Rumor mill churned so much in last year or so and specially in last two months that probably iPad show cased yesterday by Apple had little but no surprise. Part interesting to me was use of A4 chip. Apple’s acquisition of P.A. Semi, semiconductor company last year was sure sign of controlling everything involved in making a mobile device in-house.
At a time when subcontracting of parts is norm, Apple still believes in bringing everything in-house and doing more of it everyday. Check iPad video on Apple web site or below (from YouTube). Bob Mansfield – Senior Vice President Hardware explains around 6:10 minutes in to the video about A4 chip. Bob sums up with comment, Apple is the only place where we build battery technology, chip technology, software and bring them together in a way that no one else can do it.
If we go with what Morgan Stanley is presenting and projecting for mobile internet world then Apple defiantly has positioned itself to lead the game with gadgets like iPod touch, iPhone and now iPad. If they succeed are we go going to see more of this “bring everything under one roof ” thinking?
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With the rise of social media and online users being more eager to check their Facebook and Twitter than their email accounts, in terms of marketing strategy, one must ask, where do we go from here? Partitioning out your marketing budget used to include setting funds aside for an advertisement or two (print or web), and perhaps getting some promotional materials printed (whether it be brochures, mailers, etc). Now, it’s more like seeking out followers on Twitter that can be potential customers to you, and doing advertisements to get people to join your Facebook fan page. Are there any trends or current characteristics that we can point out to help guide us in the future of marketing as we dive deeper into the social media era?
Yes. In our research on the future of marketing we came across an article by Gareth Kay, the head of Planning for Modernista. Have you heard of the term Amara’s law? It simply states that a”we inevitably overestimate the short-term impact of new technologies while underestimating their long-term effects.” Sound familiar? Some of these social networks have literally sprouted up over night! At the same time, you shouldn’t rush into them without a plan of action. The rise of social media technology will have a lasting impact on our culture, especially with reference to how you reach your consumers. Kay had some great insights as to where the future of marketing might be headed. We are going to highlight them here and add our insight too.
Brands will be built on cultural and social missions, not commercial propositions.
So true! Kay says that “marketing historically has been obsessed with the concept of positioning – how you are different to your competitors in your category. Increasingly, great brands are realizing that people don’t see categories and don’t obsess about them.” What actually matters is your company’s point of view, your cultural mission. Your customers and potential customers are looking to connect with you and find something that you have in common. Take a look at the Dove “Campaign for Beauty” or USA networks “Characters wanted” campaign, or yet still the “Product (RED)” campaign that has united several brands under a common goal. The beliefs that your consumers have shape their lives, right down to the materials they buy. What can you do to connect with your customers on a more personal level?
Marketing will be about what you do, not what you say.
Absolutely. Say what you mean and mean what you say. Try to look at your business through the eyes of your consumer. Still lost? Ask your current customers or potential customers to look at your business and provide feedback. This can be through an online survey or simply a question and answer email after they check out your website. Your goal, as a business, is to make it natural for customers to come to you, and come back every time. You see your business through your own eyes, but what about the eyes of an outsider looking in. Are you reaching your customers? Some basic research into your own market can easily highlight common issues like “it’s hard to navigate through your website,” or “I can’t figure out what you’re trying to sell me.” Look at companies such as Zappos, who upgraded to overnight shipping, or how Amazon has one-click shopping. They are responding to the need of their customers who want things quickly. What do your customers need from you to make their experience delightful and how can you deliver to exceed their expectations?
Lots of little ideas, not one big idea.
