Business, Marketing, and New Technology
Marketing
Marketing Tricks
Mar 5th
Guest post of the week by Val Flores
Have you ever noticed the little tricks they use to try to get you to buy things? There are so many marketing tricks that prey on our subconscious desires and convince us to buy things we don’t really need. It’s really interesting, if you ask me. I’d love to go into marketing because I’m real interested in psychology and persuasion in general. You’d be surprised to learn the simple little word choices and color choices made, and how they affect us. For example, the words “part of a healthy breakfast.” What they don’t tell you is that healthy breakfast would be healthy enough with or without the poptart they are trying to sell you. Also, every notice the words, “hurry!” and “act now!” Like at expertsatellite, they act like the clock is ticking and there is only a few seconds left to get the deal, pushing you into an impulse buy. Or how about, “tastes like real…” It can trick your mind into thinking they said the product actually contains real fruit, or whatever.
Making Videos is not all that Difficult
Jul 18th
Videos are hands down the greatest way to communicate with your customers. But many people think they are too difficult to attempt. While there is a learning curve, and perhaps a few tools to get as you begin, learning to make videos and get them online is not as hard as you might think.
Here is a video by my friend Simon, with some tips on making a good video. More >
Excessive Packaging – How Much Is Too Much?
Dec 26th
It seems that everything we buy comes in layer after layer of excessive wrap of one kind or another. It’s so unnecessary. It leads to massive amounts of trash, as boxes, and plastic bubble wrap, and papers, and shrink-wrap, and twist-ties, etc, etc, are carted off, filling our landfills. There are studies that indicate that as much as ½ of all household trash is made up of the excess wrap and packaging that just sort of *came with* the latest purchase.
Christmas, with it’s accompanying consumer gush, always makes me acutely aware of this problem. I try to be aware, and choose the least packaging (when there’s a choice), but still, the mountain of trash that hit the garbage today reminded me that perhaps even better choices could have been made. In addition to the regular packaging, there is all that Christmas paper wrap that we put additionally on the outside of everything.
One thing that I do feel good about is our new cloth DVD “wrappers.” Since CD’s and DVD’s (music, movies, games) have been a staple of our Christmas diet for years, I bought some truly delightful pre-made wrapping for them. They are like little cloth envelopes, in bright green and red colors, and come with an attached ribbon, so all you have to do is slip the CD inside, tie the ribbon, and Voila! All wrapped!
And the best part is, they are totally recyclable! We use them year after year after year. Now, that’s an improvement over trash, don’t you think?
TV Advertising Loses Its Grip, Thank Goodness
Dec 22nd
For the first time, in 2010, many people heard the words, and were introduced to “Internet TV” for the first time. Although savvy people could see it coming, there was quite a buzz all over the web about GoogleTV, Boxee Box, and iTV, as well as others. It goes without saying that the ability to access the internet from your TV is going to completely transform television as we know it, (or as we knew it). It will have a dramatic effect on the way content is presented and consumed, with the watcher having much more control and input into what content is desired, and when.
The interactivity of Internet TV will also disrupt the way that traditional TV advertising ahs been done. No longer will we be subjected to commercials every 7 minutes, but will have greater option in deciding what kinds of advertisements we’re willing to tolerate.
TV used to be the #1 source of home entertainment, but now Americans spend at least as much time using the Internet as they do watching TV, and probably more. Many are multi-tasking and doing both. I, for one, love to have my laptop handy, to check on something , or find out further facts about something new that I just saw via the TV. I used to grab a dictionary to look up words, and now I just google.
Being able to tweet about what you’re watching or update FaceBook at the same time is what young users are doing anyway, and the integration of TV and monitor screen is a no-brainer for the younger generation. TV’s will not go away, they will simply become integrated into the web experience, and 2010 will be the year it happens