If a product tracking system was incorporated into the marketing plan the scenario described above could be eliminated. The system should simply track all products in the product portfolio and monitor each products percentage of overall revenue on a quarterly basis. These percentages can then be incorporated into the annual marketing plan allowing marketers to focus on the top brands and products of the company. By focusing on the top products the company is able to increase overall sales and profitability. This is a wise use of resources that directly affect the bottom line and it allows weaker performing brands, lines, and products to be reduced through sale, liquidation or simply eliminated much quicker.

More and more people are spending their free time online consuming content. So the question is if sites are aggregating content from sites, such as YouTube, and the content has been posted in violation of copyright are the sites also violating content. Aggregator sites will argue that they are not earning revenue from the content and they did not post the content and they are not hosting the content. But they are using the content to generate traffic and in many instances they are then “funneling” traffic to revenue generating sites.

Traffic funneling is using loopholes in copyright laws and they are absolutely using copyrighted content for financial gain. Copyright holders seem to have little leverage as copyright laws are outdated and inadequate to protect against the scenario described above as content aggregators have created a one-step funnel that seems to be exploiting content for financial gains.

Please read: Mike Shields article “Earlier Tests Hot Trend with ‘Kideos’ Launch”- http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/content_display/news/digital-downloads/broadband/e3i70172e607ddc1be9dbac26234eec4474

Your website is one of the most important tools in your marketing program and should be looked at with a very critical eye. Company websites are now the primary marketing tool that consumers use to research products. This means that your website is your most important sales agent that is tasked with providing product information, answering sales questions, and highlighting differences between your products and those from your competitors.

You should visit your website with a very critical eye and make sure that prospects can find the information that is most important to them. Make sure that the product area is easy to navigate to and that product images are crisp, clear, and provide details that competitor’s sites do not. The goal is to get prospects familiar with your products and to answer as many questions as possible about the products and how to buy them.

To make sure that images are easily viewed for details make sure that the product photos are not too small and that they are appropriately sized. A good feature to incorporate is a zoom tool that allows site visitors to zoom into detailed areas of your products. Images also need to be optimized for web delivery so that their file sizes are not too large and too slow for web delivery. Large file sizes with slow download speeds cause people to click away and leave your site.

Finally, remember to include all contact information on every page. If site visitors want to contact a member of your sales team finding out how to do it should not be a challenge. Include information in a highly visible part of every page to make it as easy as possible for them to find.

The time and work spent on your site will help prospects by answering their questions and educating them about your products. It will allow them to better understand your products and help get them to making a buying decision faster.

A brand can instill a level of trust that it will perform to a certain level or be of a certain quality. Consumer’s recognition of brands grows the more they have positive experiences with it. Positive experiences increase consumers recall and recognition of the brand. This recall helps consumers make purchase decisions quickly. Brands allow consumers to efficiently find and select products or services without having to conduct extensive searches for what will best meet their needs. Decisions can be quickly made based on past experiences and their knowledge about the brand, its quality, performance, characteristics, etc.

In essence a brand is a relationship between consumers and products. Consumers trust the brand and they reward that trust with brand preference and loyalty. Once a bond of trust has been established between a consumer and a brand it is difficult to break. Consumers are more likely to buy the brand they know and trust than the one they do not. For brands to keep this trust it is essential for the brand to continue to remain consistent to its brand promise. Breaking the brand promise will begin to impede consumers recall of positive experiences and the relationship will be broken.

A brand’s promise may not only be functional but it may also be symbolic. Brands allow consumers to project certain images. Brands find niches and become associated with these niches and are seen as being used by certain types of people. Consumers use these niche brands to project images to other people and to themselves. Brands function in this capacity like a club or team that people join for association purposes.

Brands become intertwined with consumers and they take on special associations. Consumers use branding to classify, recall positive experiences with products and services, and to associate with the image of the brand. The trust that consumers bestow upon products and services because of the psychological aspects of its brand will positively affect the consumer’s perception of it. Brands provide a convenient way to classify and retain information about products and services in a complicated world. The personal relationships that consumers develop with brands last a lifetime.

