Public Relations Commentary

Increasingly, public relations pracititioners have to know not only how to write for the Web, but also how to manage and respond to blog postings. This blog was created to use in my public relations courses to help my students prepare to blog and learn how to respond to others in a virtual yet professional manner.

Friday, February 15, 2008

How Prince decided to market online! = )

The MCkinsey Survery possed some interesting graphs and data about the upcoming role of the internet and how companies market online. We had discussed this idea in class last week that this drives Non-Profits to also use the web more since they have to keep up with competition. It creates ease and your have a 24 hr market around the world. The survey proposed that the web soon will be completely responsible for product awareness and information gathering. I believe product awareness is the second hardest part of marketing for non-profits aside from getting people to donate, therefore, if the web can be just as successful for non-profits in their quest to make the geneal public aware of their organization then they should all get on board! The survey didn't include non-profits and as we have mentioned in class, that they have a harder time creating webpages due to lack of research and funds. But I am sure that within the next few years it will be common place to see non-profts active and hopefully flourishing on the web.

I am in South Dakota for the weekend and during my flight I was inclined to open the North West Airline magazine and an article about Music caught my eye. It was looking at the increase of music on line as well and seeing how the web has allowed the sharing of music freely but has also allowed many illegal practices of downloading music to take place. It talked about how industries are having to re-organize and figure out new ways to have music legally on line. This shows how all industries are affected by the web: good and the bad.

It also mentioned some marketing campaigns of singers to try and combat the theft of their music. It mentioned Prince, one of my favorite singers, and how he combated this difficulty. His album was being released in London and instead of selling it to the record labels to distribute to the public, he collaborated with the local newpaper and put the CD in the newspaper, for free. This is an example of "direct marketing" that Prince used to try and out smart the web. His tactic actually worked since newspaper sales increased since the public wanted a free CD. And Prince got a percentage of the sales and when the facts were calculated he actually receieved $500,000 more than if he just sold his CD in stores or online, or allowed the web to pirate his songs for free. I thought this was a unique technique, since he gave away something for free and actually ended up making a profit. It was an intersting way to see how direct marketing is affecting singers due to the illegal selling of music online.... one that I have been guilty of in the past... as well as you! = )

posted by Anonymous @ 12:40 PM  

6 Comments:

  • At 11:00 AM, February 18, 2008, Blogger Jon Weiner said…

    In response to the first part of Anna's post, I thought the McKinsey article was also interesting given some of the discussions we have had in class regarding the use of the Web, whether it was a necessity and if Non-profits have been helped or hurt by this new technology.

    On the last page of the article, it states that "by 2010 the Web will play a role in the first two stages of the consumer decision-making process - product awareness and information gathering - for a sizeable majority of all consumers ..." The part of this statement that caught my eye was the "sizeable majority of all consumers" line.

    I realize that as a group of graduate students and working proffessionals, using the internet to learn about products and services is not something new for most of us, but I guess I didn't realize how much people of all ages and social groups are using the internet to learn about products and companies.

    I looked around online and found that in 2005, 40 percent of Americans had broadband internet access at home (http://www.nielsen-netratings.com/pr/pr_050928.pdf), a number which I'm sure has climbed substantially since then.

    In reference to our discussion on non-profits and their websites last week, this article just gives more evidence that in order to succeed in today's competitive environment, non-profits are going to have to get moving on utilizing the web as a way to disseminate information about their cause and their organization.

    I guess it has been this way for a while now, but people use the web to learn about all kinds of companies and the goods and services they offer. Like Anna said, especially given the current competitive marketplace, non-profits need to have a good website so people can log on and see what they are all about.

    We sort of ended up here after the class discussions, but yes, non-profits do have to use the web effectively to succeed and yes, it is a necessity given the continued proliferation of personal internet access and the quick growth of the internet as a research tool that people are using on a regular basis.

    Without a good website, it is awfully hard to do business now, and given what this article says about how people are using it to research products and services, it is going to be impossible to do business without a good website in a year or two.

    I guess this is not groundbreaking new information, but it did surprise me to see that statement, and it makes an awful lot of sense once you think about it. I certainly look up info on companies and base buying decisions on what I find on the web in some cases, and the vast majority of other Americans do the same apparently.

     

  • At 5:32 PM, February 18, 2008, Blogger Emily Burnett said…

    I agree with Jon and Anna about the importance of using the internet to reach as many people as possible in an efficient way. I also think that like Jon said, we are graduate students/young professionals who rely heavily on the internet. I look EVERYTHING up on the internet. I even looked up churches when I was looking for a church in the area. My friends don't read the newspaper or watch the news, they start their day by looking at news websites. I keep in touch with lots of people through email and myspace rather than phone calls or letters. The examples go on and on. But that doesn't mean that all age groups and types of people rely on the internet. I am trying hard to train my parents (especially my mom) to look things up phone numbers, store hours, product availability, etc on the internet but she hasn't always had the luxury of so much information at her fingertips, so she doesn't immediately rush to her computer like I do if I need/want to find something. The same thing happens when parents call my office (NCSU Study Abroad)... They ask me for all kinds of information that I don't necessesarily know, but I can look it up for them on the internet. What they can't grasp is that they could easily look it up themselves instead of going through me.

