what you may find. For example, try doing a search on Google for 'hand crafted chess board review'. This rather esoteric request yielded a variety of reviews of handcrafted chess boards. Two sites that offer reviews of both common and unusual products are www.shopping.msn.com/reviews and www.amazon.com customer reviews. EBay is also a good source of reviews. Go to the category area you are interested in and look at the sidebars for review articles. These articles give excellent information about how people look at and evaluate products.

Informal feedback
Informal surveys can be useful ways to gather intelligence. Here are some ways to gather informal feedback :

1. Add a comments section to various pages on your site. Offer a reward for posting comments.
2. Add a comments section to your shopping basket, linked to rewards.
3. Review and analyze customer email; what are people saying to you?
4. If you offer live chat, review transcripts for information.

As a general rule, there's never a downside to learning more about your customer and everything counts.

Focus Groups
The focus group is a market research technique that is used to get information that is not easily obtained through surveys or is too expensive to obtain through more quantified methods.

A focus group is a group of people who have been selected based on some set of desired attributes such as teenagers from households of moderate income or mothers who do not work outside of the home. The group is brought together and a facilitator asks questions of the group to gather information. Often the group dynamic generates better information than individual interviews as one person's perspective inspires another person's comments. The group is sometimes shown a new product and asked to comment or is queried about general attitudes and preferences.

It's possible to conduct something like a focus group on-line by holding a live chat session. You can invite users to come together to ask questions of your resident product expert and respond to some new product offerings you're considering. The group setting allows people to springboard off one another's comments and often stimulates useful discussion and insights you might not have gained in otherwise.

Your methods do not have to be scientific to gather interesting and useful information. Remember that first and foremost, every scientist learns that observation is the key to developing hypotheses to test.

By eSources
Reprint : Acarre Community Media

Marketing Ideas #2 : Thinking About Target Markets

A target market is the market segment to which a particular product is marketed. Target market is a key concept for your business. The more you know about your target market and how to position your product to sell to that market, the more successful your business will be.

Target Segment Identification
Target segments or markets are often defined by their demographic attributes such as age, gender, geography or income. They are also often grouped by preferences such as trendy, organic, etc. In B2B marketing, target markets are typically defined by industry and business size.

Consumer Markets
Consumer markets can be specific to a part of the globe or can sometimes be global in nature such as Baby Boomers, those people born from about 1946 to about 1959 in World War II affected countries. This huge segment of the population has been defining market trends since their birth and will continue to do so as they age. In most countries, these consumers are generally better educated and more affluent, and are often the consumers of high end merchandise as well as merchandise that creates quality of life.

In western countries, another segment that has recently been gaining notoriety is the 'tweenies'. These are the aged eight to twelve year olds, no longer children in terms of maturity and taste but not yet teenagers. This sought after group, armed with discretionary income, are the likely segment for those selling electronics and gaming equipment as well as fashion merchandise.

There are also a number of groups that have less household recognition but are very important in the marketplace. One such example is LOHAS. This segment of cosumers who subscribe to Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability (LOHAS) is an enormous marketplace ($228.9 billion in the U.S.) for goods and services focused on health, the environment, social justice, personal development and sustainable living. The consumers attracted to this market have also been collectively referred to as Cultural Creatives. Approximately 30 percent of the adults in the U.S., or 50 million people, are currently considered LOHAS Consumers. The interconnections between global economies, cultures, environments, and political systems play a large role in the holistic worldview of the typical LOHAS Consumer, but equally important are the interconnections of mind, body and spirit within individuals.

Business Markets
Business markets have huge variation based on industry, size, location and governance.
The healthcare industry, for example, has enormous needs for products from basic office supplies to sophisticated electronics, software and equipment, linens, personal consumables and so on. Does the notion of serving the healthcare industry seem too daunting to you as an online reseller ? or, is it too large a segment to be meaningful ? Try thinking about smaller segments within this industry such as physicians' offices who buy not only traditional medical supplies but also office furnishings including artwork, paper goods, promotional items, waiting room reading materials, electronics such as pagers and so on.