According to Kay, “the future of marketing lies in breaking the tyranny of the big idea for two reasons. First, we must remember that while marketing (and brands) exist for a commercial purpose, they live in a cultural space.” And culture is far more richer, deeper, and complex. Marketing will be more culturally interesting if it is made up of lots of coherent ideas instead of constantly repeating one idea. “Second, given our inability to predict the future, it makes much more sense to start lots of fires to see what takes hold; to place lots of small bets, rather than putting everything on black 35.” Think about your marketing efforts. Do your research yes, but instead of picking one big idea and running with it, pick four small ideas and see where they take you. All your eggs are not in one basket, and you can monitor your results. Learn from them and then scale up behind the ideas that seem to be working. If you’re doing online advertising, there are plenty of ways to monitor whether or not an ad or article or website is working (see Google Analytics, or WordPress has a stats feature, and most websites track incoming traffic and will compile that data automatically for you). Think BIG. Start small.
People first.
Marketing will be about putting people first. Too often marketing efforts have centered around convincing people how great your company is rather than working out what people are interested in and working out how you might be able to add value. Kay sites Tate tracks, a campaign created by Fallon London for the Tate Modern Gallery. “They needed to increase the number of under-25s visiting the gallery and realized that their current marketing tactics were unlikely to change behavior. So instead they thought about what this target audience was passionate about – music – and created a campaign around art inspiring new, exclusive music.” So perhaps now is a good time to ask, what is your target audience interested in? Let’s get a clearer picture about who they are and what motivates them. Then, tap into their interests and find some way to relate them to your products and services.
To sum it up, when it comes to marketing, creating cultural value will create commercial value. The possibilities are endless.
Resource The Future of Marketing on Talent Zoo by Gareth Kay
Q3 2009 has seen a significant increase on the M&A front. With 36 deals accounted for, this is the most active quarter since Q1 2008.
The big players have been noticeably active in their acquisitions, including Nokia, Apple, Google, Research in Motion, NTT DoCoMo, AT&T and Yahoo, indicating that the market may be ripe for buyouts.
With four acquisitions in Q3 alone, Nokia was the most active major player.
On a year-on-year basis the number of funding deals grew 155% to 67 deals. The number of deals grew 148% compared to the 45 recorded in Q2 2009 and in terms of value, the total Q3 2009 recorded funding volume shrank 6% year-on-year to $530m, which also represents a significant 180% uptake compared to the previous quarter.
The average deal value grew from $6.5m in Q2 2009 to $7.9m.
Screen Digest has looked at the European funding deals on record over the past 24 months (starting October 2007 and the UK leads the EU mobile funding scene by a considerable margin, with no less than 49 deals.
In this report:
Mobile M&A: ripe market for consolidation
Company M&A Spotlight: Nokia
Mobile funding: is the worst behind us?
An uptake felt in all categories
Q3 2009: top funding deals in mobile
Regional analysis: UK king of Europe
Activity Spotlight: Mobile UGC & Social Networking
List of tables and charts:
Mobile M&A deals
Q3 2009 M&A deals per category
List of past Nokia acquisitions in mobile
Mobile funding deals
Mobile funding deal value
Q3 2009 mobile funding deals by activity
Q3 2009 mobile funding deal values by activity
Q3 2009 table of top funding deals in mobile
24 months European mobile funding value
Quarterly mobile social networking funding value
List of cumulative funding of mobile social networking companies
For more information please visit:http://www.aarkstore.com/reports/Mobile-Market-Monitor-Funding-and-M-A-trends-Q3-2009-6556.html
Ten Tips that Every Musician Should Apply to Their Career.
As the holiday season approaches, and we get in to that thing about good will to all, all those other quips about being better people for a moment—which personally, I think should go through out the whole year and not just the shopping season (sorry, holiday season), I wanted to put out a quick rant (speaking of Good Will) that I’ll call Ten Tips that Every Musician Should Apply to Their Career. These apply to both the music and business sides of he equation. Many apply to those who are not musicians but work in the music business.
Hell, a few apply to anyone working in any business. So, New title: Ten Tips for Everyone Alive on the Planet.
Number 1. – Answer your emails.
