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BMGT 311: Assignment 3 (WED)

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Class,

We had a speaker tonight that gave a variety of career tips for college graduates just starting out.  Some of her advice included:

    1. Look, Listen and Learn
    2. Be Eminently Coachable
    3. Build Relationships
    4. Stay out of your Comfort Zone
    5. Leverage your Strengths / Build new strengths
    6. Be Efficient – Touch everything once!
    7. Produce Results
    8. Live your Value – Be True to who you are
    9. You are in charge of your career – only you can make it happen
    10. Have Fun!

 

She also gave more tips for students looking to begin a marketing career:

    1. Intern or work part-time to gain skills and work experience ASAP. 
    2. Start building a portfolio of work to share.
    3. Volunteer often at school or in the community to add to your portfolio, work experience and network.
    4. Network:Build a professional network in the marketing community and include friends and family.  Learn about their work and opportunities for entry-level positions.       Buy someone Breakfast – it’s the least expensive meal of the day!
    5. Read about the industry, trends and news and have a point of view.

Having someone at her level come and speak to our class is a big opportunity.  So now on to assignment #3:

Do a recap of the guest speaker:

1. Which one of her tips do you feel is the most important?  Why?

2. Find an article of other companies leveraging data to market their companies more effectively.  What are they doing?  How are they producing results?

Due before next week.

Chris Lovett

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

11 responses to “BMGT 311: Assignment 3 (WED)”

  1. Liang Huang Avatar
    Liang Huang

    We had a great speaker on Wednesday night. She is passionate and modest. You just feel no arrogance from her compared to other people with such a high ranking position. She is extremely nice and calm, which makes her very persuasive when she speaks. All the tips and experience she shared are precious for students or I should say everyone. If I have to pick one to talk about, I might pick the one defined as “stay out of your comfort zone.” I think this is important for everyone no matter what career you are working in. We have to push ourselves to overcome our weaknesses, those always located in our uncomforting zone. We just need to try to do things we are not good at, or challenges we never did before. Given time, we will learn and experience a lot which might bring us things we never expected.

    The article I found is discussing a gun selling company named Cabela. They have a huge increase in benefits by leveraging consumer’s data and behavior effectively. The company’s shares went up more than 67 percent over the last year. They collect consumer’s data from in-store, online, product catalogs first, and then try to lured customer joining their rewards program or sign up for their own Visa card. Consumers can use saved points at checkout, and 29 percent of the company sales are made upon its own credit card system. The firm also has its own bank which cuts lots of restrictions for customers that other company won’t be able to do so. Cabela’s new data program allows managers to access a single day’s sales by the next morning which brings the firm much more efficiency. The company also prompts close related products of which customers were purchasing online. All methods mentioned above lead the stock price increase higher and higher. This definitely can’t be achieved without their effective data analysis and strategy.

    http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/24/us-usa-cabelas-guns-data-analysis-idUSBRE96M15H20130724

    Reply
  2. Kari Kowalski Avatar
    Kari Kowalski

    I thought our guest speaker was excellent and gave the class a ton of really good information. I really enjoyed her whole talk and was glad we were given that opportunity. I loved all the tips she gave us and can honestly see myself using those in the future. Although all of them are great, the tip that I liked the best was: “Be Efficient, touch everything once!” I thought this was such a great tip because so many times I get stuck with a lot of homework to do or just other things that add up that I have to do and I start to become overwhelmed because you don’t know where to start. The whole idea of this tip is how she says that whenever anything comes across her desks she is going to do something with it right away and not procrastinate. I think as we get older and we start getting into real jobs this tip is going to help out tremendously. There are going to be times when you have so much work to do that this tip is going to make getting everything done go more smoothly. I’m starting to implement this in my life now with taking every task I have on a to-do list and making sure when I move onto another task the first one is completely finished. I believe that this will help me so much with my future and I am really glad I found this tip out before I got really overwhelmed later in life.