Manufacturing industries require every manner of tools, specialised and generic parts, machinery and so on. Again, too daunting? Narrow your segment to auto parts manufacturers; narrow again to auto parts manufacturers with revenues of less than GBP 10,000,000.

Who are your target markets? Sports enthusiasts? Travelers? College students? Families with young children? Identify the markets that you sell your services or products to as specifically as possible. The better you know your market, the better you can plan your marketing campaign.

Characteristics of Target Segments
The value of identifying target segments is that they are groups of people with similar points of view and/or similar needs or purchasing patterns. By understanding those segments, you can position your products in the optimal way.

Need
Once a target segment has been identified and described to the extent possible demographically, it is useful to understand that segment's needs. Are they looking for value and efficiency ? Do they need support because they have too much on their plates ? Are they analytic and particular and have the finances to support that approach? Are they empty nesters looking for ways to enjoy their new lives? Are they people with a strong devotion to a holistic and spiritual approach to life and are willing to make life changes to operate that way?

Resources
What kind of resources does your target population have ? Are they middle income people who want a bargain or want to buy products that look high end but are economically priced ? Are they high income people who prefer to surround themselves with one-of-a-kind creations and seek out fine craftsmaship ? Are they wholistic folks who prefer to buy natural and organic and will search the Net looking for goods that match their special needs ?

Methods of Receiving Information
Where do you find your target segment and how do they receive information ? Are they socialising in MySpace or searching eBay for bargains ?

Purchasing Behavior
Does your target market purchase frequently ? Do they follow sales and buy at a good price or read supporting materials and buy quality ? Are they constantly seeking out new sources or do they show purchase loyalty ?

The answers to these questions give you the information you need to optimise sales.

By eSorces
Reprint : Acarre Community Media

Marketing Ideas #1 : Understanding Marketing Terms

Does the word marketing make you just a little nervous? Are you concerned that you may not know enough about this skill set that can make or break your business?

Let's start with the basics : figuring out what a market is and why you need one.

Markets
Technically, a market is a place where goods and services are traded. A market can range from a physical location such as a store front to a cyber location such as a website or a combination such as a stock exchange. However, most people refer to their customer pool as their market, though the correct term would be market segment.

Marketing
Marketing is the process of understanding and identifying the people or organisations that have an interest in a product or service, then aligning that product or service in a manner that optimises the potential for sale or trade. The marketing of your product may include determining the age group and income of the people who will purchase it, their preferred product features, their usual methods of purchase and the price point that will provide the most profitable sales.

Market Research
Market research is the process of gathering, recording and analysing data about customers, competitors and the market. The purpose of market research is to help you make better business decisions about the development and marketing of current and new products. Market research answers questions such as :

1. What are current market trends ?
2. Who are the competitors ?
3. How do consumers talk about the products in the market ?
4. Which needs are important? Are the needs being met by current products ?

Market research should help you cusotmise your products, then position them correctly for your target market.

Target Market
A target market is the market segment to which a particular product is offered. Target markets are often defined by age, gender, geography, and/or socio-economic grouping. For example, the target market for figurines carved from crystals might be people who embrace an alternative spiritual lifestyle.

Target Market Strategy
Target market strategy is the set of plans you put in place to offer your product to the customers you wish to service. The decisions involved in targeting strategy include which segments to target, how many products to offer, which products to offer in which segments and how to reach those customers.

Marketing Objectives
Marketing ojectives are the outcomes that you hope to achieve for your business. For example, if you sell anti-aging vitamins and your current purchasing group is primarily ages 50+, your new marketing objective might be to expand your product's appeal to the 35-50 age group.

Market Plan
A market plan is a written document that describes the actions necessary to achieve specific marketing objectives. Market plans are based on market strategy, usually pertain to a product or service, a brand, or a product line and cover periods from one to five years. The market plan for a new line of hand crafted ink pens may include use of press releases, special packaging, discussion of the pens as an executive gift item in human resource forums, collaboration with a specialty paper company to co-market, e-mails to your client base describing why these pens make a perfect gift for people who appreciate quality and function.

