Glossary – SOSTAC

The SOSTAC is a marketing model, a way to set up a digital marketing strategy. It was created by PR. Smith in 1990 and formalized in 2004 with  his book “Strategic Marketing Communications”.

It stands for: Situation analysis, Objectives, Strategy, Tactis, Actions and Control.

SOSTAC is an extension of the SWOT analysis. The main difference is that SOSTAC is more focused in the implementation stages of the process and on marketing communications.

The six steps inside SOSTAC are:

1. Situation analysis: asses were a business is precently. It is an analysis about the customer (their characteristics, behaviors, needs, wants, personality, values, attitudes, interests, hobbies, lifestyle, etc.), the market, competitors (benchmark), intermediaries, influencers, potencial partners, wider macro enviroment (PESTEL) OVP (online value proposition) and a SWOT analysis.
2. Objectives: sets the mission or goals for the business. What do we want? (sell, serve, talk, save and impact) and goals (they have to be SMART: specific, mesurable, achivable, realistic and in time. And they have to RACE: rech, act, converse and engage).
3. Strategy: is an overview of how to achive the objectives. It neds a segmentation of the audience, positioning comparing to the competitors, do a brand strategy and create a digital stratgey (with a digital channel and the companies social media platforms) to reach to the audience, make them act, convert them to the brand and engage them.
4. Tactics: are the detailed approach of how to achieve the business goal, how to get to that goal. We can get there by marketing mix, including the communications mix and social networking.
5. Actions: are used to determinate who does what and when. They are the details og tactics. Is important to determinate which actions are we going to take making the difference between the internal and the external ones. And it has to be followed by systems and processes made to do corretly the actions.
6. Control: establishes how the process is monitored. It consists on, for example, tracking the visits on the website, to know where are they from. The website can be motorized by web analytics, with KPI (keep performance indicator), customer satisfaction surveys, frequency of reporting, usability testing and mystery shopping.

GLOSSARY: SOCIAL MEDIA

Social media is the collective of online communications channels dedicated to community-based input, interaction, content-sharing and collaboration. Is becoming an integral part of life online as social websites and applications proliferate. Most traditional online media include social components, such as comment fields for users. In business, social media is used to market products, promote brands, connect to current customers and foster new business.

The “social” part: refers to interacting with other people by sharing information with them and receiving information from them.

The “media” part: refers to an instrument of communication, like the internet (while TV, radio, and newspapers are examples of more traditional forms of media).

There are some common features:

• Social media are interactive Web 2.0 Internet-based applications.
• User-generated content, such as text posts or comments, digital photos or videos, and data generated through all online interactions, are the lifeblood of social media.
• Users create service-specific profiles for the website or app that are designed and maintained by the social media organization.
• Social media facilitate the development of online social networks by connecting a user’s profile with those of other individuals or groups.

We have to main roles that look after Social Media :

• The first one is a Social Media Manager; is responsible for being the brand on social media. They create content, respond to comments, answer questions, and much more as the brand. Social media managers, more often than not, deal with people who have a relationship with, or have heard of, the brand.

• The other one is Community Manager; is responsible for advocating the brand on social networks. They create their own social persona and actively go out within the online community to connect with potential customers and advocate the brand. Community managers typically deal with those who haven’t heard of the business they work for and boost awareness for the company.

The term social media is usually used to describe social networking sites such as:

• Facebook: an online social networking site that allows users to create their personal profiles, share photos and videos, and communicate with other user.
• Twitter: an internet service that allows users to post “tweets” for their followers to see updates in real-time.
• LinkedIn: a networking website for the business community that allows users to create professional profiles, post resumes, and communicate with other professionals and job-seekers.
• Pinterest: an online community that allows users to display photos of items found on the web by “pinning” them and sharing ideas with others.
• Snapchat: an app for mobile devices that allows users to send and share photos of themselves doing their daily activities.

The most popular nowadays ( Last Updated October 1, 2016 ) are :

1. Facebook : 1,100,000,000 – Estimated Unique Monthly Visitors
2. Yotube : 1,000,000,000 – Estimated Unique Monthly Visitors
3. Twitter : 310,000,000 – Estimated Unique Monthly Visitors
4. Linkedin : 255,000,000 – Estimated Unique Monthly Visitors
5. Pinterest : 250,000,000 – Estimated Unique Monthly Visitors
6. Google Plus + : 120,000,000 – Estimated Unique Monthly Visitors
7. Tumblr : 110,000,000 – Estimated Unique Monthly Visitors
8. Instagram : 100,000,000 – Estimated Unique Monthly Visitors
9. Reddit : 85,000,000 – Estimated Unique Monthly Visitors
10. VK : 80,000,000 – Estimated Unique Monthly Visitors

Glossary: Browsers

What it is? 

Is a software application for retrieving, presenting and traversing information resources on the Word WIDE Web.

What is its purpose? 

Bring information resources to the user (“retrieval” or “fetching”), allowing them to view the information (“display”, “rendering”), and then access other information (“navigation”, “following links”).

 

 

Features 

Available web browsers range in features from minimal, text-based user interfaces with bare-bones support for HTML to rich user interfaces supporting a wide variety of file formats and protocols.

 

Sources 

https://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,1815833,00.asp

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_browser

https://www.pagecloud.com/browsers

 

 

 

Glossary: Insight

What does insight mean?

The word ‘insight’ is one of the most commonly used terms in today’s marketing, but what it really means? Why is it so important?

The strict definition of the term is the capacity to gain an accurate and deep understanding of someone or something. Applied to marketing, however, it goes a step further, understanding insight as the key that allows us to find the solution to a problem. Therefore, they are the hidden aspects of the way of thinking, feeling or acting of the consumers that can generate opportunities of new products, strategies or actionable communication for the companies.

