Hi again!
Our journey to understand Marketing has begun, and we are ready to share with you our freshly gained knowledge 😎
In the first four weeks of our Marketing and eCommerce course - including a self-study week - we got introduced to the basics of Marketing, how and why to keep a blog for marketing purposes, the importance of getting to know your target market and segment it, the key role of storytelling in Marketing and guidelines about how to create an efficient marketing plan.
Moreover, we got plenty of time during our self-study week to familiarize with some readings about Marketing that we have been assigned to choose and analyse individually through a reaction paper.
But let's introduce such meaningful topics more in detail.
I chose this text, since I regard it as relevant for my studies and external projects I am currently involved in.
Moreover, we got plenty of time during our self-study week to familiarize with some readings about Marketing that we have been assigned to choose and analyse individually through a reaction paper.
But let's introduce such meaningful topics more in detail.
Some Marketing Basics
During our Tourism studies, we had already been introduced to some Marketing basics.
Nevertheless, the further introduction we got in the beginning of our Marketing and eCommerce course lectures, held by our teacher Petra Paloniemi, refreshed our ideas and gave us a better insight into the topic.
Definition of Marketing
First of all, how can we define marketing?
According to Hunt (1976), Marketing is the study and management of exchange relationships. This means that the marketers and the consumers provide value for one another.
In fact, from a company perspective, Marketing helps in identifying and sourcing potentially successful products for the marketplace and promoting them through differentiation from similar products (BusinessDictionary). This way, through various channels and strategies, marketers can provide value to consumers.
If consumers are delighted by the marketer's performance and services, they will create value in return by generating profits and customer equity.
Generally speaking though, Marketing is everything (Paloniemi 2019a), as it can be seen also in the wordcloud at the very beginning of this post, which has been made by the students of the Marketing and eCommerce course based on everyone's perception of Marketing.
Generally speaking though, Marketing is everything (Paloniemi 2019a), as it can be seen also in the wordcloud at the very beginning of this post, which has been made by the students of the Marketing and eCommerce course based on everyone's perception of Marketing.
The Milestones of Marketing
But how to become a good marketer?
Quite many things need to be taken into account. The 3 main points of attention are the target market, the message and the channel.
In a nutshell, this means that you need to define and get to know your target group, so that you are able to send them a clear and valuable message through the right channel - this is needed in order for the message to be actually received and understood.
Another fundamental point to be taken into account is the extended marketing mix (or 7Ps), which from a customer-centric point of view can be seen as the 7Cs of Marketing.
All these determine to what extent Marketing satisfies consumer needs.
Quite many things need to be taken into account. The 3 main points of attention are the target market, the message and the channel.
In a nutshell, this means that you need to define and get to know your target group, so that you are able to send them a clear and valuable message through the right channel - this is needed in order for the message to be actually received and understood.
Another fundamental point to be taken into account is the extended marketing mix (or 7Ps), which from a customer-centric point of view can be seen as the 7Cs of Marketing.
All these determine to what extent Marketing satisfies consumer needs.
Blogging in Marketing
As we just mentioned the importance of choosing the right channel, here we describe the potential of using a blog as marketing channel.
So, why should a company have a blog?
First of all, because it is a useful tool for Search Engine Optimization (SEO): the company will be more visible and reachable for customers who are looking for services related to the company.
An active blog, with strategic content creation and ownership, can be used to share the content and news about the company among the customers, giving fresh updates to them.
To have a blog does help to attract new and well-qualified customers, but also to build trust and loyalty with those customers who already know about the company due to the interaction that they can have through the blog. (Kähkönen 2019.)
But now let's focus on blogging for tourism. In fact, there are many tourism companies which make use of a blog.
Why?
Having a blog, for companies related to tourism, means an additional way to communicate with old and future customers. This happens by updating fresh content in order to clarify questions and doubts, sharing experiences from previous guests to be seen as an example, teaching the customers through useful content that can help them before they visit the place/company and so on.
Let's have a look at real examples around Lapland, which is where we live and study.