Marketing Tactics
Marketing tactics are the group of methods used to optimise the opportunity to sell a product. Tactics to expand your vitamin sales to the 35-50 age group might include special articles in your e-newsletter discussing the benefits of beginning vitamin use early to gain the greatest anti-aging benefit, placing advertising on fitness sites, health & beauty sites and fashion sites that cater to this age group, encouraging site users to sign up for a free birthday gift by entering their birthdate into your data base then targeting the 35-50 age group with special offers.

By eSources
Reprint : Acarre Community Media

What The Modern Marketer Looks Like (Infographic) - What Do You Think

In the early days of social media marketing, who would have assumed a social marketer needed to have graphic design skills?

But now a lot more falls under the umbrella of marketing. Marketers need to know about offline marketing, word of mouth, social media, email, design, SEO, lead generation and more. They also need to know how to plan and measure each. It’s not an easy gig.

Some call this new way of marketing “fullstack marketing.” Some call it “evolved marketing.” It doesn’t matter much what you call it, as long as you can do it. And if there’s something that you don’t do, your team needs to have someone else that does. That’s why you increasingly see marketing teams with diverse backgrounds and skill sets. Marketing needs to bring more to the table, so a diverse team makes it a potluck (Tweet this).

So, how does the modern marketer survive and thrive?

• The modern marketer is agile and adaptive (Tweet this). - The online world moves fast, so your marketing needs to, as well. Laura Ramos of Forrester Research uses the acronym A.D.A.P.T. – accept change, dare the status quo, act continuously, participate personally, and tear down boundaries.

• Modern marketers know that only valuable and relevant content is king now (Tweet this). - “Content is king” has been thrown at us constantly for years, to the point that people think any old content will do. But what good is putting out content that no one wants to read? It’s worse than nothing at all, because it can damage your reputation.

• Modern marketers know that marketing is a combination of creativity and science (Tweet this). - There’s a reason “big data” is one of the biggest marketing buzzwords of the year. People are perplexed about how to turn numbers into decisions, because so many marketers emphasize the creativity aspect more than the science.

What marketing skills are you going to add to your tool belt and resume in 2014? Share in the comments below or tweet them to @eZangaInc!

By Brittany Berger 

What Do You Think - Email Marketing vs. Social Media Marketing – And The Winner Is?

Plan for Mobile in your Email Marketing Strategy
Mobile devices are here to stay and 45% of users check email on their smartphones and mobile devices.  This within itself provides a challenge for most companies email marketing efforts. 65% of all mobile users will unsubscribe if the email message you are sending has rendering issues or doesn’t look right on their mobile device. Optimizing your email marketing messages for all platforms is critical to the success of any email marketing strategy.

Losing Sight of Home Plate while Rounding Third
Too many companies are looking for the next best thing and losing sight of the most important and proven methods of marketing their businesses. Being the first company to use a new social website or a new marketing strategy isn’t always the best idea, especially when you forget the core marketing practices that are proven to work.  Being well ranked organically, utilizing PPC, email marketing and insightful blog articles to drive sales should be at the top of your list.  Don’t get blinded by all the hype of the “next best thing” when it comes to marketing your business. Stick with what works and try to improve upon them. While social media might be anenhancer to your overall marketing strategy, it shouldn’t be what you focus on to drive sales and new customer acquisitions.

Is Social Media Marketing a Huge Waste of Time?
I think social media as a whole is a monstrous waste of time in an attempt to acquire new customers. Let’s look at Coca-Cola and their 50+ million Facebook fans as an example.  They seem to do a good job in providing a constant flow of content in their social media stream. How many of Coke’s 50+ million followers do you think they’ll reach with a status update? How about 5%? If Coca-Cola wants to attempt to reach the other 95% of their Facebook fans, they will have to pay Facebook to do so. Who wins in this scenario? I can give you a hint – It’s not Coke.  This isn’t 2008 and the perceived “Like” value isn’t what you think it is.  Likes are worthless, well almost worthless.

