Shakeel Siddiqi’s Marketing Blog

Pokémon Go has created a huge buzz around the world.  Some of the ways I’d choose to market Pokémon Go are that I’d tap into the nostalgia that adults have towards Pokémon because most people I know played it as kids. I would try to get the old trading cards involved that people have buried with all their old stuff. Maybe figure out a way to allow people who have rare Pokémon trading cards to find those Pokémon in the game somehow. I would also try making videos on YouTube involving the Pokémon human characters like Ash and make it very interactive. I would try to have the game appeal to younger audiences so that adults who played it when they were younger and their children could play it together. Another idea I had was to make Pokémon unique to different countries and have a way where people would have to travel to capture that Pokémon. This approach might increase tourism to those countries so they will have an incentive to be involved in it. Pokémon would be more of an adventu...

Marketing isn’t all about just being creative and coming up with advertising campaigns. It is about knowing the consumer and what makes them tick. Sometimes that can be a tough thing because consumer behavior comes from the thoughts a consumer has somewhere deep within their minds. Sometimes a consumer might not even know why they bought something or the marketer might not be able to figure out why they did. The solution here is to possibly get into a conversation with potential customers. Make a survey and ask the potential customers questions to better understand what they want. If you can’t understand what questions to ask, a person can become a customer for a day and think about what they would want as a customer. Their thoughts might align with the customers they are trying to attract. A company can hold a focus group as well which I am sure they already do. They can just test advertisements and marketing tools on ordinary people and see how they react and write those reactions do...

The marketing environment is the combination of internal and external factors that affect a company’s ability to establish a relationship with its customers. The internal forces are company specific and include owners, workers, machines, and materials. The external forces are divided into two categories. The first category called micro consists of factors engaged in producing, distributing, and promoting the offering. The second category called macro includes large societal forces which affect society as a whole. Every company has to deal with internal and external forces and the most successful company’s adjust and work with the situation they are presented with. The narrowing down process of marketing to develop a strategy has to take into account the marketing environment and how it’s shifting. The variables that affect the marketing environment can’t be controlled and should be looked at as uncontrollable variables. The marketing manager must take that into consideration while...

When a company develops a marketing strategy they need to ask three main questions about their potential customers. They need to ask what the customer needs, when and where they need it, and how they can help. Answering these questions can really help a company develop a successful marketing strategy. They also need to create buyer personas which are sort of like a representation of what their customers are like personally, what goals they have, and the challenges they have. If a company really understands the customers they have and where they are coming from, then creating a marketing strategy to target them becomes much easier. If you know how your potential customers think, then you can really be successful marketing towards them. It shows that a company cares and wants to provide exactly what a customer will need. Although, a buyer persona really needs to be thorough in order to be successful. Once a buyer persona is created and a company develops a marketing stra...

Marketing can be a very helpful tool for a small business or a large company. It can help you stand out and create a successful business. It builds brand awareness, increases sales, and engages customers. However, the type of marketing strategy is really important if you want to be successful. A business has to find the right marketing formula that works for them. If they find the right one then the business could grow to newer heights. In the video for week 3, the narrator says that there are three distinct areas where you need to be successful if you want to grow your business. The first area of marketing and growth a business should focus on is demand generation and it’s the process in which a company increases demand for its product. They can sponsor events and just try to make people aware of their business and demand their products or services. The second area of marketing and growth a business should focus is sales conversion. It’s the pro...

The way companies market their products or services have changed over the years. The use of ads in newspapers, postcards, and mail have shifted to digital marketing with ads on social media, emails, and through more interactive and targeted ads. Even though some traditional marketing techniques have remained the same, companies are branching out. From reading the textbook, we can see companies are hiring marketing firms and they are creating marketing plans for the company or companies are devoting a whole department just for marketing. These marketing firms and the company’s marketing department also use consumer data and analytics to come up with a marketing plan to really enhance and bring consumers to their business. This is the new type of marketing being used today and it has come far from the traditional marketing used before. In the video for week 2, we see Johnny use old fashioned marketing techniques in his brick and mortar store. His overhead was really hi...

I found this article on LinkedIn that talks about automation in digital marketing and how that could change over the next decade. Many high ranking executives can’t even predict how businesses and consumers will interact in 2030. One thing everyone can agree on is that automation will play a significant role in digital marketing. Sometimes a term called friction can stop a consumer from buying a product or slow them down and this is where automation comes in. A company can create retargeted ads and send emails to attract the consumers back through the use of automation. Chatbots can also be used to answer a consumers immediate questions and once they feel more comfortable they can be connected to a salesperson. That can be a great marketing tool. Automation can help a company send out emails and target specific demographics through technology and sometimes even social media activity. Sometimes automation isn’t useful especially because automated systems can...