Lapland The Magazine is a clear example of marketing Lapland. Its content is wide and updated, starting from addressing simple frequent questions that some visitors have, until more complex and specific content.
When visiting a blog though, some guests might have language barriers, or they just want to feel like home receiving the information from someone easy to connect with. An example to address this is creating blogs targeting a specific customer group. For instance El Blog de Finlandia is a blog that has Spanish-speakers and nationality as a target group. More details about target market and its segmentation will be given in the following section.
Finally, having a look at the whole country, Finland has some official websites with blogs as well, as for example GoFinland and the National Park website.
The former is targeting people who are interested in Finalnd's culture, nature and authentic lifestyle. Also Isa wrote a blog post about "Everyday Life in Lapland" in GoFinland's blog.
The latter one, on the other hand, is more focused on those people who are interested in outdoor activities - not only international guests but also locals - providing fresh information about hiking tracks, national parks, etc.
First of all, because it is a useful tool for Search Engine Optimization (SEO): the company will be more visible and reachable for customers who are looking for services related to the company.
To have a blog does help to attract new and well-qualified customers, but also to build trust and loyalty with those customers who already know about the company due to the interaction that they can have through the blog. (Kähkönen 2019.)
But now let's focus on blogging for tourism. In fact, there are many tourism companies which make use of a blog.
Why?
Having a blog, for companies related to tourism, means an additional way to communicate with old and future customers. This happens by updating fresh content in order to clarify questions and doubts, sharing experiences from previous guests to be seen as an example, teaching the customers through useful content that can help them before they visit the place/company and so on.
Let's have a look at real examples around Lapland, which is where we live and study.
Lapland The Magazine is a clear example of marketing Lapland. Its content is wide and updated, starting from addressing simple frequent questions that some visitors have, until more complex and specific content.
When visiting a blog though, some guests might have language barriers, or they just want to feel like home receiving the information from someone easy to connect with. An example to address this is creating blogs targeting a specific customer group. For instance El Blog de Finlandia is a blog that has Spanish-speakers and nationality as a target group. More details about target market and its segmentation will be given in the following section.
Finally, having a look at the whole country, Finland has some official websites with blogs as well, as for example GoFinland and the National Park website.
The former is targeting people who are interested in Finalnd's culture, nature and authentic lifestyle. Also Isa wrote a blog post about "Everyday Life in Lapland" in GoFinland's blog.
The latter one, on the other hand, is more focused on those people who are interested in outdoor activities - not only international guests but also locals - providing fresh information about hiking tracks, national parks, etc.
Target Market and Segmentation
As mentioned in the Milestones of Marketing section, it is essential for a company to know their target market, because it helps them focus on specific customer types and bring more to these kinds of customers. This is very important also for companies in the tourism area, as briefly introduced in the previous sections about blogs.
To make their customers happy and understand them better the companies can - and should - research their target market.
When doing research about the target customers, the companies should discuss about them with the other stakeholders.
The next step is to put themselves in the target customer's shoes, which is done through the process of creating customer personas.
The customer personas are not real people, but fictional characters which are created to help understand the target customers better.
One example on how to create personas can be to pick an avatar or a photo of a possible customer-type and analyse everything about it: the person pictured, the background, clothing and accessories of the person... literally everything. Another example can be to start from forming a short bio about the customer persona and then give it a face and name.
Thanks to the customer personas, companies can understand much better the target customers and whether the company's products are suitable for them or not. This way they can identify and implement any need for improvement.
Moving further from customer personas, the following step is to research in deep consumers and users. Here segmentation comes into the game. (Paloniemi 2019b.)
Now you may ask: "What is segmentation?"
Segmentation is the process of splitting potential customers into groups (or segments) based on different characteristics (TrackMaven 2019).
VisitFinland, for instance, in 2017 renewed its segmentation study and defined the following 6 main segments: Nature Explorer, City Breaker, Nature Wonder Hunter, Authentic Lifestyle Seeker, Comfort Seeker and Activity Enthusiast.
Each of the segments has a specific description, including what the customers of this exact segment are searching for/interested in experiencing, how do they usually travel, what drives them, their background and so on.