Focus Your Marketing on What Actually Works and Generates Results
The secret to good social media marketing:  Sell and deliver good products and offer great services. If you can’t trick people into “Liking” your brand, maybe you can try to make them actually – you know – like your brand.  How you ask? Under Promise and Over Deliver.  Sell and deliver quality products and offer services that are really, really good. That’s not to say you should completely forsake social media marketing communication altogether. Every once in a while if you have something interesting to say, then by all means use Twitter or Facebook to say it. But stop posting pictures of cute kittens in an attempt win cheap, meaningless Likes.

By  Andrew Paul
Repost : Acarre Community Media

How to Deal with Unhappy Customers

It’s all About Brand Reputation
In this era of social media, people frequently turn to social networks to complain, and they can be really rude about it sometimes. What you need is the skill not to respond unkindly, because your answer may well be read by anyone. Protect your brand by being kind – always.

It’s not Personal
Always remember that complaints are not personal, and that the customer’s anger is not directed to the employee, but towards the company in general. This fact will help you to remain calm and polite. If you listen with understanding & sympathy, even the angriest customer will calm down.

Listen Carefully
Find out what their problem is, so you can work towards alleviating it and not towards a solution that does not actually help them in any way. The point is to resolve the customer’s issue.

Before taking action, verify that what you’re doing really helps the customer by asking the customer himself/herself. Once a resolution is agreed, act quickly to implement it. All the customer really wants is a listening ear that will respect their point of view, and work towards helping them.

Don’t make Excuses
No matter what or who caused the problem, never blame your customers (even if they have caused the issue). Making excuses is simply a waste of time, and it makes customers even more annoyed. Instead, take full responsibility and do whatever you can in your power to solve the problem as quickly as possible.

A Unique Opportunity to Improve your Service
Think about customer complaints as opportunities to improve your service and to transform unhappy customers into fans. Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.

Employees who handle customer service complaints quickly, efficiently and professionally take advantage of a unique opportunity: the chance to turn an unhappy customer into a satisfied customer. According to a report by White House Office of Consumer Affair , happy customers who get their issue resolved tell about 4-6 people about their experience. Not bad, right?

Next time you have to deal with a disappointed customer, remember that it takes 12 positive experiences to make up for one unresolved negative experience, so believe me when I say that you do not want to miss even one chance to turn a negative experience into a positive one.

By Nunzi Falco Simeone
Repost : Acarre Community Media

How to Generate Leads on your Website

 Importance of Lead Generation

A business’s website should do more than provide a basic company overview. It should entice visitors to provide their contact information, to become leads for the business. But how can small business websites do this? In this 30-minute webinar, we’ll offer proven lead-generation ideas to entice visitors to leave their contact info.

Generating Leads: Key Points

We’ll address the following key points.

• Learning from others.  We’ll review compelling lead-generation ideas from other small business websites, and we’ll suggest how to implement them on your website.
• Actual lead-generation results.  We’ll address lead-generation case studies from actual websites, citing data from each one, to help you develop your own strategies.
• Importance of content. It is frequently quality, helpful content that compels visitors to leave their names and email addresses.  We’ll show examples of effective, clear content.
• What’s the purpose? Many small businesses forget why prospects visit their websites in the first place. We’ll review the basics.
• Inexpensive tools. There are inexpensive or free lead-generation tools that any small business can implement on its website.  We’ll list the tools, and explain them.

Following the presentation, we will answer questions from attendees.
The live webinar will be held Wednesday, July 17, 2013 at 11:00 a.m. Pacific / 2:00 p.m. Eastern U.S. time.

REGISTER TODAY

About the Presenter

Kathleen Fealy is contributing editor for Web Marketing Today, president of KF Multimedia and Web, and a seasoned Internet marketer. An expert in web design, production, and search engine optimization — and a certified usability analyst — she helps small and medium-sized businesses obtain more web traffic and conversions.

About the Sponsor
Infusionsoft is a leading web-based provider of all-in-one sales and marketing software built for small businesses. Infusionsoft’s sales and marketing automation platform helps get more customers, grow sales, and save time. It is a small business customer-relationship manager, ecommerce platform, and email and social-marketing solution — all in one place.
 
