I am looking for a job in marketing communications and would like to contact some top notch recruiters. Does anyone know of anyone who specializes in this area? Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Posts Tagged ‘Marketing Communications’
Does anyone know of any good recruiters for marketing communications jobs in downtown Toronto?
Sunday, August 15th, 2010Mass to Singular Marketing: Determining the Best Medium
Monday, March 8th, 2010
One of the great things about our industry is the nearly limitless opportunities to reach the marketplace.
While there is a lot of over-hype over emerging new media technologies, the one thing for sure is that those innovations are driving more opportunities for our industry. Combined with the traditional marketing communications vehicles like advertising and public relations, new technologies are expanding the ways we can communicate to the marketplace. I’m talking about technologies that set the groundwork for blogs and social and business networks, and the opportunities presented for mobile marketing.
With the growing opportunities in marketing communications, there’s more than ample opportunity for us to become generalists and knowledgeable about a range of marketing communication vehicles, or specialists and focus on one or two areas.
No matter what career path we pick – or what opportunities present themselves – there is one absolute:
To best serve your clients or employer, you need to know how to reach the marketplace via the medium or media that best meets its and your clients or employer’s needs.
The message, of course, varies depending what you want to accomplish. And, sometimes, the medium drives the message in length, tone or content.
Unfortunately, as an industry, it is often difficult to shed our old beliefs and open up to new technologies and how those technologies can dictate the message. It seems many are too focused on our mass marketing and mass communication roots. While the strategies behind mass communication tactics can be valid for the right campaign, you cannot apply them all the time.
Below, I have outlined four categories of marketing communications. The difference in each is how well you know or can identify your targeted marketplace recipients. Have a look and leave a comment, compliment or criticism about how I’ve divided up marketing communications, or other ways to slice and dice our industry.
Mass Marketing: You’re just trying to reach a whole lot of people. Communication may be targeted by geography, industry, job, etc., but you will more often than reach people you don’t need to. The message is the same for each tactic. Examples are media relations; some social media marketing; and offline and online advertising such as in print, radio and TV, banners and search engine marketing.
Captured Marketing: You have a better idea of exactly who your audience is – often by job title, geography and even by name. As with mass marketing, the message is usually the same, but is more targeted because you better know whom you are trying to reach. Examples include trade show marketing, and organizing events.
Concentrated Marketing: Like the above, you may still be sending a blanket message, but you know specifically to whom you are going after – often by name – and the message is better tailored to the recipients. Examples include direct mail and email marketing.
Singular Marketing: You definitely know to whom you are communicating – by name, other identifier like email, telephone number and/or geographic location, and the message is specifically tailored to the recipient. It is very personal, very targeted marketing. Examples include mobile marketing – where users opt-in to receive communications based on their location and other preferences – and Website visits (think Amazon where your preferences and past purchases are remembered and new items are suggested).
The greatest message – text or graphic – can be futile if it is not properly communicated to your audience. How well you know who your audience is and how best to reach them is half of the battle.
Popular Internet Marketing Tools
Thursday, January 28th, 2010
Online marketing represents the most efficient method of advertising your business, giving you access to a broad market and allowing you to improve your business. Furthermore, online marketing relies on search engine optimization which will help you stay on top. What else can you expect from online marketing besides advertising, maximizing profit and paying much less than you would pay for any other type of advertising?
The most important aspect of business sites is focusing on the internet marketing aspect of the business and designing the site accordingly. Nowadays, there are two main internet marketing tools: wordtracker and article directory. The first web marketing tool enables you to take a certain key word and find out all the phrases that incorporate it. Than, you can determine how many searches take place on Yahoo, Google and MSN and see whether it will be difficult for you or not to get the best rankings for the key words you had in mind.
Furthermore, this online marketing tool will help you determine if there is an adequate market for the business idea you have in mind before actually beginning anything. Another advantage of this internet marketing tool is the fact that it costs less than 8 dollars and it buys you access for all day long. However, if you are interested in web site marketing and especially in wordtracker, we advise you to buy a year subscription because it is more cost-effective.
Another essential aspect in marketing communications is the article directory, which enables you to write articles and deposit them in the article directory. Thus, people from all over the world who search the directories for content will republish your article and give you free publicity. It’s needless to say that internet marketing is the key to success in web marketing and everyone can benefit from it. Internet marketing can be free or paid, depending if you want immediate traffic to your site or if you are willing to wait.
