Softbank Creates Interpretation Software For iPhone

Just came across this coolz software for iPhone. You can speak to your phone and let it translates for you to English, Chinese, and Japanese. Speeek.

It's not out yet but worth keeping an eye on this app.

Thank you!!

Dear eMarketers,

Just a short note to thank all of your for your hard work and enthusiasm this term. It was my pleasure and honor to teach you some of the key elements of eMarketing, and I hope that some of the things that we discussed will make a long-lasting impression.

I wish you all the best of luck during the rest of your time here at IUJ, and I hope to have the opportunity to work with you all again in the future!

From Innovations to Customer Behavior

One website creates new service which is called Proclivity to predict online consumer behavior.
As you know, having reliable and complete information about potential customers is very valuable to businesses in order to acquire customers by providing their expected needs what they want to buy, when they will need and at what price they want to buy the company's product and service.
Such kind of information can be provided by Proclivity for online businesses. It is rather cool.
Here is links for your further information:

http://www.allbusiness.com/marketing-advertising/marketing-advertising-measures/5255564-1.html

http://www.proclivitysystems.com/

The Future of Internet Search ?

No points for guessing the right answer to the above question because if you have taken the eMarketing class and you still couldn`t guess the answer... there is something seriously wrong with your cognitive skills or you were probably sleeping in class. And for those of you have got it right ... Yes Mobile it is !

As I was googling for some information for our eMarketing Final project (by d way, Minna-san Gambatte Kudasai for your presentation) I came across this interesting link about Mobile Encyclopedia. This is still a concept and the link above explains the idea briefly, for more pics check out PetitInvention.

Just imagine if we could integrate this into our mobile phone ! My guess is... Google is already working towards achieving this in their next version of G1 phone (ok fine G2 phone )

This idea is pretty similar to what Prof Sugai mentioned in class. Remember the e.g. of wearing `nerdy` goggles and just by looking at Urasa mountains, you will get all the info about Urasa mountains on ur screen. When you look at Ann (it gives you all the info about her) and so on...

Anyways I have to get back to doing my slides now...

Value vs. Profitability

Just to recap on prof. Sugai's advice on creating value vs. profitablity. The article "Arrest Of China Tycoon Suggests Decline Of Crony Capitalism" shows how company or yourselves can run into trouble for focusing too much on profitability.

The story is quite nasty of how Huang Guangyu has created his wealth. Well, I have to admire his entrepreneurship but does profit really count when it comes to sustainable business? Giving a bribe maybe a good tactic and give you a hell lot of unfair competitive advantages. However, can you afford to bribe for the rest of your life? Who knows.

So, what I have learnt is that regardless how much profit you can generate for the company when it comes to long term success and sustainability your moral and appropriate business practice does count.

All the best years ahead ladies and gentlemen ^_^

FYI: Google Online Marketing Challenge 2009

http://www.google.com/onlinechallenge/index.html

One chance to apply our eMarketing knowledge into reality.... 

Also, for a free fantastic (?) trip to the Google Headquarters in Mountain View, California.... 

Any risk takers? ;)

- Rizki

Future trend of Marketin

The most powerful and innovative way to create differentiation and increase profit is personaliztion.

A lot of people nowadays are quite familiar with Internet. By offering highly personalized information services online, companies are getting information about the customers' behavior and preferences, and more, they can provide better customized service to a specific customer. It is clear that the future trend of marketing could be personalization and customization which could get the customers' satisfaction. Even more, the marketers can track the customer's needs and segment the market so that they can better target to a appropriate specific segment.

Let's have a look at the competitive mobile age. One of the most powerful ways to personalize is location based services (LBS). Location is a valuable asset of wireless mobile. By making use of it and leveraging it to provide the users to offer value-added services, we marketers can create the most superior value propostition to our products and services which can create differentiation and increase profit.

Nowadays, we marketers are getting to realize the value and potential to make information services highly personalized to create customer satisfaction.

Future of Mobile Marketing

So far, we have learnt the basic concepts of e-marketing and mobile applications in our e-marketing class. We also studied about personalization and the importance of privacy issues. I have learnt that we are necessary to understand more on key characteristics of mobile platform in order to achieve full potential of using technology for future mobile marketing. These characteristics are:
- How to explore more on two different aspects of time and location
- How to provide contextual information related to users
- How to gather hyper personalized information
I think understanding of these characteristics and permission issues can evovle the future of mobile marketing.

(Ref: Unwired Business - Key Issues in Mobile Marketing Permission and Acceptance by Barnes and Scornavacca)

Location Based Social Networking

I think it would be very interesting once this takes off. Imagine, you are supposed to meet your friend but you are in a new place. Traditionally you would just agree on a well known landmark. But face it, even then you will be searching high and low (your friend could be on the west side of the landmark while you are on the east end) while exchaging "I'm here, where are you"s on the phone.

Now imagine, flip out your phone, connect to Loopt (one of the LB Social Networking software for iPhone) and look for the little moving purple dot/arrow (that has yet to reach the aforementioned landmark at the aforementioned time) that represents your friend on a virtual map. Handy right?

Read more about the features of Loopt and other softwares by clicking here

I'm sure it opens to alot of doors as well - both good and bad. Tracking your children for safety to stalking your object of desire.

What do you guys think?

Customer support

In eMarketing classes, we have learned how to make customers loyal. I understand the procedures of attracting, aquiring and maintain customers. I realy was interested in each companie's effort to provide better support to customers. After last class, I chatted with IKEA's Anna. She often answered correctly. Until this lecture, I did not care so much about after support.
When I think back my job, certainly customer support was one of the most difficult issue. Requests from them were quite various depends on his/her personality. Someone required quick response, someone did accuracy, or both of them! There were some nasty questions..
I know reducing manpower of customers support is important to expand company's profit. Actually, in the past, we tried to share solved Q&A with my team members, but it did not work enough. Microsoft became de facto standard; however, it is also famous for its useless customer support. I realize that to develop efficient customer support system is important to prevent this kinds of notoriety and to maintain customers.

Thanks,
Tom

The future of marketing is personalisation

Marketing can be considered as the bridge to gap between customers and the manufacturers. We are now more and more customer -consensus and marketing campaign always put customers in the central part. Personalization or personalization (see spelling differences) is tailoring a consumer product, electronic or written medium to a user based on personal details or characteristics they provide. It is the simple ways to get - and not simply sustain the attention of potential buyers - but also make them want to chat about it. They understand about the product, buy it, and satisfy with it. That is what we are the marketer aiming at.

Let 's imagine when you go shopping the skin care, your information detailed might be: dry and dark skin so what type of skin care should you buy to fit you well? Yes you have to travel a long way to Jassco and ask for he help by speaking English to a Japanese sales women who could not speak English. You feel bored and tired.

In reverse, one famous company using peronalisation, they know about your skin type and they know what you need for winter with the dry skin, they will email you to offer the lastest products in help. You the customer only have to make a click and the quality products as you expect will be delivered to your door on the next day. Finally, you waste no time and effort to have the product you need. Yes, personalisation is great!!!

And personalisation is the nearest and the most effective way to bridge the customers and the suppliers. So for my own point of view the future of marketing will be viral marketing and especially personalisation.

Thuy UOng

Mini Laptops Now Available For Under ¥30,000

I think the future trend that will take eMarketing forward might be the emerging technology such as the smaller labtops which is now available for under ¥30,000. You might agree with me that the cheaper the product get the more people will use it!

So, what is the implication to consumers? I think consumers will be more empowered by the more affordable mobile technology. The mobile and pc industry will be less distinguishable. As a result, wireless technology will be required. Once the wireless network cover sizable area, small laptop can be used as mobile phone through skypes and other VoIP software. Then, we might the the erosion of mobile phones. On the other hands, mobile phone vendor may start to embed more pc power that will allow user to do many thing via mobile.

