Blog #1: Global Marketplace: The Strategy, Exposure and Traffic

As an MBA student I think it is important to constantly learn the new strategies businesses use to engage their customers. One concept that I consider very important is search engine marketing and its importance. Search engines are Web-based programs that index the Web and allow people to find what they are looking for (Stokes 2013). We all use at least one of the following examples of search engines: Google, Yahoo!, Bing, Ask, and Aol. There are several other search engines and can be classified in: all-purpose search engines, business, games, job, legal, maps, medical, news, and so forth. To find the complete list you could visit The Search Engine List. Search engine marketing (SEM) is often used to describe acts associated with researching, submitting and positioning a Web site within search engines to achieve maximum exposure of your Web site. SEM includes things such as search engine optimization (SEO), paid listings and other search-engine related services and functions that will increase exposure and traffic to your Web site (Webopedia, 2014). SEM seems extremely important and useful in this global marketplace where everyone wants to promote and engage their current and possible customers. We are in an era where we are all interconnected, and information is at the tip of our fingers. For companies that want to have that competitive edge and get higher exposure paying attention in SEM could be the way to reach their goals. But, how can small businesses and entrepreneurs take advantage of what SEM has to offer? How much knowledge in websites, programming, and marketing do you need to have in order to use this tool? Is it really available to everyone or just people who either have the knowledge, or have the money to invest in this?

 Source: Redfoxuniverse.org

Another concept I found interesting was the new 4 P’s. The 4 P’s is usually associated to product, price, place and promotion, and as MBA students we have learn that extensively in the past. Idris Mootee’s “new 4 P’s of marketing” model was proposed as a supplement to the original marketing mix concept in order to accommodate the emergent Web 2.0 phase of the Internet (Kimmel, 2010).  These new marketing mix elements are personalization, participation, peer-to-peer communities and predictive modeling. Personalization basically refers to the customization of the services or products using as the main tool the Internet. Participation refers to the different channels or ways customers can interact and be involved with the brand or company (Kimmel, 2010). Peer-to-peer communities has to do with customer participation and true engagement, that can be achieve through social networks and brand communities as part of a long-term strategy (Stokes, 2013). The last one is predictive modeling entails neural network algorithms that marketers have begun to apply to marketing related problems (Kimmel, 2010). This concept is very relevant to our fast-paced environment where technology is a main tool not only for customers, but for businesses that need reliable information to meet customers’ needs by customization, and also to engage clients who are more likely to consider online sources to evaluate their alternatives when looking to buy products/services. The concern in this, at least in my opinion, is that all the information gathered needs to be interpreted and there are always different ways to analyze something. So, a company that uses this concept, needs to clearly understand what it stands for, what is it looking for by using this approach, what is its target, and how is it going to avoid misinterpretation of the information gathered.

  Source: RedFoxUniverse.com

Session 1 has allowed me to understand a little bit better why it is so important to embrace technology and adapt to the different trends to succeed. I now know how online advertising works, why it is important for marketers, how data is collected, and also how my searches are manipulated by companies that pay to appear at the top of the search results, and also why some small businesses and companies do not appear in the first pages of results. It depends on many factors, and if a business is not well known, and does not have enough traffic then it will not be as visible as others. I think that by learning all these terms and strategies I will be able to help our client to optimize her presence in the web. She has amazing products, and people should know about her offerings.

I must admit that having no background on this area and it is challenging to understand how online advertisement works and all the kind-of-technical terms but is very rewarding to be learn things like this that are going to be very helpful whenever I am in a job or for my own business. I am looking forward to learn about how Google+ and AdWords work and the techniques been used by social media networks like Facebook to compete with search engines. 

Sources:

Kimmel, A. J. (2010). Connecting with consumers: Marketing for new marketplace realities. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Quinstreet Enterprise (2014). What is SEM? - A Word Definition From the Webopedia Computer Dictionary. Retrieved January 18, 2014, from http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/S/SEM.html

Red Fox Universe (2013). Importance Of Search Engine Marketing | RED FOX UNIVERSE. Retrieved from http://redfoxuniverse.org/?p=732

Stokes, R. (2013). eMarketing: The essential guide to online marketing. (Vol. 1). Washington DC: Flat World Knowledge. Retrieved from http://catalog.flatworldknowledge.com/bookhub/reader/19?cid=1515571 

The Search Engine List | Comprehensive list of Search Engines. (2010). Retrieved from http://www.thesearchenginelist.com/