    The article I found was all about Amazon and how they are using “big data” to leverage data and market their company more effectively. This article was all about a woman who had a problem with a kindle that she has from Amazon and how she put in a service request on Amazon’s website and within 30 seconds someone was calling her to work out the problem she had. The woman got the problem fixed within 2 minutes and was so pleased with the customer service that she received. How does Amazon do this though? Amazon uses a system called big data that tracks all your purchases, what you happen to search for and then it then suggests products to you based on your searches. This system gives you deals for your loyalty to the company as well as incentives to keep using their company to reach a higher level of status as a consumer. For example this big data system has tracked consumers and once they seem to really use Amazon they are given the option to upgrade to be an Amazon Prime customer which means you can receive free shipping, you know new deals that are coming out, and are given special opportunities that other customers might not get. Amazon wouldn’t be able to keep a good relationship with the millions and millions of people that use their company without this big data system. The system allows them to track their consumers and then in return builds a relationship for the consumer with the company. They produce the results that they do by building that relationship of knowing their customer on a different level with the big data system and that makes them want to come back to their company and use it time after time.

    http://www.fastcodesign.com/1669551/how-companies-like-amazon-use-big-data-to-make-you-love-them

    Reply
  3. Alexa Blanchard Avatar
    Alexa Blanchard

    I loved our guest speaker! She has so much experience and insight and it was a great opportunity to listen and pick her brain for a while. I think her most important tip is to stay out of your comfort zone because that is how we truly learn and discover new strengths. It’s a ‘you won’t know unless you try’ concept, and it’s necessary to push our own boundaries in order to make ourselves better. This concept of getting out of your comfort zone is important for a career, but it’s also something that should translate into the rest of your life. That being said, getting out of your comfort zone is one of the hardest things to do, especially for people with personalities not made for change. I think that getting out of your comfort zone is an incredibly rewarding experience and will come with a whole slew of benefits in the long run.

    I found a company called Sigma Marketing Group, which allows customers to have access to analytics and a wide variety of data. They are offering their services by leveraging the data that they have on hand as well as plenty of new specific data for their customers in exchange for money and word-of-mouth advertising. If their data is of good quality and genuinely helps their customers, the customers are more likely to tell their colleagues and promote Sigma Marketing.

    http://sigmamarketing.com/

    Reply
  4. Matthew Schmid Avatar
    Matthew Schmid

    The most important tip given by the guest speaker was to network; accumulating and utilizing as many professional contacts as possible. Regardless of the industry you are working in or entering, networking is in my opinion the most important key to success. I have worked in various professional positions and every position I obtained was almost completely due to utilizing my network of contacts while applying for positions. When I sold financial products, my success or failure was completely hinged on my ability to network in order to meet new potential clients and continue to do so. No matter what the industry, when you are looking for a new job or to advance within your own organization, networking is the most crucial action to take.

    http://bostinno.streetwise.co/channels/how-to-leverage-linkedin-7-tips-for-b2b-marketers/

    The article I found points out that everyone is aware that Facebook is the most leveraged data source by companies to market themselves better to consumers. However, those trying to market to other businesses use linkedIn. The first step that businesses are using is “optimizing their company’s profile” by catering it for SEOs who may be viewing it, explaining their company clearly just as you do on your company’s website. Jim Yu at marketing land makes sure his company’s profile has keywords in it that will attract viewers but also uses technical language. The second step is “leveraging LinkedIn’s news feed”; getting as many viewers as possible to see what your company is doing. The third step is to “build followers”. The newsfeed is only useful if you have a strong base of followers. Use calls to action, put LinkedIn follow buttons on your website, and promote your linked in on other social networks. The fourth step is to Join other LinkedIn groups. This gives you access to specific target segments. Position your company as a perceived expert. The fifth step is to conduct conversations. Utilize group discussions by asking questions and answering them. The sixth step is to follow other companies. This is how you can establish a repoire with potential clients. You can figure out their needs and wants and generate your posted content accordingly. The seventh step is to tap into your own employee network. Influence your employees to share your company’s content on their personal pages and with their connections. Jim Dougherty at Vocus uses this to expand his company’s audience and increase brand awareness.

