Week 8 MKTG 6101 My Future

 I have never thought about necessarily marketing myself. Although I want to focus my career on public health, I've realized marketing is something I can do every day to increase my chances for success in any career. I want to start writing my thoughts on LinkedIn, and gaining credibility in the community. As I get closer to graduating, I've realized how essential it is to have connections in the community. There are plenty of opportunities to get out there, and to have conversations about public health issues. If I started my spending one day a week to reflect on my studies, and my opinions I could see a great difference in the next year. 

Marketing myself means I am going to idenitfy my strengths, and learn how to improve as a person. I was able to relate marketing to the many public health campaigns I've crossed in the last year. Having the ability to educate the public and improve health through free research is a great start to where I want to be in my career. Depending on my job, I will be able to use my marketing skills to figure out who my target audience is, and how I want to get my message acrossed based on the consumer. 

MKTG 6101 Week 8 Surfing the Tsunami

 This week, I actually got to talking about Artifical Intelligence with a few colleagues at the hospital I work at. As we've talked about the last eight weeks AI is taking over rapidly, and it's going to continue to. As a healthcare professional that makes me ask questions like, how will it affect me? The individual I talked to told me while I'm still in school to gain as much knowledge as I can about it. He told me I will be using it every single day for the rest of my career, and to have a lot of knowledge on the topic is essential for success. He is currently working in project management, but wants to reroute his career and was actually working on his certification in AI.  

I have a certificate in epidemiology from my previous public health program. With that being said, it would've been great to learn more about artifical intelligence. As I've been job searching, I have seen a great deal of digital epidemiology positions. This focuses on collecting data, and doing research to try to detect early prevention efforts. In this case the public can see real time case numbers of disease. Being able to research online decreases the needs for actual human participants. This is the quickest health professionals, and the public are seeing threats. 

MKTG 6101 Week 8 Guerrilla Marketing

 There are two types of research in marketing; free research, and paid research. Both of these types of research can provide powerful results. Free research is typically how an individual starts, later on is when they will start to use paid research. A great example of free research is knowing your target audience, or your customers. If you simply listen to their thoughts and know what to ask them, you can use these results to make changes and increase performance. The consumer is one of your greatest tools in marketing. Before paying for research it is important to know information regarding competitors, the consumers, your own business, what people like, etc. 

Develop questionnaires to identify the information you need to market correctly, this is free. After analyzing the results you will learn A LOT about the factors outside of your busienss that play a role in your success. The internet is full of knowledge, and ways to recieve quick, free responses from your consumers, and even competitors. You would be suprised how much you can learn from using the internet, the library, even just talking to people. At the same time, pay attention to what you are processing, and know if your sources are valid and provide quality information. 

MKTG 6101 Week Seven Artifical Intelligence

I created a photo using an app on my laptop, (Dream by WOMBO). The photo is my sister and I. It was so simple, all I had to do was name it, pick a photo, and pick a "background" to blend with it. The art is absolutely amazing and it took nearly no work on my end. Artifical Intelligence is how systems are able to perform tasks, create and translate through computer systems. If this was done by a human it would take hours, at least, but using this app it took me less than a minute. I think using AI allows a vast growth in society, although it might seem like there could be a lot of negatives. We are able to do things much quicker, and recieve amazing results. 

Here is the before and after.

Although this app created the image. I believe AI can improve creativity in people immensely, creating traits for success. By studying AI I have gained access to things I have never thought of, I've seen ideas that make me dig deeper. I truly believe it is all about how you use AI to know if it is beneficial to you, or society. Although technology sometimes is the one creating images, or ideas the thoughts behind it is coming from you. You are able to test your limits by using AI. 

MKTG 6101 Week Seven Ascend Your Start-Up

 How will you inspire cultural collaboration?

How has your technology connected humanity in a better or bigger way?

How will you armor up the adversity?

How will you handle the loneliness factor?

How will you take care of and preserve yourself?

These questions really allowed me to stop and go back to the beginning of the start-up process. The questions prove the importance of staying true to your brand, and keeping your core values inline with your business. Every person goes through stages of feeling lost, grief, or feeling alone, but if you get through the adversity you are going to come out on top with more tools. Creating a business that is accepting, and connects with it's customers, workers, etc. will drive success. You want to empower those involved and make them feel a part of the process and align with your values and goals. 

The major goal I think of towards the end of the start-up is being able to identify the community I created. You should be enabling those around you for success and have a good support system at the end. As we've talked about success will feel lonely in the beginning, but knowing what you've created and what you have at the end will make it all worth it. Don't forget your values and the mission of the business. By keeping these in mind it will be easier to get through burnout periods, and feeling thankful for the hard work accomplished. 

MKTG 6101 Week Seven Guerrilla Marketing

 Profit is much more important than a deal. To start, you can use the tools you already have. If a campaign is successful, don't waste money creating a new campaign, just make small adjustments. Look at the profitability of a campaign before changing it. It may not seem like it, but continuously changing and trying new ideas could actually be wasting money rather than increasing profit. Look for people that can benefit you, that you can benefit in return. By teaming up with other groups, and continuing to network you are able to improve profit, and help others in the community. Focus on successful ways to use the tools you already have to create success. 

As I've mentioned many times, KNOW YOUR CUSTOMERS. This is so important to create a successful marketing campaign. If you are adjusting to your customers needs, and researching what they want you will be able to market through them. They will talk about the product, and how it helps them. They are the most important kind of marketing in my opinion. By surveying them, and knowing their opinions you will save money on research. It is simple task to get feedback.

