The new 4 P's of Marketing

Marketing has always been about establishing a relationship with customers and opening up channels of communication so that well-crafted messages can be delivered to the right demographic. The marketing approach of yesteryears has evolved quite rapidly from time and resource intensive productions to nimble and dynamic campaigns. The art of reaching customers has added new dimensions, making lives for businesses more demanding and dynamic.

Today’s marketer is expected to be on top of all the latest trends if they want to influence today’s customers who are savvy and well informed. It becomes all the more critical for marketers to ensure that they have a clear understanding of how their consumers are accessing information and how they are influence in their purchasing decisions. Marketing is about creating the near perfect experience for customers. The new 4Ps must find a place and in fact form the pillars of any marketing strategy aimed at the consumer in new age.

Power of Data – Everyone has data, but only the progressive organizations harness the power of data for business success. Many organizations overwhelmed by data because they haven’t figured out the right approach to manage it in a way that makes it their greatest asset. The experience business hinges on channeling a wide range of data ranges to provide insights that can help make intelligent, data driven decisions on how to reach and retain customers.

Personalization – Marketing campaigns must aim for personalization that reaches out to customers with messages that are most interesting and relevant to them. The messaging must extent to cover multiple media channels and devices in a consistent manner. Omni-channel marketing is based on the fact that customers interact in a variety of different ways with a brand, whether someone is online shopping, wandering through mall or flipping through TV channels, their perceptions of a particular brand have to be consistent and appealing. The power of data gives us the ability to tailor content to match customer’s interests, which in turn increases engagement, revenue and ROI.

Phygital – Our world is evolving from a physical one to an increasingly digital one. The experience business must bring together the best of both into Phygital approach to marketing. Data is not always digital and many organizations have amassed legacy data that can provide a wealth of customer insights. Phygital provides the opportunity to combine the physical and the digital, thereby converging data from different sources in a productive manner.

Platform – It is where all efforts especially those around the earlier Ps, converge. It is crucial to choose platform carefully. The right marketing platform can handle all data, automation, metric management and measurability, execution and is the most important weapon in a digital marketer’s arsenal to engage customers from initial contact all the way through to the sales funnel.

It is believed that Future of marketing settles solidly on these 4 Ps: Power of data, personalization, Phygital and platform. The nature of the experience business will continue to evolve. Many tedious tasks will be automated by a rich and versatile platform and the creative aspects will gain prominence. Numbers and data driven intelligence will continue to become increasingly important as will the ability to visualize data as an extension of our customers. Even as market dynamics shift, the 4Ps will continue to serve as a sound basis for keeping in touch with customer and their changing preferences and succeed in the experience business.

How to get started with Bitcoin Mining?

Bitcoins or Cryptocurrencies are like digital currencies and act like a tender or an asset class. However, Bitcoins are mined like gold. If mined properly and taken the right investment risk, you could be successful in mining your own Bitcoins. Bitcoin was first introduced in 2009, when the algorithm was created under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto. He also set a finite limit of 21 Million Bitcoins that would ever exist, of which close to 17 Million are in circulation. That means a little less than 4 Million Bitcoins are waiting to be discovered.

What is mining? - One can obtain Bitcoins in three ways – directly buying it from any cryptocurrency exchange, accepting Bitcoins as a mode of payment for goods and services and by mining new Bitcoins. Bitcoin Mining is the processing of transactions in the digital currency system, in which the records of current bitcoin transactions, known as blocks, are added to the record of past transactions, known as the Blockchain. It is simply the verification of Bitcoin transactions.

Originally, Bitcoin mining was conducted on the CPUs of individual computers, with more cores and greater speed resulting in more profitability. However, over the years, the system is dominated by multi-graphics card systems; Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) and Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASICs). The constant elevation in technology has made it more difficult for prospective new miners to start. To get around that problem, individuals often work in mining pools.

What is Blockchain? – Blockchain is a digital ledger that forms the backbone of Bitcoin. The Blockchain is extremely different from other conventional databases. Blockchain tends to distribute its data among a network of Bitcoin software’s rather saving everything in a central location.

