SYNTHESIS POST

Keeping a blog on my intended major throughout the course of this semester has been a very effective way of learning the different aspects of marketing. After researching, watching videos and documentaries, interviewing, and experiencing the marketing world for myself, I have begun to feel more comfortable as a soon-to-be business student here at MSU. Furthermore, not only am I more educated than I was before, but my writing and researching skills have improved as well. Each blog post I created enabled me to be somewhat interactive in the field of marketing, which ultimately contributed to my reading, writing, research, reflective and people skills. Now that I’ve come to the end of this project, I feel much more knowledgeable in the field of marketing. I’ve experienced it as a professional and I’ve learned about it on the Internet. For these reasons, I’ve been able to respond and think back to why this blog project was so effective for me. 

There was one post I did that I keep thinking back to. I assume this is because it taught me more than I expected and it truly opened my eyes to the marketing journey that I will be embarking on. I wrote the post after I watched a video which focused on Steve Jobs and “thinking differently”. Jobs’s insight on marketing taught me that it revolves around values. His belief was that the people who can think differently are the ones who can change the world for the better. In other words, with enough passion and consistent values/core values, a company can do what has never been done before. He uses Nike as an example. He claims that Nike doesn’t even need to really talk about their product to gain its true success as a company. Instead, they “honor great athletes and athletics”. This helps them fit in to the rest of the world, and helps the rest of the world render Nike successful and interesting. I enjoyed listening to Steve Jobs speak because it opened my eyes to how much creativity is needed to be involved in marketing. Jobs really knew how much thinking outside the box had to be done. What I mainly learned from Jobs is that a company should promote their beliefs to the world so the public can relate to those ideas, and not just the product itself.

Another post that had a huge effect on me was my response to a documentary called Objectified. This documentary made me realize how the design and manufacturing stage of a product go hand in hand with the marketing aspect. I learned how the simplest of objects take up a huge part of our lives, whether us consumers realize it or not. Because of the design stage that took up so much of that creator’s time to ensure that it would be easy to use, each object in our lives are pretty much one of a kind. In my reflective post in which I wrote to respond to this documentary, I again brought up Jobs and what I learned from him. The posts sort of intertwined with each other because they both in some way revolved around the importance of the consumer’s well being. The design stage of almost every product is what ensures that it will be easy to use for whoever will be using it. The documentary also discussed how humans will never stop creating and for this reason, every object has some sort of value and tells a story of who we are. Lastly, the documentary said that it is important to look and anticipate what will be popular in the future, rather than what has already been created in the past. This, I realized, is completely relevant in the marketing world.

After concluding this blog project, I’ve come to realize how fitting marketing will be for me. It was really helpful for me to create responsive posts about my personal experiences working, as well as what I learned from different meetings and interviews with professionals. I think I’ve always been a people-person but what I really gained from this blog project was professionalism and a true understanding of the importance of marketing. Now that I have gained this knowledge, I believe I am ready to continue my business education as a marketing major. Although I still wonder where exactly I will end up in the future, I can sense that I am on the right track. Not everyone is exactly sure of what they want to do with their lives, right? At least I can say that I’ve gained an understanding of my major, and I have done so with personal experience, research, and being able to write about my all of this on my marketing blog.

Work Cited:

"Best Marketing Strategy Ever! Steve Jobs Think Different / Crazy Ones Speech (with Real Subtitles)." YouTube. YouTube, 21 Apr. 2013. Web. 27 Jan. 2014.

Post #19 - Remixing Knowledge

For this post, I watched a video that described ways in which one could talk or present similarly to Steve Jobs. The speaker in the video goes over multiple steps that reveal how to present to a group of people in the marketing world. For example, a sales manager might be presenting a product at a staff meeting. The first step in a successful presentation would be stating a clear and consistent theme. It helps to start off the meeting with a strong headline to give the audience a reason to listen. Secondly, it is smart to open and close each section or topic with a clear transition. Doing so helps the audience clearly understand each point you are making as you smoothly move on to the next one. It also helps listeners follow along with your presentation. Thirdly, it is important to "wow" the audience. This means using passionate words and tone. You don't want people to "fall into presentation mode". Therefore it's important to be excited so the audience will be too. Furthermore, when presenting with statistics, it's important to make them meaningful. In other words, it's important to include context when discussing numbers so you don't confuse your audience. It's also imperative to make your presentation visual. You don't want to bore your listeners so it's useful to SHOW the audience rather than to just TELL. Lastly, its' important to rehearse before any presentation.