Each segment is studied in detail and, in the case of VisitFinland, applied to different nationalities in order to gain as much information as possible about the customers.
As an example, during one of our lectures, we analysed Japanese travelers through the application of VisitFinland's segments (VisitFinland 2017).
Finally the last, but not the least, step companies can pursue in the target market research is to study parallel industries' and markets' target groups. (Paloniemi 2019b.)
To make their customers happy and understand them better the companies can - and should - research their target market.
When doing research about the target customers, the companies should discuss about them with the other stakeholders.
The next step is to put themselves in the target customer's shoes, which is done through the process of creating customer personas.
The customer personas are not real people, but fictional characters which are created to help understand the target customers better.
One example on how to create personas can be to pick an avatar or a photo of a possible customer-type and analyse everything about it: the person pictured, the background, clothing and accessories of the person... literally everything. Another example can be to start from forming a short bio about the customer persona and then give it a face and name.
Thanks to the customer personas, companies can understand much better the target customers and whether the company's products are suitable for them or not. This way they can identify and implement any need for improvement.
Moving further from customer personas, the following step is to research in deep consumers and users. Here segmentation comes into the game. (Paloniemi 2019b.)
Now you may ask: "What is segmentation?"
Segmentation is the process of splitting potential customers into groups (or segments) based on different characteristics (TrackMaven 2019).
VisitFinland, for instance, in 2017 renewed its segmentation study and defined the following 6 main segments: Nature Explorer, City Breaker, Nature Wonder Hunter, Authentic Lifestyle Seeker, Comfort Seeker and Activity Enthusiast.
Each of the segments has a specific description, including what the customers of this exact segment are searching for/interested in experiencing, how do they usually travel, what drives them, their background and so on.
Each segment is studied in detail and, in the case of VisitFinland, applied to different nationalities in order to gain as much information as possible about the customers.
As an example, during one of our lectures, we analysed Japanese travelers through the application of VisitFinland's segments (VisitFinland 2017).
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| Japanese Travelers' Segmentation Through VisitFinland's Criteria |
Finally the last, but not the least, step companies can pursue in the target market research is to study parallel industries' and markets' target groups. (Paloniemi 2019b.)
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| Target Market Research Figure from Petra Paloniemi's Lecture |
Storytelling
Now that we have defined our target market and its segments, it's time to engage our customers, and a good way to do this is through storytelling.
For companies, in our case especially tourism, storytelling helps the company to stand out by creating their own identity and it brings more value to service experiences (Kalliomäki 2019).
For companies, in our case especially tourism, storytelling helps the company to stand out by creating their own identity and it brings more value to service experiences (Kalliomäki 2019).
Different kinds of stories for companies could be a background or a history story, the company’s vision, story of the product or the story of their customer (Paloniemi 2019c). The options are endless.
But, how to construct a story?
The 3 main elements of a story are: characters, conflict or drama and a message. The characters provide emotional identification, the purpose of a conflict or drama is to be surprising and something that catches your attention and the message is of course the reason why the story is worth telling. (Turnsek Hacic 2017).
Other points to keep in mind when creating a story, are the theme of the story and how is the story deployed in the customer service experience (Paloniemi 2019c).
How does the storytelling connect to our studies, though?
Our marketing course, as well as our other courses for this spring semester, are connected to a project commissioned by PowerCup 2019 and Visit Ranua. Our task for the project is to design a pop-up service, market it and implement it in the PowerCup event.
Our marketing course, as well as our other courses for this spring semester, are connected to a project commissioned by PowerCup 2019 and Visit Ranua. Our task for the project is to design a pop-up service, market it and implement it in the PowerCup event.
We will not yet reveal what our pop-up service is, but for our service, we are using a Finnish book called “Jussan ja Nessin Seikkailupolku” as a background story.
