Marketing Story

First of all, the headline of this article is a little harsh, but it reflects a change in Google’s attitude. Back in the day when Google was little more than a bunch of students working in a garage, their informal motto was “don’t be evil”, this led them to resist opportunities that they considered anti consumer.

This has slowly changed and the example of what happened yesterday, when I went to purchase the new G1 phone powered by Google’s new mobile Operating System (OS) Android, is only the latest example of that change.

T-mobile announced that you could buy the G1 out right without signing a two year contract for $399 plus tax rather than at the subsidised price of $179. Well it seems that this is not the case in reality. There seems to have been instructions from the head office to initially only sell it to people signing up to a two year contract.

While I understand that it makes economical sense to tie consumers in to two year contracts, my company, TigerSpike, specialises in creating mobile web site and applications, and it is our company policy that we need to try them out on the handset in order to make sure that they render properly on all handset types. Luke Janssen, CEO of TigerSpike explains why: “When we developed our first application, 5 years ago, we tried to use a handset emulator and it was a disaster. So our experience has taught us that there is no substitute for physical handsets.”

The company currently has over 150 different handsets that our tech team uses to test our sites and apps, and you can imagine that we didn’t get 150 different contracts!

Luckily, after a fair amount of persuasion (and mainly because of the fact that, 2 hours after opening, the T-mobile store where we went had not sold more than 10 of their 70 G1 phones!), we managed to get our hands on one. But even then the guy from the T-mobile store removed the sim card from the pack telling us that as we did not sign up to the contract we did not get a sim with it.

And guess what, we could not use the Android software without a T-mobile sim inside the phone! So after returning to the store they gave us the sim! This whole episode is clearly pointless and only going to irritate consumers.

But that was not the end of our troubles. Once we had a T-mobile chip inside the phone, and in order to use the phone, we had to use a Google mail account. So this seems to be Google’s strategy to impose a Google world on us. But worst of all is that we could not use Wi-Fi to activated the account so we had to borrow a T-mobile sim that was activated from someone in the next door office in order to use her data plan to activate the Google mail account!

Eventually we were able to use our phone. But the fact that Google forces you to use a Gmail account and a T-mobile data plan to set up your phone shows that Google have gone a long way since its “don’t be evil” days setting out to protect the consumer.

Anyway now on to Android, my first impression was that, unlike the iPhone, there is no wow factor. When I first used my iPhone I was immediately hooked. The phone was beautiful, the user experience great and it just felt like it was so far ahead of the market. This was not my first impression of Android.

Having said this there are plenty of really cool features on Android. For example, street view is really cool (but completely pointless) and Shazam (music recognition app) even recognised my weird music tastes. Plus Android allows you to copy and paste text or forward e-mails, a major flaw with the iPhone.

Another cool idea is the bar scanning applications (they allow you to scan the barcode on your mobile phone and search for the best price while in a store). Although we had trouble in finding products that it could recognise (this will be sorted out in the long run) and you have to stay really still for the camera to work, it is a cool idea and it is apps like this that will drive Android in the long run.

The software is easy to use but not very consistent. For example to delete a contact in your address book you have to press and hold the entry and then a delete button appears. While in the alarm clock section, you have to press the alarm once and that takes you to another screen where you get a button to delete the alarm.

As more and more apps come out, Android will become better and better, let’s not forget that this is the first version of Android, which is still a work in progress. Whether we like it or not, Android is here to stay and will be bigger in terms of reach than the iPhone (simply because it will be on several devices).

My colleague, Johnny Makkar, has written more about the problems that you face when you buy an inactivated G1, read more HERE

Also MobiAD published a White Paper explaining what Android was, you can download it HERE

Finally have a look at this video of Sergey Brin and Steve Horowitz explaining about Android  HERE

Marketing story is pleased to introduce a new writer. He is a specialist in the mobile advertising market and has been writing for one of the biggest mobile advertising newsletters for nearly two years.

1) Hi David, could you introduce yourself?

Yes of course, my name is David Holding – Parsons, I was born in England to a French mother and an English Father. I lived in the UK for twenty years, studying at the “Lycee Francais Charles de Gaulle” in London before joining “Euromed Marseille Ecole de Management” in Marseille. After spending 18 months there, I returned to England to do my first internship in a company called “Any Screen Productions”. Then I went to Shanghai on a two year exchange at “Tongji University” in Shanghai. As part of my studies there I am currently doing my second internship, which I am doing in New York with a company called “TigerSpike”.