A complete history of every bitcoin transaction is stored on the Blockchain, and all of these recorded transactions are open to public scrutiny. Before a bitcoin transaction is approved and processed by the network, it is verified using a cryptographic algorithm that checks the transaction against the histories stored on every computer in the network.

This process is complex, but it has one big advantage: it makes the Blockchain very difficult to hack. Blockchain allows two parties to execute a transaction without any intermediary. Blockchain allows financial institutions to execute and verify transactions discretely without any human intervention.

What are Nodes? – A node is an authoritative computer that runs the Bitcoin software and helps to keep Bitcoin running by participating in the relay of information. In a distributed network, the simplest way to define a node would be to say it is a point of intersection or connection with the network. It can act as both a redistribution point and a communication endpoint. Nodes spread bitcoin transactions around the network. However, Bitcoin doesn’t just need nodes; it requires lots of fully functioning nodes that have the bitcoin core client on a machine with the complete Blockchain. The more nodes, the more secure the network is.

By solving a complex mathematical puzzle that is part of the Bitcoin program and including the answer in the block. The puzzle that needs solving is to find a number that, when combined with the data in the block and passed through a hash function, produces a result that is within a certain range. Once the miners solve the puzzle, the block pops open and the transactions are verified. Miners used to get awarded 25 Bitcoins for finding this key, but in 2017 this has been reduced to 12.5 Bitcoins and will continue doing so every four years.

Future of TV Ads in Digital World

Television continues to play a central role in the way that we consume news and entertainment, whether the content comes from a traditional network or via a streaming service. While viewing habits have shifted, cords have been cut and mobile phones have become first screens, we still like watching TV. We still define the content we watch as a “television program” and we often still want to view that content on a TV set in our living room or den.

In many cases, TV set is just one of many screens that we are cycling through as we participate in social media conversations. Our viewing habits have been evolving ever since cable was introduced in the 1970s and they will no doubt continue to change. But for now, TV in its new and advanced form remains a central part of the media ecosystem.

As streaming and over-the-top (OTT) distribution models have matured, a new umbrella term has emerged to describe what TV has become: Advanced TV. It represents the convergence of old-style linear TV with streaming video delivered through OTT platforms and digitally enabled connected TVs. Marketers and brands must grapple with all that Advanced TV offers because it provides marketers with a full-screen captive experience with the targeting power of digital.

Advanced TV enables marketers to optimize reach and influence today’s hyperconnected consumer. Marketers can now serve the most impactful advertising content, trigger campaigns that sync with local events or weather conditions, deliver ads based on first-party data and get real-time analytics of viewing habits, depending on the sophistication of the TV platform, network and/or provider.

Currently, Smart TVs, OTT devices such as Apple TV or Roku, game consoles such as PlayStation and connected TVs offer the most digital bells and whistles, but more and more households are becoming directly addressable through the cable and satellite providers, meaning that brands can target individual households within the broadcast environment of linear TV.

There is not currently a unified measurement standard that aligns broadcast and digital reach, and audience targeting is still complex. Nielsen released its cross-media measurement solution, Total Content Ratings, after media companies reportedly pressured Nielsen to slow down the rollout because it was not ready for prime time. Privacy is a key consideration that must be navigated.  However, emerging measurement and data techniques are arriving from all corners of the industry, with the ability to provide more advanced data than ever before, helping marketers to more easily reach their objectives.

Book Review: The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck

In The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck, Mark Manson offers advice that’s both punchy and profane. The book is a good guide to figuring out what you want in life and at work and how to achieve it. The route to this lies in not caring too much about everything. Once you give up the need to feel exceptional and be positive and happy all the time, as well as your fear of failure, you will be better off.

For those of us building careers, that would mean taking a hard look at what we want. If you don’t want 60 hour work weeks, long commutes, hoards of paperwork and don’t want to navigate corporate hierarchies that mean you don’t really want to be CEO. If you don’t fancy taking risks, suffering repeated failures and working insane hours devoted to something that may earn absolutely nothing, you don’t want to be an entrepreneur. What determines your success is not what you want to enjoy, but how much suffering you’re willing to sustain to get there.