 
Source : WebMarketing Today
Relaunch by Acarre Community Media

Digital printing is smart, Cost-effective

Digital print production can be a turning point for marketers to increase their competitiveness and grow even while gaining cost savings and a faster ROI on campaigns. There are real, winning applications based on the tremendous benefits possible only with printing. Despite an economic forecast from NAPL, a leading printing industry association, that the overall US printing industry will suffer a decline this year, predictions from myriad sources indicate that digital color printing will see double digit growth in many market sectors, including direct mail.

Much of the momentum and opportunity is based on advanced digital press imaging and data management. Direct marketers and their printing company partners can thrive by offering direct mail that goes beyond putting ink on paper.

In one example, Presentech Digital Printing partnered with marketing firm Edifice Group to take postcard mailing applications to a new level. The "pay per sale" personalized postcards rapidly increased the automotive dealerships' sales. Auto dealer customers pay a commission based on each car sale generated from the campaign, incurring a cost only when the campaign bears fruit.

Last year, Presentech printed one million automotive dealership postcards for the program. And the summer, typically the slowest time of the year for the firm many printing companies, was busier than ever last year because summer is when most new-car models are released.

Each card is printed four-over-four with a total of 10 or more variable text or graphic images changed on each card. The fields are based on any number of data trigger points — examples include the lease expiration, mileage or service data on a recipient's current car, or prior sales enquiries a recipient has made to dealerships in the area. Each card also has an individual Web code that leads the recipient to a personalized Web page.

Presentech Digital Printing and Edifice originally produced the program for regional auto dealerships in the southeastern US. They are on the verge of going national as the partnership enters its second year, proof that digital print can garner real results. More Information visit us at www.dmnews.com

jan.riecher@hp.com0

Repost : Acarre Community MediaBy Jan Riecher

Next Article in Production and Printing

After test program, Ford rolls out more relevant direct mail strategy

Using Metrics to Increase Marketing ROI

While most companies recognize the importance of metrics to measure and manage marketing performance, they often don't have the right formulas in place to get accurate results.
Twentieth century retail magnate and marketing pioneer John Wanamaker may have said it best when he claimed, "Half of the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is, I don't know which half."
And now, one hundred years later, this startling assertion still rings true for many of today's companies. They lose money each year due to misaligned investment budgets derived from inaccurate marketing metrics.

"We frequently find that companies either aren't asking the right questions or aren't looking at the right things when trying to determine the effectiveness of their marketing activities," said BrandExtract Chairman and COO Jonathan Fisher.
Imagine, for example, that you hosted an enrollment event. You stayed within budget and attracted 25% more prospective students than last year. Is that enough to gauge whether it was a success?

For more read information please visit us Brandextract

References from Acarre Community Media

Improve Search Engine Rankings With Proper Keyword Research for Business Online

The best way to achieve search engine dominance is by focusing on keyword research. As a search engine optimization consultant, I’ve worked with hundreds of companies that miss this very important step. Achieving top search engine rankings is largely based on the competitiveness of the keyword phrase you are trying to optimize for. If your competitor is in the top spot with a well entrenched web site, then your chances of out ranking him may be limited.
In addition to focusing on a keyword phrase that doesn’t have strong competition, you need to find terms that are frequently searched on. I recently finished a consulting assignment for a foundation trying to optimize their website. They had top rankings for a keyword term that seemed to be somewhat desirable. However, keyword research proved that the term received less than 100 searches per month. As a result, top rankings for this keyword phrase were nearly meaningless.
Once you have found a keyword phrase that isn’t too competitive and receives an adequate number of monthly searches, the next step is to thoroughly check out your competition. Google the keyword phrases you want to optimize for a run a back link check on the top three ranked web sites. This indicates the strength of those web sites relative to their search engine ranking. The more links, the more difficult it will be to rank higher than they do without some type of sustained link building campaign.
After doing your keyword research and confirming your choice of keywords and keyword phrases, it’s time to focus on improving your web pages around the keywords you’ve selected. Enhance your meta tags, titles, and web copy to include your keyword phrases. This helps to tell the search engines what your web site is about so it can rank your site appropriately. In addition to the on page factors, Google weighs off page factors to determine web site ranking.
Off page optimization requires a sustained effort that uses new content and additional links from third party websites. The most effective strategies are the most basic. Begin with a link building plan. Focus on article directories, web site directories, blogs, social bookmarking sites, and other resources where you can establish in bound links.
Your plan should include daily, weekly and monthly tasks that can attract links from authority websites consistently over time. Your goal should not be to generate thousands of inbound links quickly because Google will penalize your website. Rather, focus on steady link building.
If you want to improve your organic search engine ranking, begin with keyword research. By selecting the right keywords, you’ll be able to optimize your website more quickly than your competitors. After choosing the right keywords, focus on integrating your chosen keywords into your web site. Then you’re ready for link building and other off page optimization tactics that significantly improve rankings.
Michael Fleischner is an SEO consultant and author of SEO Made Simple, revealing strategies guaranteed to improve search engine rankings. Learn more about Michael's hands-on SEO training program, Internet Marketing Forum, and SEO consulting at MarketingScoop.com or contact him via the Marketing Blog at marketing-expert