2) How did you get into mobile?

I got into mobile by a complete coincidence. I hurt my knee playing rugby at the start of my 3rd semester at Euromed. Because I required surgery, I had to change the plans for my first internship and do it in London. And after a few complications with my knee, that forced me to turn down other positions, I came across “Any Screen Productions” and it went from there. So I owe them a lot.

3) Could you introduce your company?

I actually currently work for two companies. I still work on a part time basis for Any Screen Productions (www.anyscreenproductions.com). They are a European strategy and international business development consultancy specialised in the Mobile, Interactive Television and Broadband markets. After I finished my first internship they offered me the chance to keep working for them from China and specifically to research content and write for their newsletter on the mobile advertising industry MobiAD News (www.mobiadnews.com). So it is really thanks to them that I got into mobile.

As I mentioned before I am currently doing my second Internship with TigerSpike (www.tigerspike.com) here in New York. TigerSpike is a new digital services agency specialised in Mobile and Social Media marketing & technology, including Mobile Sites, iPhone & Android Apps, Branded Mobile Applications, Games, Guides, SMS & MMS campaigns and competitions. In addition, they are an awarding winning creator of Social Media Video Sites, UGC and Mobile integration, Facebook apps.

They were formed five years ago in Sydney and have won a host of awards since there. Over the last few years they have opened offices in Auckland, London and New York with planed offices in Singapore and Los Angeles. So they are very much a growing company.

4) What does your job involve on a day to day basis?

Well concerning MobiAD, I receive a huge amount of e-mails from our various sources. I go through them and send a list of the most relevant stories to the editor who selects the ones that I should write up. So I am effectively a journalist specialised in the mobile advertising industry.

At TigerSpike I am involved in two main activities, Business development and Account Management. As we have just opened in New York we are going to a lot of pitches, so I spend a fair amount of time using my knowledge of the industry to help prepare the pitches. The account management part involves running the client campaigns and tweaking them where necessary in order to get the best possible ROI for the client.

5) Could you explain to us what Mobile Advertising is?

Mobile advertising or marketing is an emerging concept, but one that is showing huge potential. In simple terms mobile advertising includes all forms of advertising that is delivered to a mobile device. There are many different ways to deliver advertising on a mobile device from the now common SMS/MMS campaigns to the mobile web to location based services. I am not going to get into it too much detail in this interview but over the next few months, I will cover in my posts the various technologies that are shaping the mobile industry.

6) What are the advantages of mobile advertising over classic advertising like TV, print or online?

There are several main reasons that have led many people to predict a very fruitful future for mobile phone advertising. These are the reach of mobile phones, the responsiveness of mobile marketing campaigns, the targeting capabilities of mobile phone advertising and the ability to reach traditional hard to reach segments like the youth and Hispanic markets via this medium.

On top of this in less developed countries, where people do not have access to the internet, they use the mobile web. According to recent statistics, Indonesia, India and the Philippines are three of the top five countries where mobile banner ads are served.

7) How can the iPhone and Android change the mobile advertising market?

The iPhone has already led to a huge change in the mobile advertising market. It is not so much about the hardware, but the software. The iPhone Operating System (OS) has redefined the market. This has been done by having a simple system that works very well and a mobile web browser that has led to a consumer experience that is a lot closer to what consumers are use to on the internet.

The quality of the web browser means that most brand are coming to ad agencies like the one I work for asking for iPhone specific mobile sites. These sites are more popular with consumers than the ordinary web pages that can also be viewed on the iPhone browser.

On top of this, brands are also asking us to build more and more apps for the iPhone. We are about to sign a deal with a major corporation for multiple iPhone apps. This level of interest would not have happened before the iPhone. Having said that, my opinion is that a lot of companies were caught by surprise by the power of the iPhone and so they are playing catch up. In the long run Apps will still be very popular, but the market will get over this early fashionable period.

However, the biggest proof of the power that the iPhone is having on the mobile advertising market is the fact that all advertising networks are now offering iPhone specific ad formats. These are optimised to give the best consumer experience on the iPhone.

When it comes to Android, it is playing catch up with the iPhone OS, but I believe that in the long run it will have as big of an effect on the mobile advertising industry as the iPhone has had.