Improvement at anything is based on thousands of tiny failures and the magnitude of your success is based on how many times you’ve failed at something. If someone is better than you at something, then it’s likely because she has failed at it more than you have. If someone is worse than you, it’s likely because he hasn’t been through all the painful learning experiences that you have.

Manson makes the argument that human beings are flawed and limited. As he writes, “not everybody can be extraordinary – there are winners and losers in society, and some of it is not fair or your fault.” He advises us to get to know our limitations and accept them. Once we embrace our fears, faults and uncertainties – once we stop running from and avoiding and start confronting painful truths – we can begin to find the courage and confidence we desperately seek.

Author brings a much needed grab-you-by-the-shoulders-and-look-you-in-the-eyes moment of real talk, filled with entertaining stories and profane, ruthless humor. This manifesto is a refreshing slap in the face for all of us, so that we can start to lead more contented, grounded lives. These insightful and funny perspectives on life are what make the book well worth a read. Its success lies it the fact it’s all very colloquial and conversational, and so easy to digest.

Make YouTube work for Business

YouTube celebrities with their long list of subscribers are not the only influencers on the platform, there are several hobbyists on the platform who generate millions of views on their video posts. A small business can use local influencers on YouTube to propagate their marketing ideas to a niche audience readily available.

While businesses are eager to experiment with influencer marketing, the choice of platform is crucial to get the maximum return on investment (ROI). YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and the new sensation Musical.ly, have witnessed a proliferation of users who have, a targeted audience readily available for your business. There are millions of social users who prefer YouTube because it gives them a bigger format to experiment and create content. Find out why YouTube may work for your business or may not.

The cost of creating content on YT is higher than other platforms simply because it is a large format content platform. The cost of employing an influencer on YT goes higher for businesses. It may be costlier but YT also gives you direct access to the platform to the bottom of the funnel which can be easily translated into better conversion rates through a relevant and intelligent marketing campaign.

If you are operating in the B2B space, then it may be more beneficial to look at YT for your influencer marketing campaign. For instance, a software company may find it more of a natural fit to create content on YT than on Instagram as it is more conducive to detailed content. Inversely, a fashion business which has more to display than talk may prefer other platforms or shorter videos.

The barrier to create content on a social platform like Instagram is very low as compared to YT. The general behavior of viewers on YT is to search and watch. On Instagram if you do not instantly follow people whose content you like, you may end up losing their feed. However, YT understands the viewer’s very well and keeps suggesting similar content created by others or of the same person, even if you do not subscribe. A business can always use different platforms for different kind of campaigns.

Ways to build Professional Network

Professional Networking is key to progressing in your career as it helps you stay connected with relevant peers, keep abreast of the latest developments in your sector and remain informed about the emerging opportunities.

The trick is to make professional networking part of daily regimen. Add professional acquaintances daily, or even weekly. Networks are built over time, so make it a habit to stay connected with a diverse set of people.

Responding to people on LinkedIn and commenting on others blogs or tweets will give you more visibility and help build your professional circle. Participating in and contributing to these forums will enhance your knowledge and introduce you to people you may not know.

While there are several platforms that you can use for your professional network, nothing beats a human touch. Pick the right platforms and stay consistent, but it is more important to stay personally connected and committed to building your network.

Professional Networking is all about making yourself visible. It is a good idea to target communities’ specific to your line of work. For instance, even within LinkedIn there are particular communities for different lines of work.

Events and Conferences are very good for building strong professional networks. You should use every professional and social opportunity to meet and connect with new people. Do make it a point to write back to people you have met and exchanged cards with and be diligent about returning emails and phone calls.

Book Review: The Rise and fall of Nations

The crisis of 2008 ended the illusion of a golden era in which many people imagined that prosperity and political calm would continue to spread indefinitely. The Rise and Fall of Nations rethinks economics as a practical art. By narrowing down the thousands of factors that might shape a country’s future, it spells out ten clear rules for identifying the next big winners and losers in the global economy.