We are still in the process of thinking how to properly connect the story to our service and how to possibly continue the story to make our service more memorable to the PowerCup and Ranua visitors. The knowledge we gained during these first weeks of our Marketing and eCommerce course will certainly help us in this task! 😉
More about our project in future posts! Stay tuned! 😎
We are still in the process of thinking how to properly connect the story to our service and how to possibly continue the story to make our service more memorable to the PowerCup and Ranua visitors. The knowledge we gained during these first weeks of our Marketing and eCommerce course will certainly help us in this task! 😉
More about our project in future posts! Stay tuned! 😎
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| Jussan ja Nessin Seikkailupolku by Reima Mukkala and Marja-Liisa Pitkäranta 1997 |
How to Create an Efficient Marketing Plan?
But how to combine all of the above analysed in an efficient marketing plan?
A very common and easy to use planning system is SOSTAC. We got introduced to this system in our pre-reading material, i.e. Digital Marketing Excellence by Chaffey and Smith (2017).
You can have an overview of SOSTAC and how to implement it in this video by PR Smith.
During one of our lectures we got the task to analyse a business and its marketing within smaller groups by using the SOSTAC model, and so understand better its role in planning business and marketing strategies.
For instance, Isa and her small group chose to analyse the case of Dash Lapland, which is the external project Isa is working for.
This analysis brought to the definition of the current Situation for Dash Lapland - the northernmost design hackathon in the world -, the Objectives to achieve, through which Strategy, Tactics and Actions and how to Control all of these.
Through the SOSTAC analysis Isa and her group realised that Dash Lapland was/is very active in its marketing and has a defined strategy for that, but the message sent is not so often received correctly - if received at all - by the target group.
This leads us to mention once again the importance of knowing your target market and their behaviour - as described in the previous sections - and base the messages to send and the channels to use on this, in order to establish an efficient marketing plan.
In fact, the messages need to be carefully thought of and placed. Their content must be relevant, since "Content is King" as Bill Gates stated in 1996.
Content marketing is crucial for an efficient marketing plan, having the power of changing and enhancing customer behaviour. Indeed, by delivering consistent and ongoing valuable information to customers and prospects, they will eventually reward the business with their loyalty and actions.(Paloniemi 2019b.)
You can check out 5 reasons why content is the king, to understand better its importance for the efficiency of a marketing plan.
A very common and easy to use planning system is SOSTAC. We got introduced to this system in our pre-reading material, i.e. Digital Marketing Excellence by Chaffey and Smith (2017).
You can have an overview of SOSTAC and how to implement it in this video by PR Smith.
During one of our lectures we got the task to analyse a business and its marketing within smaller groups by using the SOSTAC model, and so understand better its role in planning business and marketing strategies.
For instance, Isa and her small group chose to analyse the case of Dash Lapland, which is the external project Isa is working for.
This analysis brought to the definition of the current Situation for Dash Lapland - the northernmost design hackathon in the world -, the Objectives to achieve, through which Strategy, Tactics and Actions and how to Control all of these.
Through the SOSTAC analysis Isa and her group realised that Dash Lapland was/is very active in its marketing and has a defined strategy for that, but the message sent is not so often received correctly - if received at all - by the target group.
This leads us to mention once again the importance of knowing your target market and their behaviour - as described in the previous sections - and base the messages to send and the channels to use on this, in order to establish an efficient marketing plan.
In fact, the messages need to be carefully thought of and placed. Their content must be relevant, since "Content is King" as Bill Gates stated in 1996.
 |
| Quote by Bill Gates |
Content marketing is crucial for an efficient marketing plan, having the power of changing and enhancing customer behaviour. Indeed, by delivering consistent and ongoing valuable information to customers and prospects, they will eventually reward the business with their loyalty and actions.(Paloniemi 2019b.)
You can check out 5 reasons why content is the king, to understand better its importance for the efficiency of a marketing plan.
What did we Learn by Writing a Reaction Paper
In the beginning of our Marketing and eCommerce course, we have been assigned to choose between some course-topic related reading materials and analyse them individually through a reaction paper.
Here, as our final topic for today, you can find what each of us blogging here has learnt from reading the material and writing the reaction paper.