In the long run Android will be on more devices than the iPhone OS because of Google’s open policy and providing the OS free of charge. Whereas the iPhone OS will only be available on the iPhone. Another reason for the excitement around Android is that Google changed online advertising so it will be very interesting to see what they do in mobile.

All in all it is a very exciting time in the mobile ad industry, and I can’t wait to get my hands on the first Android phone tomorrow. I promise to write my first article this week end with my initial thoughts on Android… So come back to Marketing Story next week to see what I think of it!!!

8) What do you think is the potential for mobile in the current economical climate?

I personally think that the current economical crisis is a good thing for the mobile advertising industry. As brands tighten their belts, they are going to have to start thinking outside the box in order to get better ROI and not just stick with what they know. This is where mobile comes in, a well thought out and executed mobile campaign will nearly always get better results than TV, print or Online media.

Also the budgets in mobile are a lot smaller than that of print or TV advertising, so if one is looking to save money, mobile is not the first place to look at.

Thank you for your time David and see you soon on Marketing Story.

If you want to find out more about mobile advertising you can subscribe to the free newsletter that David writes for: http://www.mobiadnews.com/

Un témoignage de Vincent, Account Manager dans la logistique. Un secteur qui explose en Chine et rempli d’opportunités. Vincent nous décrit son travail comme un fournisseur de solutions pour ses clients. Ce qui est une très bonne définition de la vente B2B.

1. Hi vincent, could you introduce yourself and your company please?

My name is Vincent and I live in Shanghai for 4 years. I got a Master Degree in International Trade in ESG Paris and studied chinese in Tongji University. After spent 1 year in a local transportation company, I work for 2 years with an international forwarder in Contract Logistics dept. My job is focus on business development and create warehouse solution for retail customers.

2. Why did you choose to work in the sales field?

I was always interested and fascinated by logistics and transportation business. Understand each step of the transportation flow.
Especially in China where the transportation market is not mature, it’s sometimes a challenge to deliver goods to west part of China.

3. What are the things you like in your job?

Logistics and transportation are linked with many areas such as customs clearance, import / export procedures, solution engineering, security system….  According to my customers needs, I have the opportunity to learn new business model and setup the right solution to answer to their requirements.

4. What are the points you don’t like?

The points I like and don’t like are actually the same. My sales activity is mainly focus on warehouse for bonded and non-bonded projects. My company is working on big projects and many people need to be involved such as IT, Solution, customs clearance, Security system, Customer service, etc…
As Sales I understand the whole logistics process but it’s difficult to be a specialist on one specific topic.

5. Do you want to do your career in sales or are you thinking about change your working area?

I would like to develop my knowledge in logistics field and after few years work with a retail company as Operation mng.

6. could you give some advices for students who would like to begin them career in sales?

Even if sales process is different according to the industry our common point is relationship. Good relationship is a key to get business. Keep good contact with previous schoolmate, colleague, even competitor.
To be reactive and understand customer requirement is also a key.

Thank you Vincent.

• The pricing strategy:

Most Chinese consumers are sensitive to price and will usually choose less expensive products.
In China, price competition is the practice most frequently employed by enterprises to compete for market share.

Many Chinese companies believe in the strategy of low profit margin and volume sales based on the assumption that lower price will increase the speed of turnover and eventually generate higher profit.
While the low-price strategy is widely adopted, some marketers use a high-price strategy, taking advantage of the conventional wisdom that pian yi wu hao huo (cheap is no good) and yi fen qian yi fen huo (each additional cent paid is associated with additional value).
Foreign branded products or imported products are generally high priced and perceived as superior products*.

It is interesting to observe the unique characteristics of psychological pricing practices in China, which go beyond simple considerations. Some Chinese people have a superstitious belief in lucky numbers and marketers price their products in such a way that the numbers denote good luck.
For example, a piece of furniture may be priced at 1199 to indicate chang chang jiu jiu (long and lasting), or 4451 meaning shi shi ru yi (everything is as you wish).

• The sales and negotiation practices:

The old days when products were produced and allocated according to government plans have gone.
Companies have to rely on their own marketing teams to now face multiple choices of ways to market their products, including direct and indirect marketing.
Direct selling used to be commonly exercised by both domestic and foreign firms in China.
Unfortunately, criminal exploitations and abuses of this system such as price frauds, sales of fake and smuggled products, seriously affected the interests of the consumers and the normal economic order and lead the Chinese government to issue a ban on direct selling.
Recently, direct marketing tools such as telemarketing, TV sales and internet marketing, are relatively new to Chinese consumers and have not yet proved to be very successful.
Indirect marketing channels are all used in China where there are over 1.36 million wholesalers and nearly 14 million retailers of consumer products.