Author’s ten indicators get a chapter each – Demography, scope for reform, inequality, quality of government regulations, geographical location as a source for trade, investment, especially in manufacturing, inflation, high rates of exchange (expensive country) or too low (inexpensive country), the rate of change in the debt – GDP ratio and the media hype that a country receives. Each chapter illustrates the relevance of the specific indicator by citing data from across the world. In some cases, there are precise quantitative guides.

Each rule looks at a nation’s political, economic and social conditions in real time to filter out the hype and noise. Author shows how, for example, slow population growth is eroding economic growth, and ranks nations by how well they respond. He describes the way cycles of political complacency and revolt fuel economic booms and busts. Amid growing tensions over wealth inequality, Sharma demonstrates How Billionaire lists yield clues to which economies are most or least threatened by social revolt.

In a period when the world is struggling with trillions of dollars of new debt, author explains which nations are most likely to avert this threat or buckle under it. He shows how to read political headlines, black markets, the price of onions, and billionaire rankings as signals of booms, bursts and protests. Set in a post-crisis age that has turned the world upside down, replacing fast growth with slow growth and political calm with revolt, this book is an entertaining field guide to understanding change in this era or any era.

The concluding chapter classifies the economies around the world into the Good, the Average and the ugly using the ten indicators grid. Author is bullish about South Asia – Pakistan and Bangladesh as well as India – but has some reservations about the quality of government intervention. China is ugly, that is, on its way down. Brazil, Canada, Australia, Russia all end up in the Ugly camp as they are at the mercy of the commodity price cycle. They overspend during the price rise and struggle when commodity prices slump. It is a pioneering field guide to understanding our impermanent world.

Financial Lessons from Football

From portfolio allocation to fund selection to navigation volatility, there is a lot one can learn about financial planning from Football.

Don’t focus too much on Forward – The responsibility of forward players is to be aggressive and score goals for their teams. But forwards alone can’t win matches. An aggressive investment strategy focusing on mid-cap stocks or mutual funds can be rewarding in a bull run, but beware of their equally quick meltdown when the market falls. High returns come with high risk. Rely on asset allocation based strategy.

Don’t ignore Mid-fielders – Mid-fielders can both attack and defend, depending on the match situation. Investing in all-rounders like balanced funds brings stability to one’s portfolio. Balanced funds create scoring opportunities by investing in equities, even as they cushion the impact of market downturns by investing in debt.

Beef up your defence – Defenders are responsible for not allowing the ball go past them. They prevent losses. Limiting your losses by boosting your defence against sharp market corrections is as important as creating scoring opportunities.

Be watchful of market feints – Feints are deceptive movements of a player meant to confound opponents. Reading market movements during volatile phases can be tricky and is fraught with risk.

Adopt a Goal oriented approach – Ultimately, it is the goals that decide the winner. Linking your investments to financial goals is fundamental to financial planning. List out goals and their time periods and invest accordingly. Experts suggest investing primarily in equities for long term goals and in debt for short term goals.

Take stock at Half time – The break after 45 minutes of the game allows teams to refresh and re-strategize. Reviewing your portfolio regularly is integral to sound investing. Review and rebalance your portfolio every six months. If the equity component has risen in value, make incremental investments in debt and to maintain your preferred asset allocation ration.

Act as a referee for your investments – A neutral official on the field, the referee enforces rules and hands out punishment to players, if required. Arrive at decisions dispassionately, instead of letting emotions take over, particularly in a volatile market.

Do not commit fouls while investing – Breaking the rules of the game is termed as foul and invites punishment. Resist the temptation to stray away from your financial plan. Deviating from rules based investing can compromise your goals. Do not liquidate your investments made for specific goals to finance short term needs.

Make the most of penalty shootouts – Penalty kick is an easy scoring opportunity for the team to which it is awarded. If you are beneficiary of a joining or a performance bonus, channel it towards achieving your financial goals. The money is deservedly yours, don’t fritter it away. Use lump sum windfall gains to create an emergency fund, pay off loans or enhance term and health insurance covers.

Avoid getting the Cards – A yellow card by the referee denotes warning and a red card leads to the player being sent off the field for violating the rules of the game. Do not hide your capital gains from tax authorities. You might end up paying more otherwise.