    Reply
  5. Dane Mastrangelo Avatar
    Dane Mastrangelo

    I really enjoyed having Ms. Larrimer come and speak to us because it showed that you do not have to have a PhD from Harvard to have success in this industry. As simple a concept as it is, i think one of her most useful tips was to produce results. That is what the company you work for expects of you and what will ultimately enable you to keep your job or get you promoted. Also, producing results and putting your best effort in while doing so is what i believe leads to greater job satisfaction. Even working my part time job as a copy center associate at staples, i find that i leave feeling more satisfied when my outlook that day is ” i want to go above and beyond what the customer asks for to make their product look nice” than when i go in with an ” i’m tired and don’t feel like doing anything today.” Producing results to me requires a state of mind of going above and beyond what is expected.

    http://www.fastcodesign.com/1669551/how-companies-like-amazon-use-big-data-to-make-you-love-them

    I found an article about Amazon that i found to be interesting in regards to leverageing big data. Amazon has a way of filling out a quick form as a way of speeding up the process of dealing with a customer service representative over the phone. This allows customers and representatives to skip the giving of information part of the call and get directly to the problem. They only use the data that is relevant to the customer’s needs. It also discussed how other companies can use data to improve their brand. One example given was that auto mechanics can use it to let a customer know that their fan belt will need replaced in 2,500 miles as opposed to waiting for the problem to happen to bring customers in.This article also discussed the importance of having synchronized data in order to not irritate the customer by asking for data that their company should already have.

    Reply
    1. Dane Mastrangelo Avatar
      Dane Mastrangelo

      leveraging**

      Reply
  6. Alex Van Wassen Avatar
    Alex Van Wassen

    1. Mrs. Larrimer introduced a lot of good tips so it is hard to choose one that is the most important to me but if I had to pick one that I thought would be the most helpful I would have to say it was tip number 9 – You are in charge of your career, only you can make it happen. To me this would have to be the most important because I interpret as meaning that if you want to accomplish something in your career then you have to be the one to do everything to get it done. You can just rely on other people to get you to where you want to be you have to put in the work and the time to get there. People now-a-days just expect everything to be handed to them and never want to work for anything and to me knowing that I am the only one who can control my career path is very important.
    2. http://www.fastcodesign.com/1669551/how-companies-like-amazon-use-big-data-to-make-you-love-them

    The article that I read was about how Amazon uses big data to make people love them more. This article was not really talking about how Amazon uses data to market themselves more effectively but how they use data they have collected to make their current customers happier with their experiences hoping that it will lead to future business. Amazon uses the data that they have collected from their customers when they get a customer service call and they use it very well. They know exactly what to say to the customer to not get them annoyed and to get the problem solved as quickly as possible. Amazon is using something called Big Data which other companies are starting to use as well. And after some time companies will have gathered enough information about their customers that they should be able to know what they buy, how much they will buy, how frequently they buy it, and when to offer them a new product via coupon or something of that sort. As long as a company uses the data they have correctly they can really increase their customer to client relationship and therefore increasing their brand loyalty. This is very important to companies because most companies make the majority of their revenue from loyal customers not just one time customers, so if you can turn a onetime customer in a loyal longtime customer it will save the company a lot of money and therefore gain them more revenue. Amazon is apparently doing exactly what they need to with their current customers to make sure that they will stay Amazon customers.

    Reply
  7. Anna Berish Avatar
    Anna Berish

    After listening to Mrs. Larrimer’s presentation last Wednesday, the CMO at PNC I learned some really great tips for my future job search and job. She did a great job of presenting her 10 tips. These tips were interesting, engaging, and unique. Although all ten tips were interesting, the tip that I took the most away from as a graduating senior was to read about the industry trends and the news and create a point a view. I think this is really important because it shows future employers you are the most up to speed.It’s always good to have a leg up on the competition.

    After doing some research on companies that use leverage data to help effectively run their companies, I came across an article from the New York Times. The reason it caught my eye was because it is a company I use almost every day, and have never really put any thought into how they are creating hit after hit. This company is Netflix. In this article they talk about how Netflix knew ” House of Cards” was going to be a huge success before they even launched it. Netflix has the ability just by people using their site to track what is popular and who is watching what. Although all companies to research before launching a show, Netflix has a more accurate way of doing so then any TV competitor.

    Reply
  8. Matthew Hofbauer Avatar
    Matthew Hofbauer

    Internships I believe really help boost confidence in college students. But if one thing that really stood out to me, was what was said about how interns believe that they are obligated a job. For example, my first year at my internship at Motorola, I thought that they would expect to give me a job, when in reality they were just going to say goodbye at the end of the term and that would be all. But I learned that it was because of my work, and the fact that I kept in touch with managers and coworkers that lead an offer for a second year internship, which I recently completed. When I talked to other interns whom asked how I got the position, I felt as if they thought they deserved it, rather than working towards it. This was a big connecting point with last class’s presentation.