Editor : Acarre Community Media Team
Author :Michael Fleischner

Software Review: Qi - by Quirk

Manthan Services, an India-based developer, noticed the opportunity to build on the dashboard and business information systems it was providing corporate customers and developed a research-friendly package called Qi (as in “chi” or energy). An online platform for creating advanced dashboards based on survey data, Qi delivers an online environment for data exploration, review and collaboration. It is a tool for building dashboards and an environment in which end-users can then access those dashboards, share, collaborate and even, if allowed to, create their own analyses and dashboards.

Dashboards tend to be among the most advanced and also the most treacherous of deliverables for research companies to provide. Tucked away at the end of an RFP, an innocuous-sounding request for “dashboard-style reporting for managers and team leaders across the enterprise, with drill-down capabilities for self-service problem solving” will almost certainly mean something vastly more sprawling and costly to provide than anyone imagined.

Dashboard delivery can be a trap for the unwary. Many an online dashboard has become the constantly-leaking plughole in the project budget through which profits keep draining away.

What makes them difficult to control is they are usually tackled as custom developments, built using tools developed for corporate database systems and business intelligence (BI) tools. Any custom development is both costly and unpredictable and research companies often don’t have the skills in-house to manage a software development project effectively. Worse than that, survey data is difficult to handle with these BI tools. They aren’t designed to function smoothly with monthly waves of data, with new questions added or weighting or percentages that need to add to a constant respondent base. It’s not just a matter of generating the number of records returned from a SQL query.

It is very smart software that aims to find the middle ground between typical BI dashboard tools like SAP Crystal Dashboard Design (the new name for Xcelsius) and Tableau, where the possibilities are infinite, given enough time and money, and the fairly restrictive kinds of online dashboard creation capabilities found in some of the more up-to-date MR analysis tools. If you really want to produce any kind of dashboard, or have a client that is highly prescriptive about presentation, then you may find Qi is just not flexible enough.

On the other hand, you may be able to use the horizons as a useful limiting factor in what you do provide to your client, as it is likely to do 99 percent of what they need – just not necessarily in the first way they thought of it. For the real advantage of using this product is that you really can produce portals packed with data with relatively little effort and no programming expertise required. Furthermore, when you add new waves of data, all of their derivative reports will be updated too.

There are also built-in modules within the Qi environment to set up different kinds of dashboards or portals for certain applications. There is one for employee research, for example, and another for mystery shopping, with reporting at an individual case level. In addition, there are models provided for performance management, scorecarding and benchmarking. There is also a tool for building an organization hierarchy and this can then ensure each user is given the relevant view of the data when they log in. These can be tied to “group filters" which reflect the organization’s hierarchical structure in the actual data that get displayed.

There is an integrated alerts publisher and a user’s portals can be configured with an alerts area or tab. You then define the exceptions or thresholds where alerts should be generated. These are then recalculated for each individual user’s view of the data so they are only alerted on what is relevant to them.

Elegant concepts

There are some very elegant concepts at the heart of Qi which help to give your work shape. Everything you create is based on one of three “assets” based on data: charts, dashboards and tables. Dashboards come in a variety of shapes with placeholders for you to populate with charts or tables. There is also the concept of a “portlet,” which can house a report, an alert, a chart, favorites or messages. You can then arrange your portlets into pages or publish them on their own.

