#and curating them into a coherent colour coded set

[euro3plast-fr]

Creating the best marketing mix for a product launch

How the 4Ps still work for product marketing

This article focuses in on the 4Ps, which are the core of the Marketing mix, applied to the product launch. Read our article on the 7Ps of the Marketing mix, if you want to explore the full 7Ps, which also includes customer service.

Download Premium Resource – Product launch Playbook

Launch a product using RACE planning to structure your marketing activities. A marketing playbook defines the key messages, types of communications, best practices and optimisation techniques that should be used to maximise return-on-investment for different marketing objectives.

Access the Product launch playbook

Some have said that ‘the Internet and digital marketing change everything’, but the marketing mix – widely referred to as the 4Ps of Product, Price, Place and Promotion – was originally proposed by Jerome McCarthy in 1960 as explained in the Smart Insights free guide to Marketing models and frameworks and is still used as an essential part of formulating and implementing marketing strategy by many practitioners.

I’ll cover them in the order of Product, Price, Place, and Promotion since that’s how I remember it and it’s a logical order to cover creating a plan.

Product

We start with product since that’s what we’re launching. The product variable of the marketing mix refers to characteristics of a product, service or brand. Product decisions should be informed by market research where customers’ needs are assessed and the feedback is used to modify existing products or develop new products. There are many alternatives for varying the product in the online context when a company is developing its online strategy.

So, to keep our product launch customer-centered we have to consider audience too.

Understanding your audience:

Your audience should have been considered as part of the new product development process. As part of the launch campaign, it’s worth revisiting this and considering the factors that will affect the buying decision. If you don’t have personas summarising your audience, you should create buyer personas to help tailor your message to the audience.

This should happen at an early stage in new product development. It’s fundamental to understand who your product is for and how it will appeal to them. The earlier you define this the better, since your launch communications plan needs to define key persuasive messages for your audiences to encourage them to buy the product.

Here are five factors to consider about new online product buyers:

Digital product buyers REALLY understand how the web works. They demand product content that delivers PERSONAL value – quickly.

When it comes to online, buyers rule. Your new product marketing should be highly tailored, featuring esteem-driven messages.

Branding is king but ‘comparison’ governs. Today’s consumer instantly compares competing brands – irrespective of size of company or heritage. Therefore, ensure your brand are values are clear and reflected throughout your content.

Buyers talk. From blogs to Tweets, forums to ranking sites, users love the power of the web. It lets them vent anger or bestow praise on products. Harvest the positive comments –and you have a powerful community supporting your marketing. Address valid negative comments, and you demonstrate authenticity and care plus you can adjust the product or message accordingly. The key is to success is to continuously manage expectations and hone your message.

Users become buyers in stages. Before writing emails or building product sites, think about the entire customer journey:

How do people typically make purchase decisions in your space? Over what length of time?

What assurances can you offer before expecting them to buy? These should be delivered at different points in the buying process.

Specifically, what do they need to know before they reach that point?

Understand your personas by building conversations which match your target audience’s journey towards eventually buying your product.

Will it sell? 

From a marketing perspective, the most pressing product question is simply will your new product sell?  Success calls for the right choice of online channels providing the appropriate platform to explain your product’s points of differences (as opposed to unique selling points).

These points of differences include: what kind of add-ons or downloadable services are available to keep a product fresh and relevant (until an entirely new iteration of a product needs to be introduced.  Or how a product (such as a new kind of photo manipulation software) is saved and the storage implications to customers.  For example, how much space each photo-project takes up on mobile devices, whether the projects are displayed pictorially or otherwise?  Can projects be easily curated according to genre, date… and so on… Each variant holds the promise of being another point of difference that sets your new product apart.

The importance of brand identity and development

Without a strong brand presence, your product can feel indistinctive.  An online brand is imbued with character and personality – both of which need to be reflected throughout your digital strategy.

Whilst features and benefits explain WHAT a product is and does, a brand offers a sense of ‘WHO’ it is.  Such humanizing of product enforces emotional connections which in turn gives even a simple product a discernible personality, or makes a complicated product more accessible, pertinent and understandable.

The frailer your emotional product connection, the greater the need to promote its points of differences (traditionally – USPs) and conversely, the stronger the emotional connection, the less the urgency to highlight product points of differences or USPs.

Having established the ‘WHO’ behind the product, keep checking that your personality remains consistent.  (Nobody trusts unstable personalities).  Brand solidity can be expressed via colours, shapes, tone of voice, styling, corporate philosophy, and so on.   When considering the brand personality for your launch, think beyond simply describing your product.  For example, GoPro camera could easily describe themselves as a compact mobile video recorders.  Instead, the brand describes itself as “an experience sharing company.”

Pricing

Thanks to the web, the biggest shop window in history fits as comfortably in a pocket it does on a large screen.  Increasingly, in many categories, before every other consideration such as online reviews, product quality and brand value has been taken fully into account - buying often boils down to price.  Depending on pricing levels, it may be worth testing whether you show a pricing matrix or not.