In conclusion, I think the mobile phone and pc will be the same thing. It will be more powerful and yet affordable for large majority of consumers. It will take eMarketing forward because consumers will be more on the move; thus, stores need to adapt their marketing strategy to capture the changing consumer behavior.

Ubiquitous Marketing

Talking on the future trends of eMarketing is not only talking about the technology evolution, but also talking about how the marketing itself would transform. Technology is going to be ubiquitous, so does marketing, like what Forrester named it as ubiquitous marketing: the art of connecting with consumers through emerging media, everywhere. 

Ubiquitous Marketing

http://www.forrester.com/Research/Document/0,7211,42090,00.html

Marketing everywhere will be complex since the power to reach consumers everywhere comes with responsibility, i.e. to be meaningful everywhere. As discussed in the article, the bottom line is that Ubiquitous Marketing must connect to consumers on the consumer’s “term and condition” so that the consumers would not be irritated. Three keys for the future marketing to keep consumers from tuning out.

1) Marketing will transform into service, which means that marketing would become a service-oriented and facilitates the consumer experience. It should always address the basic questions: what is the consumer looking for? What is their interests, and when? Detailed understanding of consumer needs is the critical centering point in defining the message and desired outcomes in Ubiquitous Marketing.

2) marketing synchronizes with the environment. The essence for marketing will be diversion and consideration instead of interruption to the consumer. The message would need to be relevant and to take into account what the consumer is doing.  The best and most relevant marketing will put both the message and the brand into context. 

3) marketing contributes to the consumer’s conversation. Marketing would be involve as an ongoing dialogue with consumers, with one media handing off to another.

The marketing mindset would shift from top-down to bottom-up, from communicating to a mass audience to connecting each consumer to the brand. The strategy must build the consumer’s connection by mapping marketing to the customer journey and purchase cycle.

After all, now and forever, a successful marketing is all about interacting with consumers at the right time, at the right place, with the right message.

- Another related article:

Interactive Marketing Channels To Watch, 2008

http://www.forrester.com/Research/Document/0,7211,45026,00.html

 

Social networking as the future trend of e-marketing

Social networking as we know is analyse social relationships in terms of nodes and ties. In the world of e-marketing, new business models are frequently introduced, and new trends have started to emerge. One such latest trend is social networking websites, many of which have attracted not only large number of users and visitors, but also online advertising companies to place their ads on the sites.Like facebook, myspace, they are not only let ppl to talk on it, they also comes with ads. I think most of us have facebook, did u guys ever clicked the ads on the facebook? do you think it is more useful for company to ads here not the searching engine? http://delphisltd.blogspot.com/2008/09/social-networks-still-rising.html
here is another person's idea about the social networking, and the graph he (she) show us, is to prove more and more ppl like to put ads on social networking websites.

Internet and DMS-Future trend for e-marketing

Date: Nov 27th, 2008

As the Internet becomes more pervasive and e-business extends further across industry models and customer access channels, it is expected that the use of database- driven Internet marketing will increase and will become increasingly sophisticated.
As integrated Internet/database marketing strategies become more commercially utilized, increased emphasis on innovative differentiation and “value-for-money” across the identified strategies is expected to emerge. The future success in e-marketing comes when online promotions and catalogues are delivered fully personalized to meet the needs of each individual customer.

For more detail please go through the following link.

http://encyclopedia.jrank.org/articles/pages/7582/Managerial-Recommendations.html

I personally believe that the time will come one day when the all the marketing and businesses will be done through mobile internet.

Regards,

Yasha

Future Trend of eMarketing - CSR

My idea of the future trend that would affect eMarketing is quite broad, but surely, it will affect every business in the future. CSR, or Corporate Social Responsibility, is becoming more and more important nowadays. It has always been perceived as a “Cost Center” before, just like customer service. However, as world is changing more and more dramatically nowadays, I believe CSR will become more and more vital as well. The main idea not just about how you can save the nature. It’s about how you can contribute to the society.

We all know very well what is the bottom line of doing business, of course, money and profitability (let’s take NPO out for a while). By believing so, there is always a kind of negative image or perception within all of us that in some way, the company is draining something out of me. It could be very direct like money or time, or it could be very indirect such as polluting nature or any other negative societal impact. This is why companies have to create CSR strategies that can reduce the negative perceptions away from stakeholder’s mind.

As I have said before, I strongly believe it’s not just going to affect eMarketing, but every business around the world. I also believe that CSR will slowly turning from “Cost Center” to “Profit Center” in this upcoming future. As the world is turning more to newer innovations and new hypes nowadays, many companies are also turning their attention to how can they contribute back to the society as well, rather than just complying with the normal obligations.

Further information about CSR: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_social_responsibility

Upcoming e-marketing and your memory: The terrestrial avatar, a new world

Man vs. God, Information vs. Experience, Knowledge vs. Memory

Those unresolved questions led towards technological innovation. Today’s reality is digital media, digital convergence technology, 3G mobile, and internet based marketing. What about tomorrow? If BANG convergence takes the place of digital convergence, if 4G mobile limits your insight and dictates your life, what’s going to be happen in upcoming time?

Don’t worry, it’s your world, your experience would be the reality, knowledge will flow like water, your memory would be the powerful trading tools.

Can you imagine a world where Google rules e-world? It’s upcoming reality.

Lets imagine memory is the single trading themes in virtual world. Yes it’s our future e-marketing product even beyond the earth. You will be the sole agent with your memory.

To know and to see something click the below links:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xj8ZadKgdC0

http://yuri.typepad.com/yuri_blog/2007/06/prometeus_media.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQh1n2jJzC0

Customer Service Institute

dear classmates

Today we learn about Customer Support and Collaboration. It was very interesting and important topic. we may have experience as a customer or even an employee to an organization who establish customer service using traditional method or internet approach.

I also found the existence of Institute of Customer Service.

Institute of Customer Service (ICS) is the independent professional body for customer service.

Their mission is to lead customer service performance and professionalism.

They have members from organizations – from across the private, public and third sectors – and individuals. They help members learn from each other and offer wide-ranging support so they can continue to improve their customer service.

more information can be accesed at http://www.instituteofcustomerservice.com

cheers..

Alexa "wayback machine"

As mention in class about the capability of alexa.com to all us to view how web page looks like a few years back. I will use IUJ page as example and walk you through a few easy steps.

1. Go to http://www.alexa.com
2. On search area put iuj.ac.jp to search for the website --> you should get the site
3. Click on "Get Traffic Details"
4. Then you will see a lot of information about site. On the left navigator menu you can see section call "Wayback Machine: see how iuj.ac.jp looked in the past"
5. There you go, you can find how IUJ looks like in 1997 - It's kinda simple html page.

I also try with retired website ebay.co.jp and it works.

Customer service VS Sales force

As we all know, this issue normally occurs within a company with a strong retail basis. As what happened in my previous company, we have this kind of issue

Mainly derived from the difference of point of view by both parties :

1. Sales force are looking for loyalty from the customer to ease their long-term job (even if sometimes the necessary information for the following selling process is not complete, they just don't care with the excuse that it's not in their KPIs)
2. Customer service point of view, the more customer they have, the heavier their work will be (especially with the uncomplete data they get from the sales force regarding the customers information)

I am just wondering, last week when we were discussing about customer loyalty, whether customer loyalty can be achieved if you still have this kind of disputes within your company?

Please share what you think...

Personalization, customization, and customer loyalty in mobile platform

Watch and enjoy some coolest video, how mobile personalization, customization affecting our day to day life and making us loyal to mobile. No doubt mobile is now the integral part of our life.　Off course its blessing for us because it is already proved that “connectivity is productivity”.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-21iRn1H_4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNkptXKmNEQ&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rg_Y7Yc6ci4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6D_BezHHTw

Why not product personalization?

Product personalization is a highly innovative solution that empowers your customers to design and build products online. Users select and combine options that utilize a wide range of rich media including text, images and sound to match their personal tastes, needs or vision. Product personalization creates a simple and cost-effective merchandising solution online that harnesses the power of custom manufacturing.