According to Mediaweek, Turner worked with CBS Outdoor to strategically place nearly 100 pieces of creative, which includes column wraps, posters, banners, staircase signage, and video motion boards. Additionally, they wrapped the cars of the shuttle train that runs between Grand Central and Times Square. The creative team at Turner is going outside of the box to promote their new show and judging on the initial impact it is having with consumers I believe this will become more common.

I see a correlation between this campaign and spatial experiential marketing that theme parks consistently use. Theme park companies have used experiential design to improve ride experiences for decades. As media outlets continue to struggle with increased competition for eyeballs they will need to increasingly make their campaigns more dynamic and experiential to stand out. After seeing the images of the spectacular creative at Grand Central Station, I am now planning to watch Turner’s Dark Blue.

For more information: Read “Turner Brings Dark Blue Promotion to N.Y. Underground” by Katy Bachman at http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/content_display/news/cable-tv/e3i38d17fe532245c82bb57858b583aca97

To get your company to become more customer-focused marketers should start by getting leader buy-in on the concept. It is critical to get leadership buy-in before launching initiatives and campaigns to the employee base. To get leadership buy in marketers should accumulate case studies where companies have found success by focusing on the customer. These articles and case studies will provide plenty of real-world examples of how customer-focused organizations are successful. Marketers should then develop a customer contact map that highlights how and when customer contact occurs at the company. Present the information to leadership explaining how improvements in the customer contact area and a commitment to become more customer-focused can boost revenues and growth.

With leadership buy-in, an advisory council should be assembled to review and improve all customer contact points. I would suggest that representative from sales and operations are included on the advisory council. Each contact point should be examined with a goal of identifying improvement opportunities. Additionally, ask some of your customers to meet with the advisory council to offer their feedback. Remember, you are trying to improve your value proposition to them so ask them directly what they value. The council should review all available information and then develop an action plan for improvement.

The plan for improvement should be open and celebrated. Tell customers and employees about the company’s new commitment to its customers. Keep people up to date with progress and let leadership know when milestones are met. A serious commitment to the plan will require an adequate budget to make the changes that the advisory council recommends. Also consider that employees that work with the customers may require new training to implement the recommended changes. During the execution of the plan identify employees that excel in the new system and locate people that have a commitment to customer service. Place these people in front of the customer as often as possible.

Finally, getting your company to be more customer-focused is a lot of work. Make the commitment to becoming more customer-focused and think in long terms. It is critically important to start to record and measure successes and failures and always identify opportunities for improvement. Launching an annual customer satisfaction survey can be a great measurement tool to identify opportunities to improve. Another tool to identify opportunities for improvement is to keep your customers active in the customer-commitment plan. A customer advisory board consisting of both large and small customer, if properly managed, can offer brutally honest feedback but it can also greatly improve the company’s customer focus as well as identify new business opportunities.

Becoming a customer-focused company is not easily accomplished but it can be very rewarding. Companies that consistently deliver high value to their customers also consistently generate higher margins and grow much faster than their competitors. It takes much more than just saying that customers are important it takes a serious plan to determine what is important to them.

The more the brand stands out from competitors the easier it is for people to recognize and recall the brand and this translates into increased sales. Brand recognition is critical for products to stand out on busy retail shelves where they are surrounded by competing products. Visual cues are the most prominent elements of brand salience but other brand elements also contribute to customers’ abilities to recall and recognize the brand.

The brand name, logo, symbol, shape, and texture, are also contribute cues that aid consumers in recognizing the brand. Building brand awareness involves combining a series of brand elements that work together to properly represent the product or service. To be effective, these elements must not only communicate the brand essence but also must educate consumers about the product or service category in which the brand competes. When consumers fully understand the product or service category marketers can easily communicate the basic functions the brand provides and how it meets specific consumers needs. This differentiates the product or service from its competitors and increases its brand salience.