There is a reasonable though not especially exotic selection of charts – pretty much what you might find in Excel. There are, however, some nice multidimensional bubble charts.

Behind the scenes is a SQL Server database. It can be loaded with survey data using the survey metadata provided by either SPSS or Triple-S. If you want to work with other kinds of data – which is possible – you may need to get help from Manthan Services in setting up an appropriate database schema, however, and also help with the database load process.

A particular snare to be found in many RFPs asking for dashboards is the request for drill-down capabilities. There is often an assumption that deciding what to drill down to is a trivial, automatic choice. It is not – there is often more than one level of detail a user is likely to want to see when a particular KPI turns red or a trend chart shows a worrying dip. In Qi, you have two tools to satisfy this: a drill-down tool that lets the user trace the antecedents or components of any item of data and a drill-across tool which lets you move up and across in your hierarchy of reporting.

End users are provided with a lot of options out of the box to personalize their dashboards – they can create favorites, apply sticky notes, customize the view of the data, create their own portlets (if you allow this) and republish or share these with others. It can make for a highly collaborative environment both within the enterprise, and equally, between enterprise and research agency.

Overall, this is an industrial-strength platform for research companies to use to create portals and dashboard systems with a dizzying array of functionality to pick from. The documentation could be made a lot more comprehensive – it is cryptic in places and tends to gloss over some quite advanced capabilities. I also experienced some issues viewing the portals I was given access to on any browser on IE8 or IE9, though Manthan claims it works with different browsers and tablets.

Same set of tools

Max Zeller is head of the retail insights division for a large global research company in Europe. (His name has been changed at the request of his employer.) His division introduced a white-label version of Qi last year, which it presents to its customers as one of its own branded services. “Many of our clients today require online reporting,” he says. “As a global company we wanted to offer the same set of tools to all clients and also leverage on the one investment across all our companies and for most of our studies. We also wanted something that you could implement quite quickly locally, to create portals and dashboards, which did not require any programming or special skills to run it. Also we wanted a tool that both researchers and users could modify and even create their own views or dashboards for themselves.

“We looked at many different products but eventually chose one from Manthan Services. On all criteria they were on top and they understood market research, which was very important.”

Though the software is very extensive, with quite a lot to learn, he says, in practice his firm’s research and DP teams have found it well within their capabilities to deploy it. “The people in contact with the client – the project managers supported by DP staff – do the technical and setup work. You need someone in the team that champions the product who can translate the requirements of the client in terms of how the software is going to work. Then it can be more junior DP people who do the implementation, because it is all menu-driven – which gives them a new opportunity as well.”

Zeller estimates that setting up a new portal for a client demonstration, comprising 25 different charts and allowing different levels of access, can be achieved in a day or so by his local teams – a pace that was new for the company. “Before this we had to go though IT and the process was not just longer but so much more expensive. It would have taken several days to a week with what we had before. We need to be as lean, as quick and as close to the client as possible – and that’s exactly what we have here. You can give the specs from the client directly to the team – you don’t really have to translate the requirements into a technical specification and that is what saves the time and delay.”

Zeller strongly advises allowing adequate time to learn to use the software, however. “This is not something you can jump into in an hour – it does take two intensive days of training. But overall, I think the trade-off between functionality and ease of use is good. Once you are accustomed to the software it is easy and productive to use.”

He also stresses that everyone, especially those setting client expectations, must be aware that this is a packaged solution. In other words, not all client requests may be achievable. “[When speaking with clients] you need to be aware of what you can and can’t do. Even though it is very flexible, it is working to a standardized framework. There are many things you find you have not thought of first and when you try, you discover there is a way to do it. But it is not fully customizable so there are some areas you cannot change.”

However, in these cost-conscious times, some imposed limits can be an advantage, as Zeller points out: “It is very difficult for research companies to earn money from these portals if what you are doing fully customized.”

Overall, he concludes, “We are quite happy with this software – and I am working with people who have a lot of experience. We think it is a good solution.” more information at visit Qi Macros.

By      : Tim Macer

Editor  : Repost