Show a little respect and answer your emails. If you can’t respond at that moment, then acknowledge that you received it, let the sender know you’re backed up and when you hope to get back to them. Then, either list the email as unread, flag it, or mark a little notch in your calendar to respond to the sender when you promised. This is one of my biggest pet peeves. I respond to every email. Sometimes it takes a while, but I get back to everyone I can that has a direct question or is requesting something. It is a common courtesy that I am sure you would want when you send out an email, so do the same.
Number 2. – Have the guts to address concerns or questions.
Kind of attached to number one, if you have a concern or a question brought to you and you are not sure how to respond or are afraid to give a solid answer, toughen up! If you need to say no, then say no. If you want to say “Maybe, but there is an issue I need cleared up before we proceed,” then say that. But the passive-aggressive non-responses, the runaround when people just delete an email, toss away a phone message, or avoid a confrontation is much more insulting than a flat out “No way.”
And you do not want to be insulting people, even if at this particular moment in time time, they are asking for something and you are in the position to say yes or no. Things change (see below). Things always change. Next time, it may well be you doing the asking. A polite, respectful “I can’t do that” or “I am not interested” goes a long way to making that later approach easier.
Show some honor and address questions, concerns, or issues without shoving them in a drawer and hoping they’ll go away. They never do.
Number 3. – If things change, then keep everyone informed and problem solve.
Things change. They change all the time. From a club burning down and a gig being cancelled to a deadline being changed or a payment being missed. It happens, and it happens all the time. The problem is that when things change, many people are affected. Too often, discomfort over the situation leads people to delay notifying everyone who will be affected. Nobody likes delivering bad news—nobody is happy there is bad news to deliver. But other parties still need to know.
If you are supposed to pay someone by a certain date, and something comes up where you can’t do it, TELL THEM! It may mean they will now be unable to pay someone else by a given date, and that is important information for them to have.
I have no problem with someone saying they can’t make a payment when it comes to my production fees or consulting fees. In this economy, it is almost a given that out of so many clients, something will happen to someone at some point. As long as they come to me and say “this isn’t happening like I thought it was going to, I am not going to be able to make that payment on the date we agreed on, but here is what I am going to do about it…” how can I complain? They are acting with honor, treating me with respect, and in many cases, backing it up with a partial payment that lets me know they take the situation seriously. That is a person I want to go on working with. In showing me respect, they just won my respect—and that’s an artist I want to do business with.
Take the initiative to make others aware when situations change—whatever the change is. If your drummer is in three bands and has a sudden conflict, share that information asap. Right now everyone has more options than they will two weeks from now. Be the communicator, the problem solver, the responsible adult, and in 6 months no one will remember what the bad news/stumbling block was, they will just remember who rose to the occasion, who was considerate of other people’s situations, and who must have left their phone off the hook that week.
Number 4. – Be on time or give a heads up.
Just like things change, things can come up that make you late to a gig, to a session, to a meeting. Still, with practically everyone having a cell phone, it seems crazy that someone who is running late cannot make contact with those who are waiting for them.
Once again, it comes down to honor and professionalism. If you are scheduled to be somewhere or simply said you were going to be somewhere, then be there. It comes down to a simple awareness of and respect for other people. As soon as you know you are going to be late, give a call, send a text. “Running late” and your new ETA. It’s easy and it will show you in a very professional light.
Number 5. – Get your gear off the stage when you are done.
I hear more bands bitch about this, and yet some of the same people that complain about other bands will leave their own instruments up on the stage while another band is waiting to load on. When your set is done, get your gear off the stage if another band is following you. There is a schedule to keep, whether the band before you loaded off fast or not, there is still a schedule. Be the better and more responsible group, and get your gear off stage so the night can continue.
Some bands say they need to promote and sell and connect immediately with the audience, and that is fine. Have one person with the least gear head to the audience while the rest of the group gets the gear off stage. Do it quickly, too. You do not need to take cymbals off stands on the stage if you are a drummer, you can take the cymbal on the cymbal stand off the stage so that next drummer can get moving on his set up.
