Kmart came out with an ad a couple of years ago that hit the market and went viral very quickly. The “I just shipped my pants” was very popular and went viral very quickly. The reason for this is that when they are saying shipped it sounds more as a vulgar word and creates a humorous effect to some people. This was a controversial ad in that it was using these words as a homophone and people did not exactly want their children to see it. Over 10 million people interacted with this video within a few days of it being released. News stations such as CNN covered the controversy because of the use of the terms that sounded as a vulgar word. This campaign was absolutely successful because of the amount of views and publicity the campaign was receiving from all different areas. The fact that they would ship their pants for free with the purchase of them was something that the customers wanted because a lot of times stores cannot carry every size in every style. This was very beneficial to Kmart’s sales.
Is there a process to buying online?
Just about everyone these days has had experience through online buying or dealing with online businesses. Although people may not realize it but they are actually going through a process every time they purchase a product or service either online or offline. Some people think that they just want or need something and go ahead right away and buy it. Let me give you an example of how I have used this online buying process without even knowing it.
I have recently noticed when I am shooting archery that my quiver seems to be really heavy and that when I shoot outside and have to walk further to my target to get my arrows I tend to get tired more easily. This is called the problem recognition stage, where I noticed that I may shoot better if I could lighten up my quiver so I don’t tire out as easily.
Once I realized this I started to look online for different ways to lighten up I searched for different quivers that were smaller and lighter than the one I already had. This is as obvious as it sounds the information search stage where you look for look for different alternatives to solve the problem at hand.
After looking at all of the quivers and comparing them between each other, seeing which one was going to be lightest and is most stylish, which one had the best price, and which one would last the longest. I ended up choosing the quiver that is pictured above. This is where I went through the evaluation and decision stages of online buying. I compared different quivers to each other to come up with the right fit for me.
After deciding on this quiver I called the company to discuss the different designs and all that we could do to make it as custom as possible for me. I ended up placing the order the next day on their website that was extremely easy to use. This is the action stage where the sale is made.
Since I have not received the quiver just yet I have not been able to complete the last stage which is the post sale, where you critique the purchase through reviews or through friends that ask you about the product but I know for right now I will be giving a thumbs up for the customer service that I received from http://www.archeryleather.com.
Reviews or Advertising?
A lot of the times people will hear about products or services from advertising efforts from the direct company, or seeing the company at a convention center or some way that the customer interacts with the company with no interference. This is how most people think they interact with products. Well in a lot of cases that would be wrong. The new model that shows how people interact with a product or with a company has a middle man. This middle man is called an opinion leader. Although you may not think it yet I will give you some examples on how this happens.
We are going to be taking a look at the hunting/ outdoor industry. So what I have done is come up with six different opinion leaders that I have found very easily by just a quick search on Google, and on Twitter.
Google –
So what I did was type into Google “Hunting reviews” and at first you see companies that sell products such as Cabela’s and the reason for this is that they are paying for their company to show up first. But the next few sites all produce your opinion leaders. North American Whitetail, Outdoor Life, and Hunting Life all of these websites are used for writing reviews on products that they have field tested to give the consumer a “helping hand”. But what consumers don’t really know is that on the sides of these pages are all advertisements for different companies and products that are sponsoring these reviews or paying to be put there. These websites then turn into an opinion leader because they are the middle man in the process of a customer reaching out to a company or product.
Twitter –
Finding opinion leaders on twitter is a little bit harder, but what I did was search for a hash tag such as (#Hunting) after typing this in Twitter automatically pulls up top results that show the different people and organizations that use this hash tag the most. After this just clicking through and finding the pages that promote products, and have advertisements on the side of their page you will notice that Outdoor Hub is one that does product reviews and also posts stories on up to date events happening in the hunting industry. What you may not see is that the people following them are the companies that you see reviews on. Same goes for Predator Hunter, and American Hunter, these organizations are a way for companies to put their names on these pages that have a lot of followers to market their product through reviews, and just by putting the name out there. The organizations that do this are what they call opinion leaders because they are getting an idea of a product or company inside the consumers head which will pose the consumer to purchase these products.
A new era of blogging
These days it is not surprising that just about everyone has seen or read a blog post and they know the basics of what they are. Some people are really into posting blogs and do it for a company or for reviews of products. As an up and coming marketer we can use some tricks that some people don’t know about and actually increase the amount of views and reactions to your blogs. So what I have done is chose 5 different blogs or authors of a blog and decided to do some constructive criticism.
http://www.outdoorlife.com/blogs/hunting/new-optics-zeiss-victory-sf-binoculars
This is an article that came straight out of one of the biggest names in hunting magazines, Outdoor life does a large amount of reviews on products throughout the hunting industry and write articles on how they do certain things like hanging tree stands and sighting in a bow etc. But for this article I was very surprised, normally they would have a catchy title that would really want to grab the reader’s attention; instead just having “New Optics: Zeiss Victory SF Binoculars” doesn’t really do anything for the reader. I know when I first looked at the title I thought “O yay another new product” If it would have had a more interesting title I may be more interested in what this product has to offer
https://charlesarcheryblog.wordpress.com/
For this blog I would like to say that it is presented very well. I like how they use constructive titles on all of their different posts, they use pictures in most of them that are able to use pictures. As soon as you get onto the home page of these blogs you notice that there is only the points of arrows facing you. I think that having a title and some back ground pictures or colors would be a great benefit. the picture that is being used is a great picture but the surrounding white space is a bit too much.