Manufacturing enterprises are using diversified channels of distribution to get their products to the consumers.

Foreign managers easily agree that negotiating a contract with Chinese is definitely not the same as in the West. Moreover, Chinese negotiators are now behaving much more like their Western counterparts.
Negotiations tactics most often used by Westerners are cooperation (win-win situation) and defensiveness (standing firm) while, the negotiating style of Chinese are cooperation and sudden demands or changes*.
This confirmed that China representatives are tough negotiators.

• Advertising practices:

Many Chinese enterprises believe that advertising will automatically generate sales*.
A recent example is the exorbitant advertising expenditure of Qinchi Liquor, who spent US$38.55 million for prime time advertising on CCTV (China Central Television), but failed to increase its sales*.
Advertising theory seems to be unfamiliar to most local advertising decision-makers. For many years, most advertising dollars have gone to television media, as they are seen as the most effective channels of communication to create product awareness among potential consumers in China.
The lack of reliable ratings data is another problem that makes it difficult for advertisers to make decisions and evaluate the effectiveness of their advertising efforts.

• Promotion practices:

Both retailers and producers use consumer oriented promotion techniques.
These practices range from coupons, premiums and deals to prizes, lucky draws, and contests.
Obviously, these practices reflect the level of intensity in consumer market competition. When employing promotion techniques, it is important to develop appropriate consumer insights, which are extremely critical in a market that is large in territory, diverse in consumer preferences across regions.

Some research results have indicated that consumers are pragmatic in their attitudes toward promotion exercises. Buy one and get one free, price reduction or discount, discount coupons and premiums seem to be favored by consumers.
However, marketers need to be very careful when designing promotion strategies and extreme situations should to be taken into consideration.
The practice of free product offers has caused chaos in some instances when unexpected numbers of people come to claim free products that could not be supplied.

• Influences on Brand Building:

The lack of well-known brands may be one of the weaknesses of Chinese manufacturers.
The government is actively promoting national brands to drive domestic consumption and home grown businesses but the majority has not yet made much progress in breaking away from the images of a local brand. Some brands have established national recognition, like TCL, which is now one of the world’s largest mobile phones manufacturers.
Local marketers have a tendency, as they do with numbers, to favor brand names that convey luck, happiness, longevity and prosperity. While some local marketers are trying to use brand names that have a foreign touch, foreign marketers are struggling to find a proper Chinese name for their brands.
Indeed, it is often very difficult to translate a western brand name into Chinese. Ideally, a brand should both have phonetic similarity and good meaning.
A classical example of this is Coca-Cola, which is phonetically translated as Ke Kou Ke Le with the meanings of “deliciously enjoyable” and “bringing about happy laughter”.
Brands such as Philips, Nokia, or Sony, recognizing the difficulties in translating their brand, avoided the effort of associating the name with any particular Chinese meaning and successfully established brand recognition.

* Doing Business with China, Fifth Edition, Global Market Briefings (GMB Publishing Ltd), June 2005
* Stewart & Keown, Talking with the Dragon: Negotiating in the People’s Republic of China, Colombia Journal of World Business, 1989
* Advertisers on spending spree, http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/en/doc/2003-11/19/content_282852.htm

Thomas works as Analyst in L’Atelier Shanghai and he is going to share with us his experience:

1. Hi Thomas could you introduce yourself and your company please?

My name is Thomas and I m working as an analyst for L’Atelier BNP Paribas.

What is L’ Atelier BNP Paribas in few words?
L ‘Atelier is a company of the French bank BNP Paribas and it became a world wide reference in new technology intelligence. Created 30 years ago, L’Atelier BNP Paribas has received more than  15 000  start ups and leaders acting in IT technologies. Based in Paris, L’Atelier BNP Paribas develops two international branches, one in San Fransisco and a new one in Shanghai.

In his job, L’Atelier BNP Paribas Asia is making consulting  for French companies according new internet and mobile technologies growing up and growing fast in the Chinese market, but also Japan, Korea and India. L’Atelier BNP Paribas helps companies in anticipating market evolutions and in taking strong leadership position on the market place.