The same thing goes if there is room in a club or venue side stage to set up some. Put together some of your set up so loading on can be faster as well. Get out of the selfish zone and consider the night, the other bands, and the club as a whole. You will get a reputation as a group that is easy to work with and professional, something that is a rarity in many places.
Number 6. – Follow up with booking agents, clubs and other bands.
A single gig can be more than a gig if you conduct yourself well. Playing one night with another band can lead to more than just that single show. Follow up with people, keep organized contacts and check in with them. Keep a spreadsheet or a file with the contact, how you connected with them, where they are and what your experience was with them. This is the real networking, and it predates the Internet, folks. This is networking in the most grassroots sense, and it can lead to many more opportunities than you realize. Send thank yous to clubs, cross link to other bands and stay in touch with people. Even if you take five minutes out of your week to keep in touch, update, or cross promote, you will create a larger more effective network that will allow you numerous opportunities instead of single one time events.
Number 7. – Stop f*%^ng over posting on Facebook and other network sites.
Stop with the stupid posts that no one cares about. Yes, maybe some larger scale stars can post, twitter and update about eating a Twinkie, but a fair amount of them have the fame and the celebrity status that draws people’s interest. For the rest of us, the technical name for that kind of post is “pointless crap.” Use quality, not quantity with your posts. While you think that all these people are reading everything you are putting up on Facebook, considert how many people have you as hidden just so they don’t have to read that stuff.
Separate your personal page from the music ones. On a music page, put up the info that will draw people to your links, your pictures, and your posts. If you are using it for a personal page, then by all means, do as you wish. But if you are trying to connect with other artists and fans, if you are trying to network and utilize the social networks as one more avenue to move yourself forward, then it is a professional tool, treat it professionally. Get away from the mafia wars, the farmer games, and anything that makes your page like a series of graffiti advertisements. As a musician, give them something that will draw them in as well as make them want more instead of giving them way too much information.
Number 8. – Be confident but not arrogant. Admit when you don’t know something.
Confidence is great, but arrogance can lock you out of opportunities and close doors that would otherwise be open for you. Too often, arrogance is clumsy camouflage for a lack of confidence or outright insecurity. Nothing is less attractive.
Lay back some on the arrogance and let your confidence shine through. Agents, venues, labels and industry executives are subjected to so much ego and arrogance-driven excesses every single day. By coming off strong, quietly confident and not over the top, you will be a breath of fresh air. You’ll be much for effective capturing the attention of whomever you’re talking to, keeping their attention longer, and being remembered afterwards in a positive light. There is simply no way to achieve that beating your chest and being an arrogant blowhard.
Number 9. – Follow the instructions when it comes to sending out packages , calling, emailing distro, etc.
File another one under “N” for “Not rocket science here”. If you are submitting music for licensing, going after a gig, a recording deal, an agent, a producer or whoever, follow the directions that are given on websites when it comes to soliciting materials. This is another one that predates the Internet. Everyone in every decision-making corner of entertainment is INUNDATED with hopefuls, wannabes, and actual legitimate applicants. They all have rules and requirements to keep this potential avalanche under control. None of them are going to toss those rules aside for you or look at your application favorably because you had to do it your way.
So, if someone has it written on their website to only send emails, then DO NOT CALL THEM. If someone has a certain format they require, then send your materials in that format. I have talked to way too many artists who send out things the way they want to send them out and ignore directions—and then wonder why they never hear back. It’s called attention to detail, and while you may still not have a response, you will at least be considered. You will not get that far if you walk in the door and announce yourself who cannot follow simple instructions.
Number 10. – Stop talking shit about other bands, people, etc.