http://www.longrangehuntingblog.com/
At first when you open this page it looks fantastic, using the pictures and animations the way they did I think works very well for the top of the page. The way it goes from all of the creativeness to just black space is not as effective as it should be, continuing the pictures along the sides or using some other colors other than grey would make the site more exciting. Also the titles of these articles could have been used better for example they use a title of “Cooking temperatures” this would not make me want to read this article the way it stands. Creating a title like “Are you cooking your meat right?” may get some readers attention.
http://www.archerytalk.com/vb/
http://www.fieldandstream.com/articles/fishing/2015/01/how-to-pick-the-right-fishing-guide
First lets start off with Archery Talk as the main site, this is a great way of getting readers to what they want to read, having the search box and articles lined up all down the page really gets readers interested in something that they may not have initially been interested in. They also use news articles that are recent in the world.
Field and Stream has a blog post that I think is what everyone should strive for. they only use one picture at the top of the short article so it is proportionate to what you are reading but having all of the social media links and other articles on the side that are related to what you are reading. this effectively uses the space that they were given. Although this article is short and to the point and does not use any of the fancy animations that others have they get what they want accomplished.
Business help with the 5 S’s of E-Marketing
If you are new to the marketing world you may not have heard about this thing called E-Marketing, this is the exact same thing as Marketing except for the fact that it is done over the internet. For someone that is just looking to find the basics of what you will need to know you have come to the right place. Lets go over these 5 S’s that introduce us into this concept of E-Marketing.
The first of our 5 S’s is selling. Something that really stood out to me in all of this is that having an online presence is almost more important than selling the product or service online. This is because just about everyone and their brother has either access to the internet, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. And with having access to all of this if a company can get inside of that to try and sell a product online or get you to look at a product off of one of these social media sites they will have you more attracted than if you were to just see an ad in a magazine.
Next we have serve, this is how well a company is able to add value to the consumer to get them to buy the product or service. Let’s go back to the social media examples, if someone is friends with, or likes a certain company like for instance an auto repair shop and something goes wrong with that persons car, they will be more likely to take their car to the place that they are friends with than a place down the road, so if that repair shop can post on their page that they are having sales or deals or rewards cards or something than this will influence the consumer to want to come their over the competitor.
Speak is the next S we are going to talk about. Speak is just how well the company can communicate with the end consumer. Getting to know the consumer on a more personal base will allow for a more long term relationship between the company and consumer.
Our fourth S is save. Saving is how you can save money through different ways of E-Marketing. Using E-Marketing will help save money through the company by allowing for more ads for a lower price so you can distribute them to more of a market than you could with using a print ad. Also it lets the customer pick what they want to see other than the company trying to predict what to put on the ad and where to put it. This distributes your ads in a more effective target market.
Lastly we have sizzle. Sizzle is how to add an experience to your marketing campaign. When you have a product for sale online you don’t just want one option. For instance if we have that repair shop and a customer comes in to the shop looking for tires they have a select few to choose from, but if they are online the company could set up a way to have an interactive way of choosing a tire most suitable for that customer. So you would go through and say you are looking for an off road tire, on a 17 inch rim, that is 35 inches tall. This is a way for the consumer to get what they want other than what is available.
So when starting a business or looking into putting your business online to find new markets these are the basic objectives that you would want to look at before starting to put the pieces together.
The Road to Where I Am.
Hi my name is Justus Leimbach, I am from Westminster Maryland and currently attend Penn College studying business administration with a concentration in marketing. This is my senior year here at Penn College and could not be more excited to graduate and see what the real world has in store.
A little history about me. Like I said I grew up in Westminster Maryland, mainly hunting, fishing, playing lacrosse, and shooting my bow. These are the things that I did as a kid and will probably never change. As a child I always wanted to start my own archery/ gun shop with my dad and two brothers. I always thought that would be the greatest thing ever because I could work in a field that I knew a lot about and I would like doing it. As time went on I started working for a landscaping company and doing side jobs for people my parents knew while I was in high school and trying to do the same while on summer breaks when I got into college. Well I got into Penn College and knew that they had a very highly ranked archery team and was planning on shooting for the team in the following years. Well I made the team and won a few metals here and there at the some of the shoots we went to for the first two years I was there. Come my junior year I met a few people at some of the shoots, one of them being the owner of Lancaster Archery Supply. Only a few short months after that I was working in the showroom at the worlds largest archery shop. so I havn’t reached my ultimate goal yet but we are getting there. Being that I am still in college I am doing what I can to learn more about the archery industry while I am at work and while I am in school I am learning more about how to market myself as a product or in the future as a business.
So as I finish my college career we will see where my marketing degree takes me and plan for the future ahead of me.
Let's be just - us 