2. Why did you choose to work as analyst?

Working as an analyst gives wide view of the market evolution and technologies growing up. It’s the best way to feels the market changes and follow the big moves of our futur consumption in terms of technologies. It is a good exercice trying to sum up, understand and explain what are the presents and futurs technologies which lead our life in few years.

3. What are the things you like in your job?

Looking the futur and being in contact withproducts and technologies who will change our life and habits in the futur. Dealing with some products always changing and evolving is really exiting in my daily work.

4. What are the points you don’t like?

For the first years, working as an analyst is mainly an indoor job. It means that your main actions and work are made by yourself in front of your computer. Client management or customer relationship is not very present in this job and it could be not very challenging.

5. What is the career progression in the analyst area?

Caerer progression depends on the market, the product or even the company your are working for. The common evolution is to become a specialist in a certain technology or product. As soon as you are a specialist, a full range of evolutions are possible and very valuable.

6. could you give some advices for students who would like to begin their career as analyst?

Working as an analyst is very interesting. You learn and discover a lot of things and few months are enough for having a really good background and valuable knowledges. On the other side, you must choose a subject or a working area you feel comfortable.

Thank you for this interesting feedback Thomas.

La vente est un métier qui apporte de grandes satisfactions :
Lorsqu’après un mois de négociation le client signe, le sentiment d’avoir bien fait son travail est immédiat.
Les relations entre le client et le commercial sont souvent agréables et permettent de rencontrer des gens intéressants.
C’est un métier de terrain qui convient parfaitement aux personnes qui ne supportent pas être dans un bureau en face d’un écran toute la semaine.

Et éventuellement, il peut être très valorisant au niveau du salaire si vous êtes un rainmaker (un des meilleures vendeur de la compagnie).

La finance est le deuxième pôle que choisissent les étudiants après l’ école de commerce. Voici un témoignage d’Alexandre, contrôleur de gestion qui participe à Marketing Story.

A testimony from a Financial Controller, Alexandre, to have a better understanding of this job.

1. Hi Alex, could you describe your job please?

As a financial controller, I am part of a team responsible for monitoring profitability with regards to operating costs and sales. On the one hand, we have the large responsibility of drafting several budgets every year by allocating cash to the business — at hand and future cash flow coming from revenue — and making sure that sales objectives are met.

On the other hand, we are referred to in many transverse operations such as the launch of new products to make sure the decision is profitable with regards to company and regional standards, a change of distributor to forecast the added value of the operation, advice on product mix. The work requires an extensive use of spreadsheets, a financial database and time on the phone. Meetings are necessary on a regular basis, especially with your boss, because the job is very technical and there is a lot of backdrop information to be aware of and tit for tat decision making know how that has to be learned. Conference calls with colleagues from other offices worldwide are also held. Nevertheless, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that the responsibilities of a financial controller drastically vary depending on the industry or Company you work in, so it makes it difficult to give a precise general definition of what a financial controller does.

What I talked about goes especially for my position within a very large French international firm in the beverages industry. In French, financial controlling is known as “contrôle de gestion”, wich means just about anything — or nothing.

2. Why did you choose to work in the finance field?

A decided to pursue a Master of Finance because it opens many opportunities in many different fields, wether banking, consulting or the corporate world, which I am working in right now. Generally speaking, finance gives you tools and a solid knowledge of how a company works and sustains itself.

I do not necessarily project to do financial controlling in the long haul, but when I had the opportunity to do this during a gap year spent in China, just before completing my Master’s, I knew it was a valuable experience. Whatever you do, it is good to have basic financial knowledge and skills. Financial controlling gives you solid analysis and quantitative skills.

3. What are the things you like in your job?

What I enjoy the most in my current position is the transverse work I have to do. We have many different tasks and responsibilities, which means that we liaise with many different departments of the company, including many different controlling departments. We get a good picture of what is going on in the company. We really work topline to bottom line on the P&L which really gives us a global approach on the evolution of the financial structure of sales. Furthermore, I really enjoy the international environment of my work.

On a daily basis, I have to liaise with the headquarters in France, zone managers in South East Asia, Australia, Africa, Central and South America etc. This gives you a good picture on what is driving the business. The figures we deal with really mean something. That objectivity forces you to go in depth with your analysis, decipher trends and try to explain what is going on. For instance, the recently was a strike in the ports in France. That affected our business and we had to identify the level of impact.

