One of the most powerful entities for a marketing department is data. For a business, having data on their customers and their prospective buying habits can impact how the business markets their products and services. Today, the constant advancements in technology have made it easier for companies to collect large amounts of data ranging from customer demographics to customer satisfaction.
International expansion is a tricky path to navigate for even the world’s largest brands, requiring inconceivable amounts of time and resources to achieve, and despite their efforts many companies are still not successful. This can happen for a variety of reasons, anything from lack of sufficient market research to inadequate management style. Even the most experienced companies may struggle to develop a foothold in foreign markets. In marketing this is called the global experience learning curve: a process of developing multinational business expertise over time.
From fat-free chips to flavor contests, market research has both failed and supported the well-known potato chip brand, Lay’s, in their product development process. The Wow! “healthy” chip disaster shows that promising market tests don’t always spell success. Crowdsourcing campaigns, while beneficial for increasing customer engagement and boosting short-term revenue streams, can provide inaccurate insight into long-term consumer preferences. This year, Lay’s has released a new product line, Lay’s Layers, but only in two flavors presumably as a large-scale market test for their brand-new chip design.
Curiosity marketing is related to scarcity marketing. It’s about leaving your audience wanting more – so much so that they perform a desired action. That action might be signing up for a newsletter, clicking a link to view your content, or even making a purchase. Marketers create curiosity in their audiences by creating a gap between what consumers know and what they want to know. They do this by providing information in small bits to maintain interest.
It doesn’t matter if you’re interested in fantasy football, economics, true crime, girl power, or wine varietals – if you have an interest in it, there’s probably a podcast about it. It is perhaps their niche nature that makes podcasts such a great opportunity for marketers. All of the work put into selecting a target audience and researching the best ways to reach them – podcasters do it for you.
Marketing Management 