The purpose of this video is to help presenters in a similar field to successfully get their point across to listers while maintaining their attention. The video uses Steve Jobs in order to compare and describe how he would successfully grab the audience's attention without losing it. The audience of this video could be anyone who needs practice presenting to a group of people, especially in the business world. The video can help business professionals in holding a successful meeting. The video is arranged with a host who describes steps in being able to hold a meaningful and clear presentation. After each step, we are shown an example of Steve Jobs presenting to a large group of people. The host used a very friendly style, and perfectly exemplified a smart way to present, himself. He used a loud voice, was very clear and used examples to keep my attention as the viewer. I enjoyed this video and I believe the steps described could help anyone in the business world who needs practice speaking when in front of a large group of people.

Work Cited:

"Present Like Steve Jobs." YouTube. BNETvideo, 17 Apr. 2008. Web. 26 Mar. 2014.

Post #18 - Continuing Experience (Free Post)

This passed weekend, I went back home to attend a meeting at my old work. Although I don't work at the store anymore, I still keep in contact with my old managers because I know that I still will want to learn more as I continue my journey on becoming a marketing major. Also, I might even go back to working there this summer. I attended this meeting because I thought it would be smart for them to update me on how they are currently running the store. It was different though, mainly because the staff was different. I enjoyed meeting them  however, especially because these will probably be the people that I could be working with this summer. Also in the meeting, the managers talked about which sales associate was doing well and who had some things to work on. When I worked here in the past, most of the meetings consisted of different ways to approach a customer and tactics on how to successfully sell to them. Thus, this was also talked about. I was happy I went to the meeting even though I no longer work at Caruso Caruso. It felt good to be up to date on how the store was being ran and how things have changed since I've left.

Post #17 - Recognizing Significance

For my prompted post this week, I read an article that discusses why it's important to focus on existing customers in the marketing world, rather than always aiming for more. Of course it's a good thing to keep adding to the list of people you sell to, however, it's better to pay more attention to the ones you already have a relationship with. The article states 3 reasons as to why this is true:

1. If you focus too much attention on a trying to gain a customer, there is a possibility that you can lose an already existing one from ignoring them. Therefore, you're back to where you started and you're still at the same number of customers if this were to happen. Not only would you be stuck with the same number of customers, but you'd be at "lower margins", which means that it costs way more to gain than it does to keep someone you've already had as a customer.
2. By focusing on existing customers only, you can actually earn more money. This is because as competitors take in new customers, your sales will climb by you paying attention to the existing customers that you have.
3. Lastly, it's much easier to sell to customers whom of which you already know and have a relationship with. Because you already know how to sell to them and what they want, it's easier to build sales this way.

The article concludes by saying there are two main points: don't lose the customers you already have and when you already have those customers, make them the priority to sell new products to. (This leads to lower cost of sales and higher momentum, according to the article).

These points relate to my own discipline, mainly because I have had to deal with customers already in my life. Circumstances were probably different than those that this article pertains to, however, they are still similar. When I worked retail, I can remember how the same customers would come back, and I would strive to help them. This is because I already knew what they liked, and I also knew what techniques work on selling the products to them. If I were to let a coworker help a customer that I have already grown used to, then I have to take more time on building another relationship with a new customer. Thus, selling to them would still be likely, but not as easy. This article also reminds me of real life situations as well. It is inevitable that we as humans will meet new people and constantly build new relationships, but it's also very important to pay much attention to the ones you already have. If you don't and you're too busy trying to make new friends, then you will always be losing a friend and making one at the same time. This is similar to when the article discusses ignoring existing customers while trying to build relationships with new ones. It will always even out.

Work Cited:

Brown, Paul B. "Want To Increase Sales? Target Your Existing Customers." Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 22 Jan. 2014. Web. 19 Mar. 2014.