Let 's go to this site and find out the wonder thing inside.

http://www.brooksbrothers.com/selectshirts/selectshirts.tem

My people ,
I want to use this opportunity to inform you that friday is my birthday.
Please come with your birthday presents. Prof. am waiting for your gift.

My age now is 20 + X where X is even number , ???????????????/hahaaaaaaaa.

Well see you in class on friday.


We can keep our customer with these simple ways.

Number 6 is very important

6. Be NiceAlways be polite to your customers. Use the words Please, Thank You, and You’re Welcome. Be polite to your customers even if they are being irate to you. Always apologize to your customers should you make a mistake. Admit your mistakes quickly and make it up to them in a big way.

This is very important because people are emotional. Create a positive feeling to them.
I think with proper execution of number 6 , your customer will continue coming........ and also bring more people to your company.

6 Ways To Keep Your Online Customers

1. Stay In Touch
Stay in contact with customers on a regular basis. Offer them a free e-zine subscription. Ask customers if they want to be updated by e-mail when you make changes to your Web site. After every sale follow-up with the customer to see if they are satisfied with their purchase.

2. Friendly Web Site
Make it easy for your customers to navigate on your Web site. Have a “FAQ” page on your Web site to explainanything that might confuse your customers. Ask them to fill out an electronic survey to find out how to make your Web site more customer friendly.

3. Easy And Free Communication
Make it easy for your customers to contact you. Offer as many contact methods as possible. Allow customers to contact you by e-mail. Hyperlink your e-mail address so customers won’t have to type it. Offer toll free numbers for phone and fax contacts.

4. Teach Your Employees
Make sure employees know and use your customer service policy. Give your employees bonuses or incentives to practice excellent customer service. Tell employees to be flexible with each individual customer, each one has different concerns, needs and wants.

5. Impress Your Customer
Give your customers more than they expect. Send thank you gifts to lifetime customers. E-mail them online greeting cards on holidays or birthdays. Award bonuses or discounts to customers who make a big purchase.

6. Be Nice
Always be polite to your customers. Use the words Please, Thank You, and You’re Welcome. Be polite to your customers even if they are being irate to you. Always apologize to your customers should you make a mistake. Admit your mistakes quickly and make it up to them in a big way.

Can Customer loyalty be bought?

Dear friends,

As we know that customer loyalty is the practice of finding, attracting and retaining the customers who regularly purchase. Customer loyalty is not customer satisfaction. Software, card programs and loyalty schemes are the tools of customer loyalty but they are not the essence. Now here the question arises that can customer loyalty be bought? No, it can’t be bought. To build loyalty, you must earn it.

There are many ways to earn customers loyalty for the business. To find the 8 simplest ways please go through the following sites.

http://sbinformation.about.com/od/advertisingpr/a/customerloyalty.htm

Regards,

Yasha

Combine your loyalty card into one?

When Prof. Sugai showed how many loyalty card he has, I ask myself "What the hack he is doing? Is it really cool to have many loyalty card? why can't he just carry one card for all loyalty program?" - Well, the method explained at eHow gives some small tips. The service on this site allows you to enter barcode from your loyalty card then print out the new card with those barcodes. Simple but smart solution, I think.

Nonetheless, I don't know if you guys know about other tools/solution that help consumer combine many cards into one?

Personalization: Future Internet Experience?

I found some articels talk about the future of internet and how personalization will play in the figure. Some articles discussed that web 3.0 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_3.0), would be all about personalisation. 

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/web_30_is_it_about_personalization.php

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/feb/04/web20?gusrc=rss&feed=media

I am not sure with that, but with a right implementation personalization is a great concept for people to experience the internet in a very different way in the near future. We could imagine that when the future internet becoming ubiquitous with personalization features, internet would recommend people about information they exactly needed right away, and tell them how or where to get it. Thus in such internet experience, information comes to people. An interesting observation on how internet evolves would be:

Web 1.0 : where people was looking for a centralized information

Web 2.0 : where people is sharing a scatered/distributed information

Web 3.0 : where people will be looked by information on anything related, anywhere, anytime

On another hand, as discussed in the following article,

http://community.zdnet.co.uk/blog/0,1000000567,10007196o-2000458459b,00.htm

privacy and security is still the most stressful area to be extremely carefully managed so people will not see such ubiquity internet as a threat to their personal life, but instead as a great experience that help their life better. One book that talk about such privacy management is as follow. 

http://www.nowpossible.com/mip.htm

It discusses and give insights on some questions: At what point do personalization and privacy clash? Who owns personal information? To what extent should technology be constrained by social factors?

Web 3.0 is expected to be “matured” starting in couple years to come… so lets see what’s happening then…..  

Consumer Loyalty Program-BonusLink

Hi all!

BonusLink become Malaysia's favourite consumer rewards programme which was launced in January 1998 .Today, nearly two-thirds of Malaysian urban households see real value in BonusLink.

I also have one for this Bonus Link card. But, the time I want to redeem of Bonuslink points with a gifts , I always missed it..because the accummulated points is already expired. So .. I need to accummulate the points again and again.

However, I think it is a very good consumer loyalty program . For information, Bonuslink.com.my has a traffic rank of: 83,09599 (15th Nov 2008 data)

Bonuslink.com.my users come from these countries:
Malaysia97.2%
United States1.4%
Singapore0.6%
Hong Kong0.2%
Other countries0.5%

Just to share something....
Cheers! Yanti

Loyalty Marketing

I read from wikipedia regarding Loyalty marketing. It is an approach where company focuses on growing and retaining existing customers through incentives.

According to Fred Reichheld, who wrote the book The Loyalty Effect (1996), Loyalty Rules! (2001) there is a strong link between customer loyalty marketing and customer referral.I will look for this book later.

To the general public including me, many airline miles programs, hotel frequent guest programs, shopping reward point and credit card incentive programs are the most visible customer loyalty marketing programs.

In my home country there is customer loyalty program named RealReward, It’s an exciting program that rewards us with Real Points for simply shop at any of their participating merchants. We can then redeem these accumulated Real points for an incredible array of exciting rewards. These rewards are FREE for just doing your usual daily shopping. http://www.realrewards.com.my

I think our “Baiten” school shop should also come with this kind of customer loyalty program.

Personalisation and future e-marketing

PERSONALIZATION

Simply put, personalization is getting the right message, with the right content, to the right person, at the right time and using the right medium. This is where the power of e-marketing really sparkles. When you have permission and have developed a best-of-breed privacy policy and follow it, your targets will hold your brand in high regard and will be very comfortable with you marketing to them. How do you get the best results out of this relationship?

Personalization will be the key in future e-marketing. The average online consumer has seen good and bad examples of websites and email marketing efforts. All are familiar with, and typically dislike SPAM. They have disregarded the vast majority of banner ads and interstitials (pop-ups) that have been pushed to them. Overall, your targets know what they like and don't like!

A proper database and data acquisition strategy will allow you to know exactly what each person likes, what they want out of a relationship with you, how they want it, and when they want it. Web-based surveys are a great way to learn what customers, prospects and your channel want, how they want it and how often. With a proper e-marketing strategy that integrates online efforts with offline executions and personalization - optimizing individual relationships is within reach.

Personalization will be key to keeping permission over the long haul. In e-marketing the power is with the individual not the marketer. Any person can choose whether they visit your website - or not! They can choose to give you permission to send email to them - or not. They can choose to click on your banner ads - or not. If you cannot consistently provide value to each individual that you have a marketing relationship with, and do so at every touchpoint, you will quickly lose their interest…and their permission.