    So I guess my point is, having an internet presence is extremely important, but it should not be the only means to attract volunteers/donors/clients because not everyone uses the internet as the primary source of information. And even if 40% of the population has internet access, that means 60% of the people don't. I guess it depends on who you are trying to reach as to how much time and energy needs to be put into a website. But overall, I do agree that websites are crucial for non-profits and they are becoming increasingly important!!

     

  • At 5:45 PM, February 18, 2008, Blogger Emily Burnett said…

    A few more thoughts about websites...

    The article (How Companies are Marketing Online) mentions the importance of websites in product awareness and information gathering (page 10), but I wonder if websites really are the primary tool for product awareness. I think is hard to track is how a person found out about your organization and to determine how effective your website is at spreading the word about your mission. While it is easy to ask volunteers or donors how they first heard about you, just because they say they heard about you on your website, doesn�t give the full picture. Did they stumble upon your website while surfing the internet? Were they doing an internet search for organizations with a certain mission and yours came up? Did they hear about your organization from a friend or PSA and then go to your website? If it�s the latter, it was really word of mouth or the PSA that was the primary source of product awareness.

    Also, I was surprised that only 42% of companies run integrated campaigns!! (page 10) I would think the number should be much higher. Does anyone have any suggestions as to why more companies are not integrating their online and offline marketing campaigns??

     

  • At 7:52 PM, February 18, 2008, Blogger Jessica said…

    In regards to direct marketing, the band Radiohead recently had a similar strategy when promoting their new album. Instead of sending the album to itunes or stores to sell at something like $14, the band posted MP3s of the entire album on their website and told customers to pay what they thought the album was worth. Now many customers just paid nothing…who would pay something when you could just get the album free? Or, they paid the price they thought it would be in the store. Some went even further and paid much higher than the store price. The customers set the price in this case. I’m not sure how much money the band actually made, or lost, in this scheme when compared to what they could have made when just selling it in stores at normal price, but I’m sure the news publicity it received for this new marketing strategy was immense. Radiohead has been a very well-established band for quite some time, so I’m sure this strategy didn’t hurt them in any way. They get most of their money from the huge, sell out concerts all over the world. But one thing they could have gained from this are new members of their fan base: people who would not otherwise listen to their music because they didn’t feel like shelling out the money to buy their music.

    I’m not sure how similar uses of internet marketing would affect lesser known bands trying to create just a minimal fan base. We have sites like myspace that allow users to listen and download music from tons of bands free. But now every band or organization can do this. Will these internet marketing strategies set anyone apart from anyone else? I think to really create an affective marketing strategy you have to go beyond what everyone else is doing..to do something fresh. Since right now it seems like everyone and everything is online somewhere, maybe one day a really successful marketing strategy will take a new, completely foreign, yet strangely affective strategy of ...something offline??

     

  • At 8:24 PM, February 18, 2008, Blogger abwilli3 said…

    I think it just depends on your target audience whether you use the internet to market. I agree with Jessica how Radiohead's marketing strategy is creative by persuading new listeners to check out their music.

     

  • At 9:09 PM, February 18, 2008, Blogger Tanesha said…

    I just had a conversation this weekend with a couple of friends that pertains to the conversation of organizations online use. We were discussing a friend’s mother who did not have a computer or internet access in her home. The first question someone asked was, “How does she know what’s going on?”. Like we discussed in class, this is a technology driven society where we use the web to Google people and places, MapQuest addresses, and Wiki info. As John said before almost everyone has access to the internet in there home and it is very rare to find someone who doesn’t.

    Therefore, it is important for organizations, especially nonprofits, to reach out via the web to gain those new donor/customer pools to pull from. The Small Museum article encourages organizations to utilize new technologies to market their museums, which includes the fastest growing technology, the Internet. Another aspect that we might need to look at when it comes to gaining product awareness is the global aspect. More and more we are able to find companies and organizations throughout the world that we would normally not have access to due to the Internet and its ability to shrink the world down to the click of a button.

    Also, Emily mentioned the fact that it is possible that initial product awareness is not developed through the Internet. I would have to agree with her as a lot of the times for myself and a few friends and coworkers I spoke with gain product awareness from WOM or television first. Then they go on the web to gain more facts about the product/service which is where the information piece comes in. All in all it is obvious that the internet has become the new and improved marketing tool for organizations world wide.

     

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