Business plan VS Marketing plan

So a marketing plan is more complicated and comprehensive that I have imagined. If anyone was wondering about the differences between a marketing plan and a business plan, here is a high level comparison: http://www.entrepreneur.com/marketing/marketingbasics/marketingplan/article43018.html

In a short summary: while business plan takes more on what the company is about and its values, marketing plan is more practical and serves as a:

• Rally point
• Chart to success
• Company operational instructions
• Captured thinking
• Top-level reflection

Mobile Internet Device(MID)

As my first post to the blog I would like to intorduce what a mobile inernet device is...

A Mobile Internet device ia a multimdeia capable handheld computer providing wireless internet access. They are designed to provide entertainment, information and location-based services for personal use, rahter than for corporatre use. They allow two way communciation and real time sharing. But nowadays MIDs are changing the way people communicate. It has become a most important part of life for most in developed countries. But for developing countries like where I come from it is still a new trend.

Social media and content marketing-communicating directly with prospective customers

We can not deny that traditional marketing practices are still alive and well but it is mainly one-side communication. Now, companies find the interaction with customers much more important and using direct-touch platforms like company's websites, social medias (facebook, twitters or blog...) is heavy part in the Marketing activities to attract prospects and communicate with customers.

According to the survey on Marketing and Media and measurement done by King Fish Media from June 15, 2009 to August 25, 2009, 70% of respondents have spent their marketing budget on direct tools like content and social media and away from traditional media advertising. Nearly 3/4 of them feel that these tools produce better marketing ROI than traditional ones.

The success of their Marketing programs is measured by multiple metrics but mostly are new customers acquired and numbers of leads generated.

For more information, please find the survey here!

Understanding Consumer Preferences

Although business are more using the social media networks, understanding the consumer  preferences are more critical than ever.In June, ExactTarget found in its “2009 Channel Preferences Survey” that Americans’ opinions about permission marketing were changing. Respondents’ preference for e-mail and text messaging was greater than the year before, and direct mail was losing ground fast. Here we can see the complete article.

 Even Web users’ increased use of social networks for written communication, they were not very open to receiving marketing messages through such sites.Therefore,using the right channel is also the crucial for marketers.

Zaw

Glance Overview of Web 2.0 (Part 2 of 2)

3. Business Leverage

The use of Web 2.0 for business is most suitable for those who rely on

1) social environment;

2) customer participation;

3) shared collective intelligence (shared repository of information created by the joint participation of its users).

It also has business implications if you create business-to-consumer online resources, such as a hotel reservation site.

However, if your core business still rely on traditional method of conducting business, i.e. written contract and money changing hands, using Web 2.0 would not be very much useful.

Nevertheless, as forecasted by Forrester, there is tendency that enterprise spending on Web 2.0 will grow in the upcoming years.

Additionally, McKinsey survey result cites that fully 48% of the nearly 3,000 leading executives surveyed are actively investing in collective intelligence approaches.

Glance Overview of Web 2.0 (Part 1 of 2)

Many consider Web 2.0 to be a major shift in computing because in the new paradigm, the Internet itself becomes the computing platform (Schindler)

1. TERMINOLOGIES
There are several terms associated with Web 2.0

1.1. Rich Internet Applications (RIA)
Also associated with Flash and Ajax. With this RIA, users have the ability to use browsers just like they were using desktop, i.e. drag and drop.

1.2. Service Oriented Architectures (SOA)
Associated with the terms: “feeds”, “RSS”, “web services” and “mash-ups”.
This means to integrate or aggregate elements from other applications/online sources into one single webpage, providing richer set of information, i.e. adding the Google search box in our website, grabbing daily content from the news website.

1.3. Social Web.
This gives more interaction with users, where users can act as participant rather than as end-users, i.e. tagging the content, contributing to the wiki, blogging.

2. TECHNOLOGIES
The technologies behind Web 2.0 are as follows:

2.1. Asynchronous Javascript and XML (AJAX)
It’s a programming technique which that enables users to experience real-time interactivity in the Web Pages, whereas previously they were static, i.e. used in Gmail paging layout.

2.2. Web-Oriented Architecture (WOA)
Uses the Web basic protocols to expose data to Web-friendly sources.

2.3. Open application program interfaces (APIs)
Provide access to a site's underlying data and system dynamics.

2.4. Semantic Web & Linked Data
it’s highly suitable for certain applications that have rich data sets that need powerful means of processing and consumption.

Multi-Use Copy Machines

This is the first time for me to post a blog, so first of all, I would like to introduce an article of Fuji Xerox, where I have been working.

You may know that Fuji Xerox is a copier company, but recently, copy machines have a lot of features with connection to the Internet. For example, you can buy tickets of movies, theaters, and sports from the multi-use copy machines through online ticketing services. Also, if you store your electronic documents at home in the "Net Print" server in advance, you can print them wherever you are, 24-7, as long as you find a seven-eleven.

We should be more and more aware of the customers' needs and market trend as the products evolve.

When you go to seven eleven next time, please take a closer look at the multi-use copy machine and see how it works.
Of course, you can print photos from your digital camera or cellphone, too!

http://www.fujixerox.co.jp/eng/headline/2009/0916_multicopy.html