Neiman Marcus

i found the prof.sugai mentioned " neiman marcus" in the last class, http://www.neimanmarcus.com/
this is one of my favorite online shopping websites, as prof. suagai said in class, ppl always forgot to read the Security & Privacy before they shopping online, definitely i never read this part before, today i tried to ready the security and privacy of this website, i found they mentioned a lot, including the "cookies" and " Web Beacons", and how they use them. and u will suprise they share ur information not only this web, and also the third parties..that's why i conflicted myself, one side i donot want to ppl to know my private information, another side online shopping is very convenience (specially in IUJ area),maybe that's why there are still
25% donot want to buy products online.

My People,

The cold is coming. I need PA to wake me up in the morning. I am sleeping too much these days. Thats by the way.

I have some site for guide for website construction. Please when you are constructing your website , make simple. Go to the point. Don't make it complex.

See you.
http://www.how-to-build-websites.com

http://www.jessett.com/
http://www.webwizguide.com/kb/website_design/default.asp
http://www.thesitewizard.com/gettingstarted/mozillacomposer1.shtml
http://webdesign.about.com/
http://www.interspire.com/templates/
http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/
http://www.oswd.org/

Do you want this kind of personalization?

The scene from "Minority report" shows how stores might try to give you personalized information /advertisement. However, it looks so scary to me because everywhere you go you are watched! I think personalization should have some limit or there will be no privacy left on earth.

So, how much privacy are you willing to scarified for personalized services? should the eyes scan like above or DNA authentication be allowed?

Personalization and Customization

Hi all...

We have learned about the Web Personalization and Customization last Monday lecture. I thought there are simillar but there have totally different approach.
I have searched in the internet what is the main idea for this two terms.

Web pages are personalized based on the interests of an individual.
Personalization implies that the changes are based on implicit data, such as items purchased or pages viewed.

The term customization is used instead when the site only uses explicit data such as ratings or preferences.

On an intranet or B2E Enterprise Web portals, personalization is often based on user attributes such as department, functional area, or role. The term customization in this context refers to the ability of users to modify the page layout or specify what content should be displayed.

Correct me if I am wrong ..

Cheers! Yanti

Cross sell in insurance

Just want to share my story back when I was working with AIG. Actually AIG Indonesia just started to cross sell many of its products in mid 2007; however it becomes a successful program not so long after implemented. Many existing clients bought many different insurance policies which previously they don't realize the importance

Behind this success story there are a lot of hard works of market research of knowing what our clients’ need. We don’t want to scare the clients or make them angry by selling the product that they don’t need, right? We also realized that our clients or customers in general, are smart people that usually did research of their own hence the additional products offered to them should be in-line with the research. AIG did it by breaking down each of client’s business into small details and try to open communication door as widely as possible (with clients and also between employees).
AIG also conducted regular product training for its employee. This also supports the success of cross-selling in terms of product knowledge. Hence we would know the appropriate products for certain type of clients.

As a conclusion, knowing your product and your client is success key for cross selling and another important point is to manage effective communication with co-workers to search for opportunities and with clients to change it into money.

Cookies and HTTP cookies

Today we have learned cookies which is part of our lecture. Let me put some ideas to distinguish between cookies and HTTP cookies Cookies are most commonly baked until crisp or just long enough that they remain soft, but some kinds of cookies are not baked at all. Cookies are made in a wide variety of styles, using an array of ingredients including sugars, spices, chocolate, butter, peanut butter or dried fruits. The softness of the cookie may depend on how long it is baked. BUT

HTTP cookies, more commonly referred to as Web cookies, tracking cookies or just cookies, are parcels of text sent by a server to a Web client (usually a browser) and then sent back unchanged by the client each time it accesses that server.Because they can be used for tracking browsing behavior, cookies have been of concern for Internet privacy. As a result, they have been subject to legislation in various countries such as the United States, as well as the European Union. Cookies have also been criticized because the identification of users they provide is not always accurate and because they could potentially be a target of network attackers. Some alternatives to cookies exist, but each has its own uses, advantages, and drawbacks.

Social Networking Ads

Myspace has started targeting its individuals and small business segments using its new platform MyAds.

Placing an ad comprises of “a few easy steps”:

1. Sign-up on advertise.myspace.com
2. Create a display ad using the MyAds Builder Tool
3. Select a variable ad spend anywhere from $25 to $10,000
4. HyperTarget to customers (based on self-expressed interests available on MySpace profiles, along with age, sex and geographical location)
5. Measure ad performance with MyAds analytics reporting

The end result, says MySpace, is to democratize online advertising. Or to borrow another phrase from the Web 2.0 bible, the company is attempting to monetize the Long Tail.

Personally, I think many people might find this intrusive or barely working. I see small google-ish ads on the side everytime but never once have i clicked on it. I think GoogleAds has more specific results compared to MyAds and Facebook Ads.

Read the full story here

Interested Case Study BUT

Dear friends,

I would like to share my experience in case study.
All case assignments are quite interesting and they all are related to the real world marketing issues. Isn't it? But they are rather complex and they have included so many different data. There is no way to go over them. We have to deal with such kind of data for our analysis and report.
In bankinter case, there are 11 Exhibits which have given different information and numbers from various point of view. Moreover, they are main sources for our answers. When I considered for answers, I was confused what data should be taken out, how to relate to answer and how to calculate. At first, I thought most of the numbers are related to answer. However, if I tell about all numbers, the report might be so long . If not, it will not be enough I think. And I don't know whether my answer may correct or not. Upon that, I took so many hours dealing with such kind of things. The main difficulty for me is that I could not relate the number to the answer correctly and my considerations were so scattered. But, I had to type the report as I thought. But it was different from Professor's answer in somehow. Phew! how difficult the case you know. Anyway, I have to learn more to be familiar with numbers because I have to deal with numbers in the real world by any means. There might not have ways to avoid them. But........

Obama victory and marketing campaign

Iam not the one who take interest in politic but watching television those day make me impressed alot with the victory of Barack Obama vs John Mc Cain. To me, I prefer the Democrats to win because they may be able to bring about peace to everycountry. From my point of view the war in Iraq or in Afganistan might not have happened if it was the Democrats president.
But far from it, today I ve read a very interesting article written by Sagea Lewis an marketing expert to tell us one part of the reason why John Mc Cain failed because of his internet marketing campaign and we can understand some from it.

The article showed that Barack Obama won over John McCain when it came to links. Yahoo Site Explorer shows nearly 2 million links to www.barackobama.com, but just over 900,000 links to www.johnmccain.com.

Does Internet play an importance role in Barach Obama victory? the answer is Yes

From the first time Obama's Web site was built for interaction and community, Obama was leading the social media revolution by having a larger Internet presence and a more energized base. One of the most visionary, forward-thinking actions of Obama's campaign was hiring Chris Hughes, the co-founder of Facebook, to act as coordinator of online organizing within the Obama presidential campaign on My.BarackObama.com, the campaign's online social networking Web site.

Ultimately, they built a link strategy right into the core of their online strategy. Granted, they wouldn't have classified it as a link building campaign -- it was a social networking campaign. However, links are a direct product of a successful Web site.

They didn't say, "Now that we have a Web site, why don't we give people a place to participate?" Instead, they said, "How can we make a Web site that continually energizes our supporters and becomes a major resource online?"

What this means to you?

Does your business or organization revolve around an issue people feel strongly about? GM's Fastlane blog has 140,112 links pointing to it. GM and the entire American auto industry is extremely interesting right now.

If your business is remarkably unremarkable, consider featuring an important aspect of your life- a charity, a social group, or a hobby.

Don't start a link campaign after your Web site is completed. It should be built into the very design and fabric of the Web site.

The next time you redesign your website, ask your designer at one of the first meetings about a strategy for attracting people to link to your site. You'll have a significantly easier time building links this way rather than asking how you'll get links to your site after it's completed.

And in the end it's life or death. One campaign wins and one campaign loses. We can all learn a great deal by studying presidential politics.

Thuy Uong

My people,
How was the open day? I didn't know that E-Business has a lot of talent. We need release some Album soon. well, Last lecture is really nice. I am looking for a day where you don't need to carry your wollet around. At a time, when you forget your ATM card, you can use ur phone to collect money from ATM. For this to work well , we have to think , on how to lower the price of phone set. Mobile plat form we be very good for financial innovation.

