Week 13A: Similar Businesses

The five businesses I choose to follow that are similar to mine are: Hansen Surfboards, Billabong,  Surfer, Stab Magazine, and Hurley. Theses are all companies involved in the surf industry, which is important for me to see how these businesses use  their social media.

To me all of these companies do a great job on their social sites, but thats mainly because I love the information they constantly post and I enjoy hearing the news that each of  them share daily.

Billabong and Hurley are two huge companies in the surf industry today and are very successful. In my opinion, part of that success comes from the constant aesthetically pleasing photos/videos that are posted. They both provide many photos of team riders that countless people admire, including myself. In doing this they also post shots of the product and people wearing the product that draw the viewer in.

Hansen Surfboards is defiantly the most similar business to my hypothetical one, since its also a local Encinitas surf shop. They gain all the local followers by posting constant topics about the community or people that they sponsor in the community. While they mainly market to local people of Encinitas, they also gain tons of crowds in the summer and they provide a ton of insights to what the shop is like through their social media.

Stab Magazine and Surfer are both pretty similar and can be put in the same category as mine. They are more about posting news of the surf world and mainly about the various professional surfers that are out their. They draw consumers in by sharing the newest and best surfing photos/Videos that everyone wants to see.

In todays technological world I most certainly think that social media advertising has kind of taken over traditional ways. I think social media marketing is way more impactful and useful today. Personally, I don't really pay much attention to any billboards or anything anymore and I'm drawn to my phone much more often.

Week 12B

1. Coupon Networks

I think the way I would incorporate a coupon into my business would be through my newsletter system. By doing this I will get people to come to the shop and to also open more of my emails that get sent out. I would start off by creating a basic 15% off any purchase (In store only). This would hopefully encourage people to use the coupon and make their way to the shop. Personally when I see any kind of coupon it gives me the extra push I need to make a purchase. The only downfall I could see it possibly losing a little bit of money at first, but the way I see it is that people will then purchase more items just because they got their 15% off.

2. Yelp 

By searching through some other surf shop yelp reviews and other local businesses around here, I found that a lot of people do have nice things to say but more often than not people are complaining. While people may give you a 4/5 or a 5/5 they still might rant about something that they didn't enjoy. This could help your company improve but also it could hold other people back just by reading a couple bad reviews. Overall this is a good way for the customers to locate the shop and to learn a little bit about what it's like. 

Week 12A

I believe the four online marketing tools that could benefit my business as of right now would be Yelp, Groupon, living social and Google Maps.

Yelp
This is always a good way to get feedback from the community on what you are doing good or what you can improve on. It will allow me to see how the way I am running my company is perceived by others and that way it will be easy to change the things that are going wrong. And by owning a local business this will definitely be something useful in the long run. In the end the only negative part about yelp is that most people only leave a review on there if they have something bad to say about your business, so this can make you look worse than you actually are.

Groupon and Living Social
These two marketing tools could serve as a great way for me to promote special deals or coupons that are available. Living Social is basically all about exposing the consumers to new deals everyday. This would be a nice way to get people into my shop and they are more likely to make other purchases, since they are already there.

Google Maps
This is obviously very important because it tells the consumers where the business is located. Since my business is a Surf Shop, the physical location is very important for people to know. All people would need to do is search my company name and then from there they would get the location, website and any other key information needed.  

Week 11B

Posts I commented on:
Patrick Conahan
Zameer Karim
Brent Reyes

Here is a screenshot of my newsletter:

Week 11A: Email Marketing

Creating a newsletter is for sure an easy marketing tool that will mot take too much effort. They could help educate my target market on what the business is all about and get those thoughts into their heads. In these I could also inform anyone of special offers, sales, or basically any promotion that well benefit the customer. These emails would include where to find any of the product and how to buy it.
 One big part of the email is it allows for you to share all of the online aspects that you business may contain, whether that the website for online shopping or simply any social media site that you have. Its also important that these emails being sent out aren't too boring, it would be necessary for me to include a cool font and some nice looking images with the email being sent out. I would do this in order to catch the eye of anyone who is on the email list.

Week 10B: Categories for my Business

If I were to setup categories to keep my business organized I would have a news section and a product section. In the first part I would include any special news that has a correlation to my business and basically any information that the target market wants to see or hear about. This way people can experience what is going in the industry that my business belongs to. In the product category I would show all of the different product being used, worn or even modeled. Here people can get a better idea of what the company has to offer and see if they are interested.

Being this specific would keep me organized and allow the viewer to find everything with ease.




Blogs I commented on: Michael Fanghella, Sonya Mcarthur, Andrew Sterk

Week 10A: Human Interest

Creating human interest in a business can be very important. Many people can connect to something a lot better if they have a personal experience with the subject and overall it makes a great marketing tool. In order to connect to the viewers on a intimate level you will have to make sure you are using a personalized tone that makes that person feel good. For the business I am using this semester, creating human interests is most certainly something that is beneficial to a company like that. Since the market is somewhat small, having a good vibe and using personal tones towards that amount of people is very important. Appealing to ones emotions can be one of the easiest ways to draw someone into what you are trying to get across. So, when you are advertising your business or product and you get to someones emotions it is very likely they will think about what you are selling more. For most cases using a personal touch is effective but it can sometimes be seen as unprofessional and may not fit every business strategy.