These insights are based on perceptions, images or experiences of the consumer related to the brand, so he can feel identified with the proposed message and act accordingly.

Let’s put it in context: From Mass Marketing to Personalized Marketing

Traditional marketing researches involved gathering lots of facts, figures, and statistics to look for trends, but they were actually just scanning the surface of the market. What they did was develop a product and then spend millions trying to convince consumers that product was what they needed.

Nowadays, things have changed. The Internet and social networks have allowed consumers to be interconnected between them. Thus, they have a lot more where to choose and compare, which makes them much more demanding when choosing a product. If we want to be chosen, we will have to offer them something that fits perfectly with what they are looking for and for this we must know exactly what they might want.

Current companies must collect consumer information in order to create effective and targeted strategies. Consumer researches now get under the skin and into the consumer’s head to find out the “why” of a purchase, to understand what happened and to project what might happen in the future.

Under this situation, insights appear and take power in the decisions of the consumer oriented companies.

How we identify an insight?

Consumer insights do not necessarily come from one focus group or customer survey. In general, information gathering activities are combined with a series of analyzes that provide meaning to this collected information. Often, in today’s business environment, it even includes the vision of an anthropologist or ethnographer for a deeper cultural understanding of what an individual or a group.

Generating information is always useful in these cases and allows us to get very meaningful information, but we must not forget that there are also other sources of information that the consumer is providing us. This information could come from complaints, social networks, consumer forums or reviews. Here are four tips to guide this investigation towards the client and get more out of the information we already have:

What can we use them for?

Once we have identified an insight we must take it into consideration in any of our actions related to the consumer, because this will help us to take any decision. However, there are four uses in which case they are very useful:

• Source of ideas for the generation of new products or services
• Source of positioning or repositioning opportunities
• Input of communication strategies aimed at connecting, attracting and retaining consumers
• The basis of a genuinely consumer focused business philosophy

To summarize, this concept can and should be applied to the commercial and corporate decision making of all those customer oriented companies that have as a purpose generate a competitive advantage towards the market. The ability to identify the influences of our consumers and predict how they will share information between them can lead us to a much more effective relationship with them. Once we know how our consumers think it will be much easier to establish and maintain long-term relationships with them.

Sources:

• http://ellennaylor.com/customer-insight-2/
• http://www.sales-i.com/what-is-customer-insight-and-why-is-it-important-for-your-business
• https://www.marketingdirecto.com/diccionario-marketing-publicidad-comunicacion-nuevas-tecnologias/insight-2
• https://www.40defiebre.com/que-es/insight/

Glossary: The Importance of Brand(-images) and their specific associations

In the psyche of costumers a brand is a fixed distinctive image of a product or a service. It can be a name, term, sign, symbol or a design or a combination of all. It is popular for customers and potential consumers because of its sophisticated (brand-)image and therefore it is more likely to be preferred than other brands with the same or similar products or services. In the ideal case the company’s definition of its brand(s) (= brand identity) matches with the  consumer’s image of the brand.  The term “brand image” is just a generic term for all the associations linked to a brand especially out of a consumer’s view. In the following picture one can see how those associations create networks. Those networks reflect on how the brand is seen by most of their customers.

How strong and benefiting a brand is – amongst other things – is very much related to which and how many associations the brand has, how strong and unique they are and how they are performed/presented verbally and non-verbally by the company. So if a company is interested in a strong brand it should take care of all the current and potential associations that come with their brand. This is valid ESPECIALLY (and now we are coming to the most important part for our ACT Course) when it comes to brand extension, co-branding and all kind of collaborations in general.

1. Brand Extension

“Brand extension is a common method used by companies to launch a new product by using an existing brand name on a new product in a different category. A company using brand extension hopes to leverage its existing customer base and brand loyalty to increase its profits with a new product offering.” (http://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/brand-extension.asp)

Following you can find a negative (self-made) example of a brand extension:

A brand extension will be more likely successful if the new category is connected to similar associations just as the expanding brand – even if the new category is a completely different product category than the old one. I’ll give you an example: Fruit Loop (Category: Cereal) will be more likely successful in the category “Lollipops” than in “Hot Cereals” or “Waffles”, because of its associations. Even if cereals are more similar to hot cereals or waffles the associations connected to it are something completely different. Fruit Loops associations are sweet, flavours and kids. Therefore Lollipop’s associations matches Froot Loop’s associations which is why this could be a benefitting brand extension.

(See: Susan M. Broniarczyk and Joseph W. Alba (1994), The Importance of Brand in Brand Extension)

 

Something to think about: Is our client’s brand extension from soccer tables to sofas more likely to be successful or not?

2. Brand Colloborations

A Brand Collaboration is a “cooperative arrangement in which two or more parties (which may or may not have any previous relationship) work jointly towards a common goal.”
http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/collaboration.html

Collaborations can have great benefits for both parties, such as new or improved services/products, a wider geographical reach, competitive advantages or a stronger and united voice. But there are also many risks to collaborations. For me two of the most important risks are:

1. Damage to or dilution of your brand and reputation
2. Stakeholder confusion

In this case also the brand specific associations play a big role. Companies should ask theirselves if their associations really match and if they are able to hold their brands strong during and after collaborations.

(https://knowhownonprofit.org/organisation/collaboration/what_is_collaboration/benefits_and_risks_of_collaboration)

Something to think about: Which benefits and which risks does our client face? How do they keep their individuality and how do they make sure that their brand is not going to be diluted?

 

Glossary: Customer Relationship Management