Have a nice week.


Rowland

Affiliation

Good morning guys,

I just finish struggling with Bankinter Case.
In terms of affiliation, this case was very profound for me.

I usually visit Yahoo auction for find some items. A few days ago, I'm finding Katana(Japanese sword) for Iaido-club. When I was digging the auction, some Katana shops appeared.
You know, this market is quite nitch; therefore, for almost of all people, this kind of information is just like garbage. So, it is important to decide what kinds of companies or categories we should collaborate with appropriate organizations.

My works to do are done.
I go bed. Good night. I wish today is your good day;)

IBoX and Downloadbox Explanation

"IBox" is an inexpensive hard-disk plugged to the internet-its kind of a set box like your fixed telephone set that sits at your home. For IBox to work it must be plugged to the internet and ofcourse,the power connection.The complete function of "IBoX" could be fully utilised through www.downloadbox.com over the internet. At www.downloadbox.com site there is three types of content for purchase: Movies, PC software and PC Games. All purchased contents are remotely stored at IBoX, which is most probably located in your home.

Before building this simple idea:
Our core idea was- downloading of contents should be location independant, which means downloaded contents does not necessarily require the usage of computer physical resources being used rather every contents are routed to "IBoX", which is an inexpensive hard disk plugged to the internet. White collar men basically could access multimedia contents over the internet and yet not take any download space at their office desktop PC. Purchased downloaded contents are automatically routed to the "IBoX" through some IP address to machine address translation, which is done at the background by www.downloadbox.com

"IBoX" users usually access their user profile with their username and password in order to get access to their personalized "IBoX" user profile over the internet(It's like logging in to your hotmail or gmail). On the user profile they are offered easy to use web user interface to make content purchase of movies, PC games and PC softwares.

Upon COMPLETION of the purchase cycle, the download is initiated at their IBoX. The white collar people(our target customer segment) could simply close their internet browser and leave for home.
At home he could access his previous/recent purchased contents by plugging the "IBoX" to his home desktop PC via USB cable.

Our Value Propostion: 1) Saves time for the white collar people by trimming down the search and download hassle.
2) Download is location independant. It is accessible via Downloadbox.com with your cell phone or any desktop PC located elsewhere.

Our sticky line: ENTERTAINMENT and Work should not come in the way.

Air-powered car in 2011: The future of car?

http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home/article/106040/Air-Cars:-A-New-Wind-for-America%27s-Roads

The increasingly cost of gas has expedited development of new concepts of car in the near future, such as the one in the article above . A new carmaker in the US has built an air-powered car, which is planned to be mass marketed in just about two years later from now.

Car with an alternative power source is not new in this world, however, almost none of them are cheap and going to be mass marketed so far. The value propositon that the carmaker has in this case is, first, they offers great design where user can customize it. Second, the price is expected to be cheap where low-end user can afford it (like in India where Tata has already right to make for the huge Indian market). Third, they are coming in the right time. It is likely that there will be new laws to be enacted in a few years that will limit carbon dioxide emissions and force automakers to develop ultra-high mileage cars and those that emit minuscule amounts of or no gases linked with global warming. Fourth, the relatively high cost of gas has expedited the air car's development.

Lets see what will happen then... I guess I'm interested to by one later on :-D

IBoX and Downloadbox.com

Click to see the video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffPAfUbOF-k

Dear IUJers,

Global Entrepreneurship Week http://www.unleashingideas.org/ on Nov 17-23, 2008 in Tokyo, Japan.

Global Entrepreneurship Week Japan is hosting a 90+ second "Elevator Pitch" preliminary round video contest on youtube. We (Devang, Gupta and Larry) have participated the competition and now seek your voluntary assistance to promote our entrepreneurial ideas.


Please check out the Global Entrepreneurship Week Japan (GEWJ)"Elevator Pitch" competition video at the following URL http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=ffPAfUbOF-k

After watching the video we urge all IUJers to put their positive comments on to the links not only to promote us but also for our university. We have put in a lot of effort on this Business pitch idea; this means a lot to us.

Our core "Business pitch" is: I Box and Downloadbox.com

IBoX- An inexpensive hard disk plugged to the internet

Downloadbox.com- A one-stop multimedia content platform, where IBox users could make purchase and download contents to their "IBoX". The "IBoX' could be located anywhere.

Function of "IBoX"- Stores purchased media contents from www.downloadbox.com. It could be remotely accessed with your "IBoX' username and password either on mobile phone or PC.擨BoX" users could access their contents on PC computers via USB 2.0.

WWW.Downloadbox.com- A one stop multimedia content platform where partner content/data providers share their databases and these are fed to "IBoX" web user profile. "IBoX" users would be able to purchase High-definition movies, PC application software and PC games where ever they may be located. All contents are automatically stored remotely in their personal "IBoX".

Our Value Proposition: Saving valuable time and therefore hassle for the Japanese salary men.
High Quality Download should be location independent


Words from Devang, Gupta, and Larry:

Right from the beginning of our journey (more than a week ago) IBoX and downloadbox.com site made us gradually believe and instill conviction that this product does solve the download hassle for Japanese white collar people. If you feel that this business idea is connecting your live or somehow passing a clear message then please post your valuable comment on our link.

Please do not let this idea go down the drain....promote it!!!


Yours
IUJ Students and Classmate.

LED Wireless System and its implication on marketing

DoCoMo, Others To Develop LED Wireless System

This article reminds me of two issues discussed in class. (1) Strategic partnership (2) eMarketing medium.

(1) The goal of this project is to allow data to be sent through the power lines, and would be converted by the modified LED device into a form of visible light. To enable such communication, DoCoMo and KDDI (telecom network) team up with TEPCO for the power grid, Panasonic for device technology, and IrDA as light receiver technology. We can see here that each partner has their core competency that can compliment each other. Thus, when considering partnership either for strategic partnership or affiliate partnership, we should ensure that companies in portfolio have core competency that compliment our weaknesses.

(2) eMarketing medium. I think the implication of this technology will improve the way advertiser communicate with consumer. Currently, ads and other information flow to consumers through mobile operator centric environment. This means that marketers are much relied on the like of DoCoMo, KDDI, or softbank that consumers are somehow limit to that range. However, if the LED Wireless system succeed, marketer could now breakdown to operator barrier and reduce advertising cost while be able to reach wider number of potential consumers.

Advertising Venture Google-Yahoo! : dropped !!!

Maybe some of us know about the advertising venture between Google and Yahoo! The two strongest players in search engine. Basically if Yahoo could put its ads in Google's page and vice versa.
Apparently the deal was dropped just recently because Google does not want to accept conditions the US government may require to avoid harm to competition in the online ads market. I personally feel 'glad' that this deal was dropped or at least delayed because this could bring an unhealthy competition in the search-engine-based internet advertising. With such ability, the cost for putting your ads would likely to be very high and there would be no healthy competition because combining this two search engine will result in major major market share.
Well, conducting advertising venture like this is difficult, even more difficult if two companies will do a joint ventures since they have to think through every aspects. I most likely agree with Azizah that doing things small scale is easier than major scale.

FYI, this case is getting interesting since Microsoft would be also in the picture because early this year Yahoo! turned down Microsoft's USD 47Bio offer and of course Microsoft was intending to be a major competitor for Google by buying Yahoo!

Hei Rowland i do agree your comment on co-marketing concept and partnership. Here i raise my opinion what i have understood and found (im not raise my case SO any objection overruled hehehhe) . My fellow friends I feel that there are several advantages may obtained from both(co-marketing and partnership) such as :

1. Collaboration.
2. tax advantages
   
3. flexibility
4. acquisition of capital
5. and of course law uniform BUT i think we should consider the drawback also.....

while collaborating with partners can be great advantage for small scale business but sooner or later conflict with partner may occur in big decision making. When one partner signs a contract, each of the other partners is legally bound to fulfill it, or another word is authority of partner . other disadvantages are limitations on transfer of ownership and unlimited liability.
Anyway, choosing a partner is one of important elements before forming partnership...