Isa
I chose "The Smart Event Marketing Playbook" by Bizzabo, which acts as a guidebook for creating and implementing a successful multi-channel event marketing strategy, starting from an outline of Event Marketing basics all the way to getting to know your audience, creating a brand and marketing your contents through various channels and means - the 3 main points already mentioned in this post as the milestones of Marketing.
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| The Smart Event Marketing Playbook by Bizzabo |
I chose this text, since I regard it as relevant for my studies and external projects I am currently involved in.
As regards the Marketing and eCommerce study unit themes, the text gives an easy to understand and example-rich insight in modern Event Marketing. This turned out really useful to me in order to get a big picture of the contents of the study unit and start getting more familiar with them.
Moreover, as regards my personal learning objectives, reflecting the contents I read in a reaction paper made me realise how to improve the marketing actions I am already using when marketing university course related or project related contents.
Mira
For my reaction paper material I chose the ebook "The Marketer's Crash Course in Visual Content Creation", which was published by Hubspot.
The eBook is about visual content creation for marketing. The meaning of visual communication to marketers, the struggles of creating visual content, types of visual content, 10 commandments of DIY design and information about different tools to help visual content creation on a budget are introduced in the book.
I chose this material because personally, when seeing visual marketing content in comparison to just mere text, I pay a lot of attention to the designs and content of the ads. The book also gave me many useful tips, since I have an interest in visual content creation.
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| The Marketer's Crash Course in Visual Content Creation by Hubspot |
The eBook is about visual content creation for marketing. The meaning of visual communication to marketers, the struggles of creating visual content, types of visual content, 10 commandments of DIY design and information about different tools to help visual content creation on a budget are introduced in the book.
I chose this material because personally, when seeing visual marketing content in comparison to just mere text, I pay a lot of attention to the designs and content of the ads. The book also gave me many useful tips, since I have an interest in visual content creation.
Boris
I chose to read "Event Marketing 2.0 How to Boost Attendance Through Social Media" by Cvent for my reaction paper.
I ended up picking this ebook because I, as many other people, spend a lot of my time in social media and this title just caught my eye. I also chose it because I am interested in how to do proper event marketing in social media and this ebook helped me to understand more about "The Big Four" and how to create a good marketing strategy.
"The Big Four" are, as you can guess, the biggest social media channels: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn. This ebook explains in a detailed way how to operate in all four of them and, more precisely, how to market an event in all four channels.
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| Event Marketing 2.0 How to Boost Attendance Through Social Media by Cvent |
I ended up picking this ebook because I, as many other people, spend a lot of my time in social media and this title just caught my eye. I also chose it because I am interested in how to do proper event marketing in social media and this ebook helped me to understand more about "The Big Four" and how to create a good marketing strategy.
"The Big Four" are, as you can guess, the biggest social media channels: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn. This ebook explains in a detailed way how to operate in all four of them and, more precisely, how to market an event in all four channels.
Arnau
As soon as I saw the title "Redefining the Travel Customer Experience" by Thomases H. (2017), I knew it would be interesting to read about the topic.
I always felt myself as an alternative traveler. This has been one of my biggest motivations when I decided to study tourism, in order to learn in depth about different and alternative ways of travelling and "redefining" the idea that most of the people have about tourism.
The text I chose to read explains how fast the travel industry has changed. In the past, when the Internet and browsable webs appeared, the travel industry had changed totally. But also today, due to the mindset of new travelers, it is changing rapidly.
The text treats about why and how the expectations of the travelers are important, about the process of digitalization of customer experiences and about mistakes that should be avoided.
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| Redefining the Travel Customer Experience by Thomases H. |
I always felt myself as an alternative traveler. This has been one of my biggest motivations when I decided to study tourism, in order to learn in depth about different and alternative ways of travelling and "redefining" the idea that most of the people have about tourism.
The text I chose to read explains how fast the travel industry has changed. In the past, when the Internet and browsable webs appeared, the travel industry had changed totally. But also today, due to the mindset of new travelers, it is changing rapidly.
The text treats about why and how the expectations of the travelers are important, about the process of digitalization of customer experiences and about mistakes that should be avoided.