Basically, be nice and shut your mouth. A lot of bands that rip on other bands get a reputation of being shit talkers. This is not a reputation you want to have. Be considerate. You don’t have to like everyone or everything, but as you are out there in the spotlight, in the media, and around many people who may like the person/band/thing you are tempted to bash, it is much better to keep your mouth shut. Be viewed in a positive light rather than one who is always ripping on other bands—bands which, incidentally, you may have to work with again in the future or who may be able to help (or hurt) you down the line. Be smart when it comes to opening your mouth.
Conclusion
This stuff is basic and yet often ignored. Try professionalism, open communication, attention to detail, and give consideration and respect to those you are working with. It can go a long way for you and your career.
Whether you are currently a full-on green business or a traditional business moving toward green business practices it is critical to have employees that are 100% on the green bandwagon or you may find that you will have sabatoge on your hands. If your green restaurant only uses recycled paper napkins for take out orders, but your employees give out 10 napkins for a single sandwich; you will find that both your image and any cost savings from going green will go out the take-out window with those napkins.
On your marketing calendar be sure to schedule information meetings with staff to help them better undersatnd green business, and the important part they play in promoting your green program. Here are a few suggestions to help you develop a green staff that supports and enhances your efforts.
1. Ask employees to suggest ways to reduce waste and to be more energy efficent. Then act on those suggestions when ever possible!
2. Run green employee contests with prizes like a 2 hour lunch and put their picture on your internet marketing sites with recognition for their successful efforts. Nothing (not even money) motivates employees more than recognition! Contests can include best green suggestions, least waste generation, best recycler, etc.
3. Many times when waste reduction is part of your green business plan employees will confuse your efforts with just being cheap. Make sure that you communicate how waste at your company impacts their paychecks. That is easy to understand and a great motivator.
4. Set the example! They will be watching you!
5. Hire people who care, make green lifestyles a part of your hiring criteria and offer incentives to those who car pool or ride bikes to work. Hire local residents and promote from within.
6. As part of your 2010 green marketing plan schedule green contests (monthly or bi-monthly), employee recognition (weekly), and green meetings (quarterly) to review employee efforts, and evaluate your employment applications and job announcements to best communicate your desire to have green-activists as employees.
Okay, next post will deal with your business “face”. What do customers get as a first impression of your business, is it green or just green washed?
Back in my high school days, (23 plus years…if you need to know)… I had a psychology teacher whose favorite saying was…
…”even a blind squirrel finds a nut sometimes!”
It was his way of telling you, you got lucky with an answer.
Was I a blind squirrel? Maybe!
Am I now? Nope!
Are you? Probably… let me explain.
If you rely on someone else to create your marketing… you are a blind squirrel.
If you don’t understand who your target audience is… you are a blind squirrel.
If you have no mechanism in place to retain current clients… you are a blind squirrel.
I could go on and on… but I think you get the picture. Stop being the blind squirrel.
Marketing, client retention, employment screening…heck you name it… you probably are just lucky so far.
Lets say that , you had systems in place…
– a marketing plan that explained in explicit detail how every ad was to look, who your target audience was, what your USP (unique selling proposition)is, and how every client was to be treated.
– an employee plan that spelled out exactly what every job was, how it was performed, your empowerment principles, payscales, etc
– a business plan that walked you through everything you ever needed to know on a daily basis to make your job easier, more lucrative and positively fun.
Now imagine if everything above was all planned out… and you got injured? (Maybe even like the squirrel who became blind.) Or maybe you wanted to go on vacation. Can you have confidence in knowing that your replacement can do the job while your gone? Most business owners relay on luck – too much luck!
Or maybe you just wanted to make sure one part of the business, say the marketing, was on track and not haphazardly being put out to attract any lucky person with 2 eyes and a nose. It’s not luck if your goals are carefully crafted and your outcome is planned.
Stop being the blind squirrel! Stop running your business on luck!
Until next time…
“Live with Passion!”
Rob Anspach
www.robanspach.com
P.S. When you’re tired of running your business on luck, email me (rob@robanspach.com)- and I’ll teach you how to refocus and get back on track.