Just an opinion....correct me if im wrong hehehhehe

http://www.apple.com/ipod/nike/

http://www.apple.com/ipod/nike/
Apple and Nike practiced Co-Marketing in the above link. Both company benefited from the partnership. For partnership to be successful both parties much befit from each other.
There are four main objectives of marketing co-operations
Build-up and/or strengthening of brand/image/traffic by implementing joint or exchange communication measures
Access to new markets/customers by directly addressing the co-operation partner’s customers or by using its distribution points
Increase of customer loyalty by addressing own customers with value added offerings from the partner - often useful for community building
Reduction of marketing costs by bundling or exchanging marketing measures
Co-Marketing is very nice provided both parties will keep to term.
This below is an example of multiple partnering.
http://www.skyteam.com/EN/index.jsp
SkyTeam is the second largest airline alliance in the world — behind Star Alliance — partnering fourteen carriers from four continents.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SkyTeam

Lessons from B-School

Note: This posting has nothing to do with Customer acquisition or eMarketing so make sure u guys read it before it disappears from this blog ;-)

A friend of mine sent me this link. Its a simple article about the lessons that this MBA grad learnt from his B-School experience. If your too lazy to read it here are the some of the lessons he learnt...

1. 'I have spent too much time focused on the United States and, specifically, California. I need to really expand my knowledge and viewpoints.'.. This reminded me of what we heard during our welcoming day speech ... 'We all come from our villages, we need to integrate and reach out to others and learn to respect each other in this Global village.' (Hmm... it was something along those lines)

2. ' The Bank of Japan is not like the Bank of America (BAC). In fact, it's more like the Federal Reserve. They help set monetary policy, print money, etcetera' ... to understand the context of this you need to read the article.

3. '"Things that seem elective now will be mandatory soon. Worrying about poverty, climate change, pollution, disease, and migration all seem elective now. It's overwhelmingly likely that they'll be fundamental to any business in your lifetimes. You can choose to think harder about these things sooner." I know this might sound a bit too far fetched but it could be true for people who are civil servants and I strongly believe issues like these will have a significant impact in our lives regardless of which field we work in.

4. 'No matter who we are or where we are from, We have similar hopes and dreams.' Do I need to explain this ?

Hope you liked the article.

Nissan Motor vs. Nissan Computers

What happens if somebody else registered your brand name as his domain name? Search for another "good" domain name? Or lawsuit?
Nissan Motor, one of the big corporations in the world took many legal actions against Nissan Computer, which is a small Computer trade company in North Carolina, US for using nissan.com domain name but with no success.
Mr. Uzi Nissan, the founder and president of Nissan Computer registered nissan.com domain name in 1994.
Nissan Motor's domain name is: nissan-global.com

Important: Do not lose your "good" domain name!!!

Starting making money from affiliate marketing

How to Choose Your Affiliate Marketing Niche

The author discusses how to start making money from affiliate marketing niche. Basically, affiliate with other to make money is just like running a business. Thus, we need to pursue area of interest, the area that we have some skills. After all, since we do it for monetary terms we need to move into the area where there is a demand.

Video Game Ads

No, I am not referring to the advertisements that you find on video games magazine or Gamespot.com© promoting the latest shoot-em up or the upcoming Starcraft II. Apparently video games producers have found a way to increase funding through selling virtual real estate for real life ads. Obama certainly wants a piece of the virtual pie - so to speak.

The Barack Obama presidential campaign has broken ground in a relatively new ad medium: in-game advertising. The candidate has purchased ads in the Xbox 360 car-racing title "Burnout: Paradise City." When a gamer goes online to play against other racers, the ad appears as a billboard.

The game features a multiplayer element in which users can play against each other if they hook their Xbox consoles up to the Internet. When the game is connected to the Web, new advertisements can be placed on billboards that players see as they race through the streets.

Obama's ad reads "Early voting has begun. Voteforchange.com. Paid for by Obama for President."

Full story can be found here

Real time marketing research: Experience sharing

Background:
Telenor, Bangladesh Operation was suffering from poor customer satisfaction from its business consumer segment. Big corporate clients were switching to other operator.

Fact Finding:
At that time there was no customized service package and no priority service channel for business segment. Everybody had to visit their service booth to avail any sort of service.

Competitors Analysis:
Other 2 companies among 4 were introduced priority service channel for business customer but they were far behind from TELENOR due to superior network capability. But the situation was improving day by day.

Research method:
We divided the total country into 8 geographic zones. We selected 100 customer service officers from 100 service booth. Everyone was assigned to record real time conversation of 5 business customers within two months while they were availing service. Off course in some point they were poked by customer service officer to extract their aggression towards company, service, product etc.

Outcome & success:
Based on the findings the company opened up a new direct sales and service channel dedicated for business segment. Besides in every city a priority service booth was arranged. Finally the company launched a new data and voice package named business solutions for that segment with higher price than mass market. But it was an immense success and still continuing.

http://www.grameenphone.com/index.php?id=91

Top 10 Viral Marketing of All Time

check out some more successful viral marketing campaigns at this blog.

http://www.blogstorm.co.uk/the-top-10-viral-marketing-campaigns-of-all-time/654/

Future of the internet

It's quite long VDO but i guess it's worth having a look.

Gorilla and Monkey

In class, we saw a gorilla drums in the advertisement movie, and it reminds me of a very old Sony’s commercial message.
http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=IKzNIP1x1R4&feature=related

This TV commercial message was broadcasted in 1987. At that time, this kind of TV CM was quite new, so it became very popular and greatly contributed to Sony and Walkman’s brand image. As a result, the sales of Walkman increased dramatically. ( I think it was not only in Japan.. Did you know that? )

The monkey closes its eyes and acts like a human being, and it really enjoys music.
In this point, I cannot help thinking gorilla’s movie to be an imitation… Am I too doubtful?

Anyway, we saw various examples of viral marketing, and then I would like to continue to study how to differentiate and how to protect intellectual property and brand image.

Google Analytics + Online Marketing

Recently I had a chat with a friend of mine who is a developer and someone who has an e-Business based in Palestine. You can check out his website here (this link is a translated version of the original page which is in Arabic). More about his very 'interesting' business model later.

He recommended Google analytics to measure online marketing performance. I was amazed to see the report he got for his website. There is so much valuable information that is simply fantastic. According to the Google Analytics website "You can Learn more about where your visitors come from and how they interact with your site. You'll get the information you need to write better ads, strengthen your marketing initiatives, and create higher-converting websites." Here is a list of benefits they have and I was wondering if we could analyze this page and identify their 'value proposition'. Any takers??

To Prof. Sugai - I tried to add analytics for our blog unfortunately I could not as I do not have administrator privileges. I strongly recommend we add analytics to our blog so that we can have a case study towards the end of this semester or later. Some of the case studies about analytics can be found here.

"Internet Marketing Made Easy"

Learn how to market your website like the professionals in this FREE 7-parTraining Course "Internet Marketing Made Easy": this sentence is one of viral marketing that always can be seen in internet. Initially, it came with FREE package and for those who are really interested, the provider will send few information through email but NOT for whole training course. Actually I have experienced this kind of "viral marketing". It is impressed me a lot, the website provide me an online presentation in video-type. My first video was "How To Get High Rankings In The Search Engines". In positive perspective that now I am at the CUTTING EDGE of Internet marketing and will make more money online as this provider will be giving me regular industry insider secrets and marketing tips.Great right?..and starting with that my "inbox's folder" will stack with this kind of marketing...

try this URL http://www.cheneysmarketingnews.com/reporters/ and u may experience a new one

Viral Marketing - Tourism Malaysia

Hi everyone..!