Google Display Network vs. Demand Side Platform

Marketers have lots of choices when it comes to display media, however, the primary choice for many people who are engaged in Search Engine Marketing and looking to increase display reach is the Google Display Network. But there are pros and cons of using the GDN instead of employing a DSP and the best decision is not obvious. Here are the primary factors to consider when choosing GDN, DSP or both.

Budget – If you aren’t spending over 100k a month, the reasons to consider a DSP are less compelling because you probably can get all the reach, targeting and ad diversity you need from within the GDN.

Banner Testing – Custom ads cost money to create. The GDN and some DSP facilitate Dynamic ad creation within their ad servers using templates. In addition, some DSP integrate with a DCO (Dynamic Creative Optimization) platform such as Flashtalking or Spongecell to allow for creative to be dynamically created from feeds or other data sources. Google GDN serves text centric ads using Adwords account data and ad groups, but it also has a responsive ad creation tool for the GDN. One can include images, and it can be effective.

Reporting – When you stay within the Google technology stack, centralized reporting is much easier to implement and manage.

Ease of use – The GDN looks and feels almost like Adwords, making it easier for agency or in-house staff to use it without additional training.

Budget Fluidity – If budgets are being moved around based on results or changes in target KPIs, it’s often easier to do so within one platform.

Reach – While GDN has good reach, DSPs now have that reach plus more – so if you’re doing retargeting or need to reach a niche audience, a DSP can often find more of the audience you’re looking for. DSP have inventory from AdX (the DoubleClick Ad Exchange) plus other exchanges/SSPs (Supply side Platform) such as PulsePoint, OpenX, AppNexus, Sonobi, Rubicon, PubMatic and others. In addition, there is an option of doing PMP (Programmatic private marketplace) where there is a direct publisher-to-advertiser relationship and programmatic direct with specific publishers.

CPC vs. CPM preferences – The GDN gives you a choice as to How to pay. But even though you will be invoiced on a CPC basis, the yield management algorithms inside the GDN are calculating an effective predictive CPM when deciding where, and how often, to serve your ad. Nearly all inventory purchased through DSPs is made available for real-time bidding on a CPM exchange, including Google and others.

Data Partnerships – Google gives you access to many audience types, including retargeted audiences and demographic, contextual and interest based targeting. Similarly, DSPs often have data partnerships with a broad set of partners and can facilitate the use of that data not only for targeting but also to influence the bids on inventory/impressions. DSPs have inventory from AdX plus other exchanges, including AppNexus, Rubicon and PubMatic along with PMP partnerships and programmatic direct.

Integration with a DMP (Data Management Provider) – Data is a byproduct of programmatic media and marketing in general. Larger marketers use DMPs to collect, unify and activate data. This allows them to identify and target the right audiences. DMPs can also be used in conjunction with a DCO platform to personalize ads to segments of the audience. This personalization can even be based on recent experiences or engagements you’ve had with others.

Some advertisers and agencies use a DSP and GDN at the same time, but one must be cautious when doing this. If you based your bids on the same audience, the result may be that you’ll end up bidding against yourself because inventory in AdX is bid on by your DSP and Google GDN simultaneously. If you need to use both your DSP and GDN to accomplish your marketing objectives, make sure you use different ad creative and perhaps a different landing page user experience.

Women Workforce in India

With less than a quarter of women of working age in the labor force, India has fewer women working or available for work compared to any other large economy in the world. Women’s participation in the labor force declined sharply in the country precisely when the country’s economic engine was growing the fastest: between 2004-05 and 2011-12. In a recent report by World Bank, India ranks 120^th among 131 nations in women workforce. The participation of Indian women in the workforce fell 10% in the past decade.

While the rise in share of women attending to domestic duties was more pronounced among rural women, the share of women attending to domestic duties was higher in urban India. Among major religious groups, Sikhs and Muslims reported the highest share of women attending to domestic duties in 2011-12. Among Hindus, the share was higher for upper castes than for other caste groups.

