When Hal Varian speaks it pays (quite literally) to listen. The video below shows why.
For more of the interview click here.
Posted 1 December 2009 in Internet marketing, Marketing, Social Networking, Working Three, by
Mark
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Tags: Advertising, Communication, Google, hal varian, web design melbourne.
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As the southern hemisphere heads into summer and people flock to the beach it is tempting to think that the global financial crisis [GFC] was a just bump in the road. In some ways it was – at least for Australia. We seemed to have ducked the worst of the GFC. But that perception ignores the major changes that the GFC has produced. One of these changes concerns the way brands discover and talk to their markets. The GFC accelerated the rise of social networking and decline in popularity of mass media to produce a tectonic shift. This shift will have far reaching implications.
This new environment has enabled a quite different approach to growing markets and winning market share. Technology has both facilitated the “fracture” of markets into specialised interest groups and provided the wherewithal to identify and communicate with these groups – in real time. It’s time to get granular!
Stop guessing and start knowing
Not many companies have been able to turn the massive amounts of data that social networks create into profit. This is because they lack the ability or simply do not have the courage to make the steps necessary. In fact, the vast majority of companies have not managed to develop a management structure and marketing strategy that is in line with the fracturing of the market place they play in. Many are still guessing their way through mass media insights and market research based on small sample sizes extrapolated out to the entire population.
This will change very quickly in the coming months. As Hal Varian, the chief economist of Google, recently stated in the McKinsey Quarterly; “I keep saying the sexy job in the next ten years will be statisticians. People think I’m joking, but who would’ve guessed that computer engineers would’ve been the sexy job of the 1990s?”.*
Companies develop far better growth strategies if they choose to focus on granular information – in both identifying and attacking new market segments and in cutting costs.
The concept in practice
The Harvard Business Review recently explored the ramifications of exploring granular data. In that article they discussed how Amazon leverages it’s virtual and low cost supply chain to “efficiently indulge the tastes of narrow customer segments, literally down to the individual buyer, at very low marginal cost”.
The article went on to discuss how the strongest contribution to performance comes, not necessarily from focusing on acquiring overall market share, but identifying and investing in markets with the most vitality. The example they illustrated was that of a construction and services business face near zero growth. The company used granular data to divide its world into geographic, customer and product segments. They quickly discovered that they had very weak market share in the fastest growing market spaces revealing over $10 billion in potential that could be tapped into.
Steps to take
So here is what you need to do:
In the good times it’s easy to be complacent as customers come to you easily – like all of those people flocking to the beach this summer. But in the wintery phase the world economy is currently going through understanding the needs and wants of the micro-markets you can have most influence over is a winning strategy – that is easy to scale up when things begin to warm back up.
Now’s the time to get out your microscope and look carefully at the grains of data you have available to you.
* to see videos of Hal Varian talking about how the market place has changes click here.
Posted 9 November 2009 in Features, Internet, Internet marketing, by
Mark
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Tags: Communication, Creative Advertising, Google, web design melbourne.
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Posted 6 November 2009 in Internet marketing, Market Trends, Marketing, by
Mark
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Tags: Advertising, Communication, Google, hal varian, Marketing, web design melbourne.
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“We want to continue to create products that rethink industry standards, challenge the status quo and make people’s lives easier — and we know that there are great minds out there with the same goal.”
Follow this link to read the full article
Posted 3 November 2009 in Internet, by
Mark
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Tags: Google, Innovation, Internet, Marketing, web design melbourne.
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Very interesting interview. Well worth taking the time to watch.
Posted 3 November 2009 in Features, Internet marketing, Marketing, by
Mark
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Tags: eric schmidt, Google, Internet, Marketing, Social Networking, Technology, web design melbourne, YouTube.
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This is a great vid that quickly goes through the history of Google. Well worth a couple of minutes of your time.
Posted 27 October 2009 in Features, Internet, Internet marketing, Market Trends, Social Networking, Viral, by
Mark
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Tags: Google, Internet, YouTube.
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The popular website Digg uses a community voting system to interview people of interest. The most recent interview was with Marissa Mayer, the VP of Search and user experience. Watch it if you have the time…
Digg Dialogg with Google’s Marissa Mayer from Digg Videos on Vimeo.
Posted 31 July 2009 in Internet, Internet marketing, Market Trends, Social Networking, by
Mark
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Tags: Communication, digg, Google, Social Networking, Social Networking Melbourne, Twitter, web design melbourne.
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I read an article from The Baltomore Sun today that very quickly showed that large companies are really starting to understand the potential of social media.
It said:
“Before the latest social media revolution, Jessica Gottlieb would have probably watched helplessly when her kids, Jane and Alexander, were trapped on the tarmac, waiting for their Virgin America flight to take off.
But that’s so 2008. When it happened to her last week, the Los Angeles-based blogger reached for her iPhone and twittered about her troubles. “Dear Virgin Air,” she wrote. “My children have been on the tarmac for one hour with 90 more minutes to wait. I am at JFK gate b25. Pls RT.”
That last request — please “RT” — is shorthand for Gottlieb’s nearly 10,000 followers to “retweet” her message, or rebroadcast it to their followers. And re-tweet they did. Within minutes, Virgin had phoned Gottlieb to reassure her that her kids would be fine.
“They contacted the gate agent manager and explained to us the entire weather situation,” she says. “Within 20 minutes of that conversation, the plane took off.”
The same forces that threaten to unravel a repressive Iranian regime are revolutionizing the way Americans travel. Social media sites that allow people to interact in the moment are changing how travel companies talk to their customers — and how their customers talk back. ”
The full article can be read here
Posted 29 July 2009 in Creativity, Direct Marketing, Internet, Internet marketing, Market Trends, Marketing, Newspapers, Social Networking, by
Mark
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Tags: Facebook, Google, Marketing, Social Networking, Social Networking Melbourne, Twitter, web design melbourne.
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The great guys over at Marketing Magazine have published an article we have written.
Posted 24 July 2009 in Advertising, Internet, Internet marketing, Market Trends, Marketing, Working Three, by
Mark
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Tags: Advertising, Communication, Google, Marketing, marketing magazine, Social Networking.
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Google has finally announced the when it will launch it’s public beta of Google Wave. The announcement reads “… this morning we announced that we plan to start extending the Google Wave preview beyond developers on September 30th. This will take place on wave.google.com rather than the separate “sandbox” instance we are currently using, and we plan to involve about 100,000 users,”.
This is great news for us as we have been exploring the developers sandbox and are looking forward to incorporating Wave technology into our projects.
Foe more information about how Google Wave may effect marketers read our article here.
Posted 22 July 2009 in Features, Internet, Internet marketing, Market Trends, Marketing, Working Three, by
Mark
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Tags: Communication, Google, Internet, Marketing, Social Networking.
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