I would like to introduce one website which uses a kind of viral marketing...Tourism Malaysia.

For details : http://www.tourism.gov.my/en/experience/culture.asp

This website may help those people who want to know well about Malaysia culture, food , island ,etc...
Anyway, I think this is one of viral marketing in promoting Malaysia to the outside.

Thanx..

Yanti

E-Marketing Glossary of Terms

Hi everyone, came across this website and thought it maybe helpful for all of us.

This is an online dictionary of e-Marketing semantics to enrich our E-vocabulary.

Check this out: http://www.davechaffey.com/E-marketing-Glossary/

Cheers!

-Ann-

Viral Marketing: Google 10th to 100th ($10 Million Prize) & Google Android ($10 Million Prize)

Google 10th to the 100th
Android - An Open Handset Alliance Project

When I think of "Virus Marketing" or Viral marketing, these two project come in mind. It's the project that spread out by word of mouth like a virus. You can't just stop people from participating due to its $10 Million Prize commitment.

Web Metrics and Advertising ROI Tool

Thanks to Dimas, here is the link to a fantastic tool for analyzing the effectiveness (and value) of a web advertising campaign.

Gourmet Navigator

Hi all, I would like to introduce you my favorite site which uses a kind of viral-marketing, Gourmet Navigator.
http://www.gnavi.co.jp/
http://www.gnavi.co.jp/en/
This is a very useful restaurant guide, but English version is not so useful… I always search bars in this site; many of Japanese people are so shy that we can talk with our bosses honestly only when we are drinking....
Anyway, when I find a good restaurant, I can easily inform all members about the restaurant by e-mail which includes the name of "Gourmet Navigator". So, I always introduce all members about "Gourmet Navigator" unconsciously, and they may introduce other people by using this site, it will continue again and again.
Now, there are many similar sites in Japan, so they are struggling how to differentiate from others: provide coupons, launch various campaigns, etc. But they are almost same from the view point of feature and business style.
When the creative viral-marketing appears, someone imitates its idea immediately. Therefore, I think how to prevent imitation, how to keep originality, and how to differentiate from others are important.

I already am a captive of a viral marketing?

I checked the definition of Viral Marketing through the Internet. To think about this kind of marketing resort, maybe the approach vary depend on target products.

In Japan, there are some kinds of viral marketing. I sometimes recieve viral e-mail, but I have usually ignored them because I feel the information is not so important. So far, I think viral marketing is not popular or not a successful way in Japan. However, I realized one notable example. The company is Mixi which provide SNS( Social Networking Sevice) such as facebook or MYSpace. Mixi surely is the most famous SNS, which attracts widespread popularity. One important feature of it is that new applicants can register only when be invited by exsisting users. For me, most impressive issue is this "introduction system" which means there are no suspicious users. Also, it encourages the awareness of human relationship( friends' friends could be my friends?). Nowadays, users can access this site through PC and mobile phones, and they enjoy daily communication by updating their own diaries, belonging to specific communities or finding friends.

Mixi is free in charge, most of its income are advertizing revenue. Therefore, increasing users does not affect their profit, but it transpired as No.1 SNS in Japan. (Now, over 10 million users and over 200 million access per day). In this way, this company has developed quickly.

Maybe, some guys in our class, don't know Mixi.
So, if you are interested, I can invite you. Am I already taken in by Mixi's viral marketing strategy? ;)
Anyway, I think this is one of viral marketing. You guys, how do you feel?
link: http://mixi.jp/

Thanx,

Enhancing quality of life ; impact of Viral Marketing

Bangladesh, a developing country is still suffering from poor quality of life. Social Marketing Company (SMC), one of few private social marketing company really working on this burning isssue with the funding from US Agency for International Development since 1997. They are complementing public sector distribution, expanding produce demand and access, engaging in effective IEC (information, education, communication), and increasing perceived value of contraceptives. Mobile video program, viral e-mail are key to message communination.

For details:
http://www.popline.org/docs/135115

Viral Marketing: eMarketing 2008 blog site??

http://iujem.blogspot.com/

I am so positive that everybody from our eMarketing class definitely know this blog. When I started figuring out about viral marketing, this blog came into my mind. I think most of the students in our class including me didn't notice before that our very smart professor of eMarketing class is practicing viral marketing for this eMarketing class blog (provided: in my opinion). Basically, we all are posting the articles with the objectives to get a high grade, yet to show that we are smart too. I'm not quite sure if the rest of us agree with me, but still I personally think this is also one way of viral marketing.

Since a lot of sutents already mentioned the definition of viral marketing, I understand it as making your website or company famous by the word of mouth or by social networking. Let me give you an example of our eMarketing blog site. We are posting articles every week. Gradually, we are spreading about that blog to our friends and make them see perhaps. In such a way eMarketing blog is getting awareness from IUJ students. Later on, even when we graduate and leave IUJ, we would keep this blog in mind and we sometimes would come visit this website, and even talk about that to our family members, colleages and the people who work alongside with us. By doing so, we are exercising viral marketing to make this blog popular among our social community.

To sum up, I believe that viral marketing could be in several different ways even sometimes we couldn't realize about that. Even some professors in IUJ are using viral marketing technique, and I personally think it is one of the best ways to make our product successful.

Web 2.0 and Viral Marketing

Everybody knows we are now in the world of Web 2.0. Wiki, Blogs, Mashups, Social Networking, Podcasting, RSS, Widgets are growing day by day. According to Forrester research on “Global Enterprise Web 2.0 Market Forecast”, enterprise will spend $4.6 billion on Web 2.0 technologies by 2013.

From the book “Web 2.0: A Strategy Guide” written by Amy Shuen, there are five-step action plan for applying Web 2.0 technologies business models: build on collective user value, activate network effects, work through social networks, dynamically syndicate competence and recombine innovations. In fact, Social networks can help us our business reaching more audience by building our community. But there are many questions we have to ask how to work through social networks.

In the book, the author gave an example of success of through viral marketing. “One extra line at the end of each Hotmail—"Get your private, free email at http://www.hotmail.com"

Other interesting stories are traffic generation of small number of web sites like Yahoo!, MySpace, YouTube, Wikipedia, and Digg through viral marketing.
We should not also forget about LinkedIn, Facebook and their success.

I may be writing about tech and hype but we always have to explore fundamental concepts behind these technologies and how to apply them.

Ref: “Web 2.0: A Strategy Guide” written by Amy Shuen Chapter 6 Business Incorporate Strategies

Car+Matchbox+Marketing = ?

What would be the first thing that comes in your mind when you read the above title? It would probably be about the marketing program for this miniature toy that many of us (especially the boys) are familiar with:

Maybe. But rather, consider this viral marketing campaign in 2007 by Ford Malaysia in light of their Ford Ranger line. The truck boasts an extendable bed for extra cargo. Now, how and what would be an excellent way to reach its target consumers - mainly consisting of people are loosely related to construction, manual labor, transportation, field workers etc. Most of these workers tend to smoke and drink.

So Ford came out with an innovative viral marketing tool which was distributed in pubs and bars:

1. Captured the intended audience
2. Delivered the message precisely and cleverly

What were the results? More than 1,600 people have visited Ford with about 450 booked a test drive. All cars of the limited edition of Ranger Extreme were sold out a month ahead of its expected sales schedule.

Here is what they did:

detik.com - personal experience on viral marketing

Back to the time around 2001, I remembered when my friend told me about a very famous Indonesian news website that provides very (very) latest news, namely detik.com ("detik" means second). The website updates its content oftenly, even in term of seconds/minutes for breaking-through news. For example during the tsunami in Asia, the website updates the contents almost every minutes from its writers who wrote the news directly from the disaster areas.

Till now, due to of its fame, a lot of important advertising (ads) on its webpage, from an international to local events ads, or from a multinational to local company's ads. I got some useful information that relates to my interests from the website though.

Several times, I also told some other friends about the website when they asked me about good website on Indonesian news. It's just a good example of virtual marketing that I myself experienced on.