A big reason why women don’t work is because there is usually no one else to do the tasks that a patriarchal society assigns to them. In rural India, this often means attending to onerous tasks such as fetching water, or collecting firewood. In Urban India, this may mean childcare in an environment where help is not as easy to come by as in Rural India. Across major states, the share of women attending to domestic duties is broadly correlated with the share of women citing social and religious constraints as the main reason for attending to domestic duties.

In states such as UP, Punjab & Haryana, women face such barriers to a greater extent compared to states such as Tamil Nadu, Karnataka or Kerala. The former states also have a higher share of women attending to domestic duties compared to the latter. A majority of women attending to domestic duties are, however, willing to work part-time if such work were made available at their household.

Tailoring work seems to be the most preferred option for such women, followed by dairy-related and poultry-related work. The share of women who cited tailoring as their most preferred option rose sharply between 2004-05 and 2011-12. Most women who want to take up such work emphasized the need for finance and training. Nearly half of them cited access to finance as one of the key requirements to start part-time work, while a third cited training as a key requirement.

The data suggests that the Skill India initiative may have missed a trick by focusing largely on male candidates looking for full time work. Given the rising demand for training among homemakers looking for part-time work, they could benefit greatly from a skilling initiative that helps them get into part-time work, or to start their own enterprises.

Ways to be a Self-starter at Work

Companies are always inclined to hiring professionals who demonstrate an intrinsic motivation and drive. This article share talks about How to be a self-started at Work?

Be a goal-getter – An employee or manager should create a vision for themselves and work towards a set goal. A real goal-getter has to work towards achieving the goal. Sometimes it may be unrealistic to accomplish that particular goal in one year, but taking small steps towards it, can reap towards.

Create and innovate – Employees who are self-starters are not afraid to create and innovate. Intrapreneurs are usually highly self-motivated, proactive and action-oriented people who are comfortable with taking the initiative. People, who jump in and solve problems, even if they are not asked, are often considered a self-starter.

Taking Risks – Thinking outside the box and proposing new ideas that has not been tried before is always well appreciated by corporate leaders. Managers and Leaders often gravitate to those team members who they believe are the ones bringing something new and different. Self-starters take calculated risks after analyzing available information. Such employees can be seen consistently trying than settling for complacency.

Promote Yourself – A Self-starter is one who seizes new window of opportunities to promote oneself. When someone knows the job deeply, others at the workplace look up to the person for guidance and inspiration. It boosts the confidence and self-esteem of the person and pushes him or her to take the first step.

Workplace Culture – The culture at workplace is crucial in encouraging as well as enabling a person to take the first step. Some managers reprimand their team members when mistakes happen, push their teams to strictly follow the set processes and stay within safe limits while carrying out their day-to-day responsibilities. These kinds of workplaces do not help innovation, exploration and experimentation.

How use of Clean Fuel can Empower Women?

India ratified the Paris Agreement in 2016, one of the strongest proponents of living in harmony with nature and the environment. India committed to generating at least 40% of its electricity from non-fossil sources by 2030. Currently India accounts for 4.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Its efforts are key to achieving the goal of halting the effects of climate change by restricting the rise in global temperature to 2 degree Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

India’s increasing focus on expanding the use of clean energy is critical. What is clean Fuel - Natural Fuel (such as compressed natural gas or liquefied petroleum gas) or a blend (such as gasohol) used as a substitute for fossil fuels and which produces less pollution than the alternatives. Women play an important role as agents of change in the transition to cleaner, affordable and sustainable energy. There is a clear link between energy access and women’s economic empowerment and well-being.

In India, for example, women still spend time collecting fuel for cooking as part of their unpaid, unrecognized and unaccounted care work – work that restricts the opportunity for education, paid employment and economic advancement. Further, the use of biomass fuel causes severe and long-term health problems such as respiratory diseases. The lack of access to clean and affordable fuel also has a direct link to violence against women. In addition, reliance on wood disrupts natural resilience buffers and produces vulnerabilities and even accelerates climate change.

Improving access would reduce the drudgery of women’s unpaid and care work, enable them to access education and employment options and enhance their livelihoods. Clean fuels could help eliminate the hazards of indoor air pollution. Access to energy for women also results in positive gains for the ecosystem. For example, electrification of rural communities can result in a 9% point’s increase in female employment, and a staggering 23% increase in the profitability of rural women working outside the home.