    Secondly I firmly believe in staying out of the comfort zone. I had to do it all my internship and to be completely honest; if it weren’t for those awkward situations I really would have never learned a single thing.

    http://www.forbes.com/sites/allenadamson/2010/10/27/the-target-brand-gets-the-simple-things-right-and-a-lot-more/

    Target has one of the best, yet most secretive marketing strategies. But how do we know it works? Its because when you are in a target you know there is a specific vibe, and that they have a steady image between all their stores. Clean, organized and red. They are stuck about not ruining their images. In fact, we had to do a recording for a video presentation in a target on behalf of my internship. And they quickly denied us access because they don’t want anything interfering with their image, or customer appeal. From this, target may be categorized with Wal-Mart, Kmart and other similar stores, but will always rank as a premier shopping store because of their presentation and high-end quality. There are many ways to sell everyday items, but target chose to do it with style.

    Reply
  9. James Daley Avatar
    James Daley

    Marketing Research Assignment 3
    Guest Speaker Re-cap
    1. The tip that I felt had the most importance was be efficient, touch everything once. She told us a brief story of a co-worker that explained to her the concept of “touch everything once” and it was the definitely one of the parts of the lecture that stuck with me. She explained that to touch everything once means, when you see it, do it. When an email or piece of work comes by, it is way more efficient to answer to it or read it then, rather than waiting and putting it back to another date. I find this problem often with emails from instructors and blackboard reminders. I will have tons of notifications and reminders, but I have the habit of not responding to them as soon as I see them, and I will constantly be backed up and behind in my work. If I implemented the “touch everything once” strategy, I would probably be more organized and better off in my school work. I really like to idea of when you see it, do it now so it’s done for later.
    2. She gave a large portion of her lecture to the idea of big data and leveraging in order to market more effectively. Leveraging data and simplifying the results gave her an advantage when making marketing decisions at PNC. She said that big data is the future and the analytics behind it is what a lot of top firms depend on in regards to effective marketing. ​I researched an article entitled, “Leveraging Big Data to Improve the Standard of Care.” This article was written by Gabriel Perna and was posted on September 18, 2013. The article talked about the Hospital Corporation of America, and how they have implemented new marketing strategies along with leveraging big data to gain insights and ultimately improve the standard of care and clinical outcomes.
    What are they doing? They have used big data to study surrounding issues of importance to better understand why certain illnesses are occurring. They used extensive data to understand the frequency of early deliveries in 27 surrounding hospitals in Massachusetts. This data helped them separate the policies that different hospitals had and how effective each was. This analysis helped them achieve better outcomes in later months after the study. They also used data to study the effectiveness of antimicrobial agents of an entire population, studying 3 separate scenarios which led to reduced number of patients by 37 percent.
    How are they producing results? They are using the analytics and leveraging of big data to gain better perspectives on how to go about treating large numbers of patients at different locations and using this data to help save time and money but still be efficient in their work.

    (1) http://www.healthcare-informatics.com/blogs/gabriel-perna/leveraging-big-data-improve-standard-care

    Reply
  10. Donald McDuffee Avatar
    Donald McDuffee

    It was very cool, and inlightining to have a speaker come in who is working as high up in a fortune 500 company as she is. She showed that with the right mindset and using the strategies she gave us, it is possible to achieve great things. If i had to pick one of her pieces of advice over the rest I would pick stay out of your comfort zone. For me I know it is very hard to choose to do something I am not familiar with, but hearing from her that she stepped into jobs that she didnt know much about, and succeeded makes it a lot more real to me that it isn’t the end of the world to be new at something. I am more willing after hearing her talk to step out of my comfort zone, and after things I am not familiar with, and more confident that I will succeed.

    The article I found was about Giant Eagle. They have hired EpiServer CMI and Commerce Solutions to help them collect the growing amount of data they need to give customers a better online experience. It provide an online weekly circular, product catalog, shopping list, menu planner, digital coupons and gift card e-commerce. This helps to increase value to the customer. They are able to give personalized content to shoppers who use the website. The improved technology has helped to increase the weekly ciruclar more than 40%, and web team output has increased almost 30%.

    http://www.episerver.com/About-Us/Press-Room/Press-Releases/Giant-Eagle-Leverages-EPiServer-to-Accelerate-Digital-Strategy/

    Reply

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