4. What are the points you don’t like?

Sometimes it can seem repetitive, but the business changes and so do the requests so things are never exactly always the same either.

5. Do you want to do your career in finance or are you thinking about change your working area?

I want to work in finance for a while, then anything can happen.

6. Could you give some advices for students who would like to begin them career in finance?

Finance is a very broad field. There are many different jobs. From financial auditing to investment banking, the jobs are very different, and the profile of people as well.

Make sure you know why you want to work in finance. I think that if your interested in working in the large international firms and working on budgets, product pricing and cost controlling, financial controlling is a solid position for that. However, whatever field you choose in finance, you have to be ready to work long hours, under pressure and have lots of initiative in dealing with your responsibilities. You need to be comfortable with quantitative analysis and have solid numerical skills but don’t need a PhD in Mathematics to be an excellent financial controller either. Before anything else, reasoning, attention and asking the right questions are the key to succeeding in finance.

Thank you for your time Alexandre

A good article about advertisement on Facebook and relating to my last articles. Written by Tessa Wegert from the blog ClickZ:

Regardless of how much or how little you’re currently involving Facebook in your client’s marketing campaigns, you’re sure to feel it’s important to stay on top of this colossal online media trend. As you do so, here’s some food for thought. The barriers to entry for advertisers to begin experimenting with Facebook are numerous simply because the space is so alive with activity that it’s rapidly evolving. So, too, are the value of its media opportunities and users’ perceptions of them.

The most prominent example of this is Facebook Applications. Companies began developing these for use on the site when the new Facebook Platform launched a year ago. Over 20,000 applications have since been created, with 140 new ones being launched every day.

Needless to say if you didn’t get in on this marketing opportunity early, you may have missed the boat. Marketers continue to develop Facebook apps, some of which work and some of which don’t. Overall, though, Facebook is pretty well saturated on this front. Coming up with a unique application that represents your client’s business while offering an entertaining experience at this point in the game will be a significant challenge not without its branding and financial risks.

How, then, can advertisers find success on this site? One way is through Facebook Pages.

These branded pages that live within Facebook are the next generation of the Web sites businesses have established to represent themselves online. The Facebook Pages can be replicas of existing product or corporate sites or new destinations; either way, they’re a place where Facebook users — your client’s target audience among them — can interact with a company’s brand or cause; share their opinions on its products and services, share their points of view; and show their affinity by becoming a fan of a Page for all of their Facebook friends to see.

Facebook hosts Facebook Pages for businesses free of charge. While the advertiser is responsible for developing a page’s look and feel using Facebook’s automated development application, Facebook’s own development team is generally eager to help. This might include recommending the incorporation of videos, photo albums, and promotional materials that embody your client’s brand.

Like standard Facebook user profile pages, Facebook Pages include a Wall where site users can post opinions and discuss topical issues. This can be an invaluable resource for harvesting customer feedback and gauging reactions to new products. Through Facebook Pages, businesses can also communicate with fans by sending them news updates, special offers, and exclusive product information, all through the Facebook site and without the burden of e-mail campaign management and deployment costs.

Facebook Pages aren’t unlike corporate blogs and other interactive social mediums in that they straddle the positive and the negative. While they allow businesses to demonstrate the value they place on their customers by inviting interaction in an informal setting, they put companies in a vulnerable position where they’re required to give up some control of how their brand is presented and received. They’re snorkeling in open water, so to speak. If they’re lucky, they’ll be visited by some kindly clownfish, but they could just as easily fall victim to the sharks.

Just ask Paramount Pictures, which has had to take the good with the bad for its recently launched Facebook Page promoting “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.” With nearly 70,000 fans to date, however, a few bad reviews likely aren’t enough to have the company experiencing Page remorse.

Perhaps the best aspect of Facebook Pages, and that which makes them most relevant to media buyers, is they can be treated like any other client Web page and promoted in a very similar way. Once this marketing effort is developed, planners can purchase some pretty interesting media from Facebook to drive internal traffic and boost Page membership and presence.

Marketing Alltop is a very interesting website: it displays the headlines of the latest stories from dozens of sites and blogs which speak about Marketing.

Have a look to be aware of the last marketing trends in the US.