Enabling women’s access to energy also results in improvements to their social conditions. Women invest 90% of their income back into their families and their welfare – which has a positive knock-on effect, with lasting effects for generations to come. Government’s Ujjwala Scheme, which provides LPG connections at reduced rates to women from BPL households, is a useful example. The scheme will be bolstered by public investment in clean energy, incentives such as subsidies and taxes and communities access to finance, awareness and education.

Book Review: How Brands Grow

Science has revolutionized every discipline it has touched; now it is marketing turn! “How Brands Grow (HBG)” is based on decades of research that has progressively uncovered scientific laws about buying and marketing performance. This book is the first to present these laws in context, and explore their meaning and marketing applications.

HBG is a manifesto for evidence based marketing, building brands based on what works in scientific practice rather than what should work in marketing theory. In addition to outlining seven evidence led rules for unlocking growth through brand marketing, the book busts a number of pernicious and costly marketing myths that are sometimes still peddled today.

There are some Laws introduced in this book –

·     Double Jeopardy Law – Brands with less market share have so they have far fewer buyers, and these buyers are slightly less loyal (in their buying and attitudes)

·   Retention double Jeopardy – All brands lose some buyers, this loss is proportionate with their market share, i.e. big brands lose more customers (though these lost customers represent a small proportion of their total customer base)

·     Pareto Law, 60/20 – Slightly more than half of a brand’s sales come from the top 20% of the brand customers. The rest of the sales come from the bottom 80% of customers (i.e. the Pareto law is not 80/20).

·    Law of buyer moderation – In subsequent time periods heavy buyers buy less often than in the base period that was used to categorize them as heavy buyers. Also, light buyers buy more often and some non-buyers become buyers. This regression to the mean phenomenon occurs even when there is no real change in buyer behavior.

·    Natural Monopoly law – Brands with more market share attract a greater proportion of light category buyers.

·       User bases seldom vary – Rival brands sell to very similar customer bases.

·    Attitude and brand beliefs reflect behavioral loyalty – Consumers know and say more about brands they use more often and they think and say little about brands they do not use. Therefore, because they have more users, larger brands always score higher in surveys that assess buyers’ attitudes to brands.

·    Usage drives attitude – The attitudes and perceptions that a brand’s customers express are very similar to the attitudes and perceptions expressed by customers of other brands.

·    Law of prototypicality – Image attributes that describe the product category score higher than less prototypical attributes.

·     Duplication of purchase law – A brand’s customer base overlaps with the customer base of other brands, in line with their market share (i.e. a brand shares the most customers with large brands and the least number of customers with small brands). If 30% of a brand’s buyers also bought brand A in a period, then 30% of every rival brand’s customers also bought brand A.

·   NBD – Dirichlet – A mathematical model of how buyers vary in their purchase propensities (i.e. how often they buy from a category and which brands they buy). This model correctly describes and explains many of the above laws. The Dirichlet is one of marketing’s few true scientific theories.

One thing that emerges from the law-like patterns is that everything varies together. As brands get bigger their metrics move in the opposite direction to the metrics of brands that are shrinking. Bigger brands have higher penetration and loyalty metrics. This suggests that marketing metrics, including market share, all reflect one thing: popularity. Therefore, brands vary in their popularity, and everything flows from that. Also, two rival brands with similar levels of popularity will have very similar metrics.

Vertical Search Optimization

Vertical search engines, mobile and search trends seem to be reshaping the search landscape. Whether spoken, typed or tapped, search queries are the medium through which consumers discover information and make decisions. Search is all around us; it is embedded into smartphone devices and is the fulcrum of Artificial Intelligence (AI) powered digital assistants. Moreover, recent research shows that mobile now accounts as much as 57% of total search traffic. Search has become more powerful, dynamic and fragmented. This brings some challenges along with opportunities.