-rizki-

Viral marketing to the user?

Today's users have become an integrated part of the information flow. They use their power to dismiss irrelevant and interruptive ads. In the era of applying IT and ICT in mas media, "you" the consumer has become a user. The users are the most powerful one in the market. No big suppliers can be able to control the market and advertising environment. It is the users to decide what to watch, when, where and for how long ... giving them the power to make or break any new product or brand.
Therefore, to become a successful marketer you need to understand the users. And viral marketing should be created for the interest of the viewers. Emails ads should only be sent to the people having interest and want to be in the list of email receivers). It will be an ineffective way to send emails wide-spreadly with no care of who are the receivers. So these are certainly be considered as spam emails. Those spam emails will normally annoy the viewers and leave a bad impression on the audience 's mind about your brand and company. Just imagine, everyday you unexpectedly receive hundreds of spam emails during a busy and hard-working day, how you will be frustrated and tired. You then will immediately throw them to rubbish.What a bad results for any ads!
In my country Vietnam, there are several internet service suppliers who provide ads through emails in the way that they collect email address (up to thousands, hundreds of thousands) and sell this database or deliver ad unprofessional way; bad in design, no good content, no impression but give the user no choice to decline the ads. They will possibly continue to be sent that kind of emails.

In the view of the user, I agree with this saying of viral marketing that “For marketers, big ears are more useful than big mouths these days.”
Below is the famous brand name in Vietnam "Moment coffee" with viral marketing
http://uk.blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-OKcthZU9crKbb8_053WZE4xSLl98hOg-?cq=1&tag=moment

Multi-level Marketing - a bright child of Viral marketing or Just a cheat? Pespective from the case of Tahitian Noni Juice.

Phuong Thao iujem.blogspot.com さんは書きました...
Hi all,I see a number of nice examples about viral marketing in different countries. In Vietnam, we also have many excellent cases making use of viral marketing for their business. However, still there's gap in applying these ways of marketing in real, (espeially multi-level marketing) which is regarded as a cheat in my country. The Government even issued the law to prohibit multi-level marketing and selling. So far as I know, this way of marketing is also banned in China and several other countries. As I see Larry has some info about this, plz share more...I will take Tahitian Noni Juice as an example.If you have checked the info of this company on websitehttp://www.tahitiannoni.com/united_states/english/retail/index.html...So great, isnt it?Tahitan Noni is a kind of fruit juice, thus when is is imported to several countries like Canada, Vietnam, Thailand...its image is regarded as MAGIC JUICE which can heal and treat all kinds of deaseases. For women and men, it is the best to keep healthy and beauty. So the price is sky craper...30 times higher than the import cost. who dare to buy??? this company use the viral marketing, ask family and friends buy and use the products and tell the Magic story to others. By attrating more and more people... a network established. Each person becomes a DISTRIBUTOR with so beautiful commission.Plz take a look:http://noninumber1.com/?ahuyweb=content&id_cat=10The story seems never end, and still magic unless there're the fact that there are more and more people find out the normal effect of Noni and there's increasing number of people lost money. It's so pity caused the friends and relatives suffer from this...From my point of view, this kind of marketing is so creative. However, in actual condition, how to apply and get good effects is another story.
2008/10/19 22:10

Viral Marketing - Value Proposition

I would like to share my experienced that every year I received an email from a friend regarding festival season Television Commercials (TVCs) done by Petronas - A leading Petroleum company from my home country. Every year and every festive season this company will come out with TVCs that fulled with various messages such unity, integrity, sincerity, loyalty, mutual respect and many more. Their TVCs has received several ads awards.

Petronas was a leading Petroleum company in my home country, therefore indirectly this TVCs has influenced me to stick loyal to their brand. I use all their petroleum products in my daily life such as vehicle gasoline, cooking gasoline and vehicle related products.

Beside using word of mouth to tell others about this TVCs, in their website there's a button for us to send notification to other friends to share the video after we watched it. Thus people may send it to as many people they need. Therefore the message passed through out the nation rapidly.

People may touched with the messages in the video. They will also think of Petronas and start to use their products.. (like me..) It cool right...

here is the link http://www.petronasgreetings.com/hariraya2008/index.asp

One way of Viral Marketing?

I think everybody has received forwarded mails. They may be for your personal dealing and also for other purposes. The second may be sometimes information for fashion, funny movies, events, sayings, tips for shopping, travelling and health care and so on. As for me, I read some interesting mails and passed along to others but rarely did. For those who are interested in others, they may response in different ways.

After I have read about viral marketing, I came to know that this can be a kind of marketing tool. In my country, there are a few organizations practicing viral marketing. One organization Distilled which website address is www.distilled.co.uk, did viral marketing campaign to get ideas and more fund by means of creating competition for his Price Per Click tools (PPT) and set criteria to include about Myanmar Cyclone. At that time, cyclone hit Myanmar was very severe and very famous around the world. So, Distilled knew it to be applied in its campaign with two objectives. The more people compete, the more idea and fund would get. I think people who were interested in it, definitely they would do. So, viral marketing can be in different forms and used for business and non-profit purpose.
Personally, I am pleased with Distilled.

A thought on Viral Marketing- Bangladesh and China.

No doubt people are becoming frustrated and even as close as getting sick from TV ads and the continuos flooding of emails with Junks. An analogy would be receiving so many emails at the Iujmail acount (300 EMAILS IN 30 DAYS) folder that I atlast decided to stop peeking at them. They distract you from your original purpose and intention-basically they add to your pain than gain. What I want to add here is when a certain consumer product has a visible and strong value proposition and it does what it is suppose to do or even surpasses your expectation. The next step people would do, naturally, is pass it by "word-of-mouth". I am a living example to this testament. I once was bombarded with ads by some unknown online cloth retailer. I curiously clicked it and found out that the site was pretty good. www.vancle.com My first purchase from this site as an experiment was a polo T-shirt. A risk minimizing factor, I though,t but after I've tried it on I felt that it offered more than its value.From then onwards I made more purchase from Trousers to right beneath the undergarments. I've even voluntarily passed the companies product URL to anyone who made any online purchase. They all agreed with me that the company have a good depth of product and their price is competitive.

What Vancl are offering is Formal/Casual retail clothing targeting white collar people. And they have succeeded in their goals. Around 30% of Beijing white color population especially men purchase from this site and 10% housewives to their husbands. That is because #1 Free Deliver upto 25kms radius, #2 Good packaging-brings in a feel good factor when you receive it #3 Good quaility of the product #4 a competitive price #5 product mix and differention.

I wish Viral Marketing could play another form at IUJ say for example "Viral Class Schedule". A student gets infected in the class through lectures and he/she personally gives us reminder about homework deadlines and class updates. How many of you ever thought of this personalised class schedule reminder? By phone or human interaction? You could choose your delivery options. I believe we are not far from this idea. Just need a littttllle bit of time for us to accept this revolutionary viral approach.

Anyway back to where I was.Bangladesh internet industry is still at its nascent stage. Information about a new product entrant or even existing local ads don't get to the level of internet dissemanition. The one force that makes consumers buy things is pure, raw TV advertisements. Even then there are lot of get rich scheme activities-where they effeciently employ viral marketing techniques. It's called Multi-level marketing (MLM), also known as Network Marketing, is a business-distribution model that allows a parent company to market its products directly to consumers by means of relationship referrals and direct selling.

Independent, unsalaried salespeople of multi-level marketing, referred to as distributors (or associates, independent business owners, dealers, franchise owners, sales consultants, consultants, independent agents, etc.), represent the parent company and are awarded a commission based upon the volume of product sold through each of their independent businesses (organizations).

Independent distributors develop their organizations by either building an active customer base, who buy direct from the parent company, or by recruiting a downline of independent distributors who also build a customer base, thereby expanding the overall organization. Additionally, distributors can also earn a profit by retailing products they purchased from the parent company at wholesale price.