MKTG 6101 Week Six Ad Campaign

 Day Three Results:

Day Ten Results:

I was shocked by the increase in impressions over just seven days. I talked to my aunt and she ended up receiving over one hundred new likes on her Facebook page. She has never thought about necessarily working to market her product, and after talking to her she's very interested. Most of her current customers are family or close friends, so to get the word out is a big goal of hers. I told her how I only spend three dollars a day and the campaign only lasted ten days and she has already seen results.

If I ever start a small business like she's doing I would definitely market my product from the start. Doing an ad campaign was a LOT easier than I expected it to be. I would probably spend a bit more money on the campaign and see how my results are in a month. I would also focus on doing surveys, and getting customer feedback on what they want. Currently, her items are limited but she is always interested in finding out what her customers want to see. 

MKTG 6101 Week 6 Ascend Your Start-Up

How will you apply your strengths to you weaknesses to find your superpower?

How will you fill the process disconnect?

How will you fill the measurement disconnect?

How will you measure the company as a customer-centric company?

What does your summit look like now?

It is important to make decisions for yourself. Listen to those with past experience, and who are wiser than you on the certain subject, although your decisions are what affects your life at the end of the day. Align what you have learned to create success for yourself, and this also takes accountability. There will be trials of disconnect during start-up. This is when you should focus the most on strategy. Create priorities for yourself that allows you to create results, and achieve certain department centered goals. You aren't going to be successful in every single thing, but you are able to know your strengths and know what you don't know, to allow yourself to grow. You can grow by focusing on your strengths and using them for success. Below are important strengths to focus on to try to set yourself apart from other businesses. 

What is your superpower? 

    Product? Sales? Engineering? Vertical Business Operation? Brand? Customer? Vision? Service? 

It might not feel like you have enough experience to get through the disconnect period, but if you focus on your strengths and empowering your team you will prevail. You should try to use data-driven methods to measure each part of your company's process. Figure out what needs work, and what are your strong suits. If you know your customers, some of these answers might come easier to you. You should be able to see how your relationship is with them, and develop leads on what needs improvement from there. 

MKTG 6101 Week Six Guerrilla Marketing

 It is extremely important knowing where you are advertising, and who you are advertising too. You should connect with your audience, and be aware of the credibility and background of the source you are publishing on. You want to blend marketing techniques to achieve the greatest success. One thing I noted from the chapter is the importance of online existence. Today there are so many people are constantly on technology, how will you reach and connect with them? It is your job to connect, follow-up with them while still promoting your business. Assess your strengths to figure out what steps you need to take. Do you need to give details, or a visual? Does your community want intimacy and to feel connected? Do you need to simply remind the community about your business?

There are tons of ways to market, but knowing what your business needs is essential in doing it correctly. I would recommend every business investing in a public relations team. PR can help to develop credibility, and to avoid negative publicity from spreading. The team can connect with the community, and help develop a positive word of mouth about the business, or your product. Chose your marketing weapon, and do it with strength. By knowing who your audience is, it will be easier to chose the method used. You should be very aware of your target audience. While doing this, you should assess how accurate your reach is. 

MKTG 6101 Week 5 Ascend Your Start-Up

Is your company as customer-centric as your marketing content says it is?

How will you get to know your customer?

It is important to base your decisions on how your customer sees your brand. As we've mentioned before, we have to adapt to our audience and a lot of revisions will be made throughout your start-up. You want your customers to be invested in you and your brand. You can do this by truly understanding the deeper meanings of their words. You want an intimate relationship with your customer, no matter how large your audience gets. It may seem like you want to continue to grow your audience, but what's important is to connect with the audience you have. 

You want loyal customers. You should prioritize each customer too and engage with them. To do this you need to understand each one of them. You should be finding solutions for their issues, adjust based on surveys, you should want to know how their experience was and what you can do better. To be customer-centric there are five competencies:

    1. Treat customers as assets. 

    2. Align intentionally around customer experience. 

    3. Build an active customer listening path. 

    4. Deliver consistent and reliable customer experience. 

    5. Create a culture of accountability around customer experience. 

MKTG 6101 Week 5 Guerrilla Marketing

 Putting creativity to use can help set a product apart from others, yet it can be easy to mess this up. You have to adjust your strategy based on the source. In some sources you want the reader to feel a part of the ad, other times you want to attract them with your words and their vision. There is also canvasing. This is a direct marketing tactic that makes personal contact with the suggested audience. The advertisement should draw the audience in, while giving them just enough detail to want to know more. 

Next you should develop a marketing calendar. It is important to know what you are going to do in the future and have a set plan with funding. The calendar will help decipher which ad to run at what time. You could have a set weekly ad, or monthly ad. You should also have set period of how long each ad is going to run. These ads should have goals for the reach and frequency that will come with the campaign. You want the ad to be exposed often. 

Starting an Ad Campaign Week 5 MKTG 6101

 A couple weeks ago I created a website for my aunts' small business. She designs and crafts different home decor items and started a business earlier this year. I thought creating a website and running ads would be a great way to jump-start her business and practice my marketing skills. Creating the website was a little bit difficult, but I ultimately think I did a good job considering it was my first website. As for running the ad, it was a lot easier than I thought it would be. Here are the analytics after just three days:

The numbers aren't amazing, but I only spent three dollars a day for the ad. I also think considering the specifics of her items it makes sense why the topic isn't searched that often. She actually did receive a couple messages from individuals around the state inquiring about her items, which is awesome. I'm looking forward to seeing how many clicks she receives after the full ten days. 

Feel free to check out the website!

Wooden Wonders (google.com)