Opportunity – The sheer quantity and variety of online content is necessitating this change. Almost 45% of people watch more than an hour of online video online each week on either Facebook or YouTube, Snapchat users share over 500,000 every minute, and according to Internet Live stats, Google processes over 3.5 Billion queries every day. In order to sift through the information at their fingertips and arrive at the right result as quickly as possible, an increasing number of consumers prefer the specialized nature of a vertical search engine.

Vertical Search Engine focuses on one specific industry or type of content. Common examples would include a travel search engine like Kayak or the image based interface of Pinterest. The term “vertical” applies to both the indexation and serving of content, which is neatly organized by category. Product searches may take place on Amazon or a consumer may go to a site like Indeed to look for a new job.

For marketers with one specific type of product or service to sell, the lure of vertical search can be clear too. They can meet their audience when their search intent is overt and can focus their energies on a platform that they know will deliver results. Google universal search, which indexes and ranks image results alongside video and local listings, is an aggregation of verticals into what appears to be more conventional, horizontal search engine. Recent moves into the jobs market, along with a revamped flights search engine, show Google’s ambitions to develop specific new technologies to gain market share in profitable verticals.

If we analyze recent data, we can see that vertical search is still taking off, outside of Google. Google web search has merged with Google Image and Google Maps, and the likes of YouTube, Pinterest and Amazon are in the ascendancy while still remaining minor players in the grand scheme. The innately commercial nature of Amazon searches will be of interest of retailers, while Pinterest reports that 97% of its searches are non-branded. Both of these platforms are improving their paid search offering at a rapid rate, which is again a sign of their increasing prominence in the search landscape.

The competition for consumer attention spans grows ever fiercer, and SEO is no longer just about getting Google right. Google itself is more complex than ever before and marketers could also conceivably focus their attention on vertical search engines rather than the global search giant. For marketers to consider is the nature of consumer behavior on the relevant vertical search engine for their brand. Consumer demands and expectations will differ based on the search engine, and they will have started query there for specific reasons.

There are some best practices we can apply for any vertical search optimization campaign:-

1.      Research your audience behaviors across different search engines

2.      Maintain a cohesive brand presence across all major social networks

3.   Use structured data and Open graph tags to help search engines locate and understand your content

4.    Access behaviors across your websites and mobile apps, focus on unblocking any challenges users have in accessing content

5.   Master the fundamental elements of site experience that will benefit performance on any search engine, such as page load speed

6.      Adapt your content for every search engine

7.     Use specific integrations with vertical search engines that can allow your website content to be served within their results

SEO is not just about trying to rank on Google anymore. Search behaviors are changing and new content opportunities arrive constantly. We need to evolve our strategies to make the most of this set of circumstances. The industry is reaching a point now where deep learning allows search engines to understand both content and context with accuracy levels we could barely have imagined just a few years ago.

How to set up Smarter Work Goals?

With most organizations kicking off fresh appraisal cycles, employees need to once again set their annual goals. Set smarter work goals that are better aligned to organizational priorities and your own focus areas.

Focus On Results – Your goals should be outcome oriented and impactful on key business metrics. Find ways to make your goals ‘measurable’ – it makes things easier for both you and your manager at the time of a review. Set goals that make you step out of your comfort zone and take on new challenges.

Keep Goals Aligned – While specific goals will depend on your exact line of work, in general you should align your goals to the strategy of the organization you work for. Become familiar with your company’s strategy and that of your manager, going up the organization ladder. Align your goals to their goals for optimal success.

Pay attention to Reskilling – Reskilling should definitely be one of your main goals this year. This will help you stay relevant to your profession and work environment. The concept of reskilling is the backbone of sustaining business momentum. It ensures you can address the requirements of your company and its customers. Stay focused on bridging skill gaps as well as demonstrating a high degree of learnability and inquisitiveness.

Keep the Dialogue going – It is essential to discuss your goals with your manager and your team. This dialogue can help you clearly define your goals and to adjust and change them as the environment changes. Regularly checking with managers and colleagues on how you are progressing with your goals will help maintain momentum.

Concentrate on Relevance – Your work goals will be no good unless they are relevant to the company and the environment you are operating in. Make sure your goals are relevant by taking the pulse of the industry and your company’s performance. It is also important to have good industry mentors who can objectively guide you on future trends.