If you want to use another online marketing method, go ahead and try email marketing. This is not as easy as other internet marketing methods but it will bring you traffic if you do it well. When you send email messages, it is important to anticipate the needs of your potential customers and write something that speaks to their needs. In order to be successful, email marketing relies on the fact that you are aware of your customer’s expectations and desires.
It has been proven that email marketing does work and it can increase the number of your customers, as long as you are sending emails to the right people. Once your customers or potential customers start receiving your emails, make sure that you don’t send them emails every day, because they will certainly dislike this. However, if you send a carefully chosen message between your campaigns you will remind them of your existence and make them pay attention to your message.
Before starting email marketing, put yourself in the shoes of your subscribers’ and see if and what needs to be improved. Don’t forget to design your emails so that they can be easily read and understood and make sure you send small texts, which maintain the subscribers’ attention. Pay attention to the email relationship you have with your customers and remember to optimize your emails according to their needs.
10 Tips for a Smaller Business
Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009Here are 10 tips for a smaller business either to get started in marketing or to review what you are already doing and make improvements.
Tip 1: Look at what you are doing now
Start by looking at the marketing activities you use and the marketing skills you have. You are probably doing a lot of the right things already. However, you should:
* research what your market wants; where, when and why customers buy; what benefits they are seeking from your product or service; and what competitors are providing;
* decide on your objectives, identify and choose your target customer groups and position your business to serve your chosen market profitably;
* put the plan to work through selling and promoting your products and services to customers, through pricing and using appropriate distributors and agents effectively; and, finally,
* monitor the effectiveness of your marketing activities in terms of customer satisfaction and the impact on your bottom line.
Tip 2: Focus on the customer
Make the customer the focal point of everything the organisation does. Why? Because good, happy customers equal higher profits. If your team is too heavily sales or product oriented, consider a change of approach.
Tip 3: Set up an effective marketing team
In a customer-focussed organisation, marketing is something that everybody does – not just marketers. Everyone has a role to play, including:
* your managers – who plan and look to the future, allocate budgets for marketing activities and co-ordinate activities;
* your salesforce – who are the eyes and ears of the business and, through their frequent contact with your customers, can keep the business in tune with what the market is looking for;
* your marketing and communications staff – who develop and deliver marketing communications and support sales programmes as well as coming up with innovative new product/service ideas;
* your external marketing agencies and specialists – who are available to provide the occasional specialist support you need such as research, brochure design and printing, telemarketing or website development.
Good communication between all these groups is essential to good marketing. But two things, in particular, ensure success. Your business should be committed to its customers and ensures everyone pulls together to deliver high quality products and services on time, every time.
Tip 4: Divide your customers up into groups
Every customer is different so why treat them all the same? To start treating customers as individuals, look at how and when they buy. This will help to start putting them into groups and understanding the needs of each group. For example:
* High volume/high value buyers – place frequent large orders
* High volume/low value buyers – place frequent small orders
* Low volume/high value buyers – place occasional large orders
* Low volume/low value buyers – place occasional small orders
Groups of customers who have similar needs or who behave in a similar way are known in marketing as ‘segments’. You will probably need to use different marketing techniques and approaches to reach different types of customer.
Tip 5: Identify customer benefits
Now you can identify why each customer segment buys your products and services and what ‘benefits’ they are seeking. This in turn will help you to target existing and new customers more effectively with specific products and services. As a result you can make better profits. For example, low volume/high value buyers may be more profitable for you than high volume/high value buyers who may continually squeeze you on price.
Tip 6: Decide how to deliver these benefits
You deliver benefits through what marketing people call the ‘”marketing mix”. These are essentially the tools of the marketing trade. Your goal here is to define your “unique selling proposition” (USP) – something that truly sets you apart from your competitors.
The basic marketing mix consists of:
* Product – the goods and services you are offering, including packaging and service content, such as warranty, after sales.
* Price – what the customer pays. Remember that there are different types of prices such as list prices, discounted prices, and many different ways to arrive at prices. Price may be used to communicate the position and values of the product/service.
* Place – how and where the customer obtains the product/service. For example, a catalogue company may allow customers to buy through the catalogue itself, on the company’s web page or through off-the-page advertising.
* Promotion – the means and mix of activities used to promote the product or service, for example, advertising, direct marketing, PR, exhibitions and trade shows.
But you should also consider the three extras:
* People – the people you employ and how they deal with your customers;
* Process – the way your business operates; and
* Physical evidence
