I’m going to start with Digital Marketing because I just finished this class, and it’s fresh on my mind. Of course, digital marketing is my area of expertise, so it was mostly refreshers, but below are some notes nonetheless.

Draft & win strategy – This strategy is basically to copy a competitor that is doing well. An example is Secret deodorant. When Dove started making a strong push, Secret (the market leader with the most shelf space in store) designed a product line that looked very similar to Dove’s line. The point is to confuse the customer into thinking they are buying the competitor’s product. The comparison image on the right shows the similarities in colors, the word “fresh”, and the cucumber and leaf design.

Branding & position – Purpose exists from the beginning. Position is for gaining market share, can be more campaign-oriented. The “why” doesn’t change over the years, but the “what” will. Who the company is doesn’t change as often as the tactics. There is a Ted Talk on this topic that our guest speaker referenced.

Digital strategy phases:

• Discovery – What is the business imperative? Define and detail customer experience. Market analysis.
• Visioning – Where do we want to go in the future? Create a roadmap.
• Planning – How to translate the roadmap. Make sure each tactic or project fits with overall strategy.

Ad agenecy CEO on employees:

• Customers, prospects, employees – all are equal
• There is a real cost to having disengaged employees
• It is “disastrous” to lose an “A” employee
• Estimated cost of losing a good employee: 3x employee’s salary

Random tidbits:

• In 2012, roughly 35% of Secret’s marketing budget was digital.
• It takes roughly 7 marketing “touches” to make someone remember your company.
• Test creative – change one element in each ad version. Have a control version.
• Before analyzing data, ask yourself, “What do we want to know? What are we going to do with the data? How are we going to improve our marketing strategy with the data?”
• When there is a land grab to get market share, spend up to 80% of revenue on marketing.
• Telligent is a Microsoft social networking system that allows white labeling
• Tagboard collects social/tagged photos into one place
• Linking to or being linked to from .edu/education sites, builds SEO