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Bibliography
Hunt, S. D. 1976. The Nature and Scope of Marketing. Journal of Marketing Vol. 40 (3), 17–28. doi:10.2307/1249990
Kalliomäki, A. 2019. Tarinakone. Storification. Accessed 22 March 2019 https://www.tarinakone.fi/en/story-design/.
Kähkönen, O. 2019. Lapland UAS. Lecture. Blogging and Travel Business. 27 February 2019.
Paloniemi, P. 2019a. Lapland UAS. Lecture. Marketing and eCommerce in Tourism. Introduction. 29 February 2019.
Paloniemi, P. 2019b. Lapland UAS. Lecture. Marketing and eCommerce in Tourism. SDL, Contemporary Consumer Patterns and Marketing Channels and Planning. 12 March 2019.
Paloniemi, P. 2019c. Lapland UAS. Lecture. Marketing and eCommerce in Tourism. Customer Experience (CE) Management (CEM) and Storytelling in Marketing. 18 March 2019.
TrackMaven Inc. 2019. Market Segmentation. Accessed 22 March 2019 https://trackmaven.com/marketing-dictionary/market-segmentation/.
Turnsek Hacic, M. 2017. Lapland UAS. Online Lecture. Digital Storytelling.
VisitFinland. 2017. Finpro Segmentation Country Report. Japan. Accessed 22 March 2019 http://www.visitfinland.fi/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/2017-Segmentation-Japan.pdf?dl.
Kalliomäki, A. 2019. Tarinakone. Storification. Accessed 22 March 2019 https://www.tarinakone.fi/en/story-design/.
Kähkönen, O. 2019. Lapland UAS. Lecture. Blogging and Travel Business. 27 February 2019.
Paloniemi, P. 2019a. Lapland UAS. Lecture. Marketing and eCommerce in Tourism. Introduction. 29 February 2019.
Paloniemi, P. 2019b. Lapland UAS. Lecture. Marketing and eCommerce in Tourism. SDL, Contemporary Consumer Patterns and Marketing Channels and Planning. 12 March 2019.
Paloniemi, P. 2019c. Lapland UAS. Lecture. Marketing and eCommerce in Tourism. Customer Experience (CE) Management (CEM) and Storytelling in Marketing. 18 March 2019.
TrackMaven Inc. 2019. Market Segmentation. Accessed 22 March 2019 https://trackmaven.com/marketing-dictionary/market-segmentation/.
Turnsek Hacic, M. 2017. Lapland UAS. Online Lecture. Digital Storytelling.
VisitFinland. 2017. Finpro Segmentation Country Report. Japan. Accessed 22 March 2019 http://www.visitfinland.fi/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/2017-Segmentation-Japan.pdf?dl.
Hi! Nice to read such a throughout information about marketing from one source. Keep up the hard work!
ReplyDeleteHi Marika! Thank you for your nice comment! We are glad you enjoyed reading our post :) Keep following us for more insights in Marketing!
DeleteI like a lot your blog outlook! But this post was extremely long :(
ReplyDeleteHello dear reader!
DeleteWe are happy you like our blog's look and at the same time we are sorry too see that the lenght of the blog was too much for you.
We are studying many topics related to Marketing, trying to explain those in our blog as clear and simple as possible. However, we will consider your constructive comment and work on it in future posts.
I like you use many picture. I can follow the contents well!
ReplyDeleteThank you Hikari! Follow us in our next posts for more visual content as well :)
DeleteYou have done thorough work! Sorry, but it is too long for wanting to read it.
ReplyDeleteHi Marja! We know the lenght of the post might challenge the wish to read it. However, if you are really interested in the contents we provide, I am sure that by reading the whole post it won't seem as long as it seems by just having a quick-look at it. You can also read only the sections you are most curious about :)
DeleteWe will try to keep our next posts shorter though ;)
Great summary of the contents. May be bullet point lists, graphs, etc. would make reading easier. Great how you have followed the commenting and replied fast.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your constructive comment, Outi!
Delete