Whether it is via official price comparison sites, or casual ‘live’ price checking of different product suppliers, digital opens opportunities for a myriad of marketing pricing tools.  For example, product introduction email campaigns can feature voucher codes or cashback offers.

In exchange for paying a commission fee, affiliate marketing partnerships open opportunities to market products via third-party websites.  Commissions needn’t just be conditional on sales.  Arrangements can be agreed for payments triggered by click-throughs or other actions.

It is often argued that selling online is cheaper for suppliers than via traditional high-street retailing.  However, once a product has been added to site’s shopping cart, distribution can be expensive – especially when consumers expect delivery to be included in the price.  Buyers also expect that your product can be bought via all major credit cards, PayPal as well as Android or Apple payments.

Online or offline, it is still cheaper to retain an existing customer than recruit a new one. Yet, unless behaviours are ingrained (such as buying books on Amazon) online customers tend to be particularly capricious.  Consequently, any strategy regarding a product launch needs to consider issues such as future customer relationship management and lifelong value. 

Place

In the bricks and mortar world, ‘location, location, location’ is everything. Typically, for offline channels, the aim of Place is to maximise the reach of distribution to achieve widespread availability of products while minimising the costs of inventory, transport, and storage. In an online context, thanks to the ease of navigating from one site to another, the scope of Place is less clear since Place also relates to Promotion and Partnerships. Online, for a retail page, it’s about page, picture, and parcel. You need to have the right stock levels.  Customers are online – but is your product in-stock?

Page:  Is your website accessible?  Has it been optimised? Is the content coherent and helpful? For example, do you offer Live Chat to handle customer questions?

Picture: Is your product fully discoverable using tools like 306° pictures or video?

Parcel:  Can your product be dispatched quickly and efficiently (either direct from you or via a partner?) More broadly it links to promotion techniques like affiliate marketing or co-marketing.

Promotion

Many startups launching new products may be short on funds for paid promotion, so choosing when and how to invest is a difficult decision. Let’s quickly review the options as I see them:

Organic search (SEO) – offers free/low-cost traffic, but takes time to get traction unless your product launch is part of an existing site with domain authority

Paid search (Google AdWords) – while this will be too expensive for many startups due to competition and bid inflation, it’s worth looking at the cost of AdWords Remarketing. This is usually more cost-effective and you can use reminder ads to encourage people to return to your site ton boost conversion.

Organic social – this will be a core technique for many startups as they will be keen to build a community and gain advocacy

Paid social – a similar argument applies to AdWords. Re-targeting through social ads has relatively high ROI.

Public Relations – This can be a low-cost approach, but only if you have the media contacts and know how to run an outreach programme.

Affiliate marketing – Affiliate marketing is mainly relevant to retail or subscription products. It’s value in product launches is limited since affiliates are interested in the number of clicks out from their sites and earnings per click, so they are likely to want to keep with trusted, established brands that drive volume.

For search, I recommend creating a search demand analysis. Decide how you will target audiences needs by using Google Keyword Planner to calculate the number of visits based on search volumes for different keywords. A spreadsheet for gap or demand analysis which also helps compare actual visits post-launch against numbers of searches.

Download Premium Resource – Product launch Playbook

Launch a product using RACE planning to structure your marketing activities. A marketing playbook defines the key messages, types of communications, best practices and optimisation techniques that should be used to maximise return-on-investment for different marketing objectives.

Access the Product launch playbook

from Blog – Smart Insights http://www.smartinsights.com/digital-marketing-strategy/online-marketing-mix/creating-best-marketing-mix-product-launch/

[looseleafexhibition]

google doc week 2-3 idea drafting

Exhibition

Polly Gilroy

My art practice draws from a multiplicity of artistic traditions from painting, sculpture, installation and sewing. This has now transitioned into an investigation of creating canvas frames stretched with cold luminous opaque materials, interacting with the spatial environment. Fundamentally my concepts rely on stripping back materials and objects to highlight their aesthetic potential.

Harris Clook

Drawing a strong interest in metaphysics and artists of the early twentieth century I produce abstract paintings using anamorphosis, colour fields, and the manipulation of shapes through different dimensions to explore concepts of the fourth dimension.

Robert Laking

I subject simple ideas to a process of over-complication, whereupon I set myself the task of making the concepts accessible for a wider audience. I create strings of words not unlike poetry. Despite this, I am still wary of referring to myself as a poet. My practice is heavily research based, as I wish to highlight the nuanced relationships between disparate concepts. This further influences my interest in words and aesthetic ideation.

Alfred Hoi

I'm a VCD student looking into the experimentation and reconfiguration of digital technologies, devices and machines to see what interesting things it can do when it acts out of the ordinary. I'm also quite interested in how things could get exhibited in a digital environment. Skill-wise, I can competently code and am interested in all things weird and alternative and I don't mind if my role is either exhibiting work, curating or designing supporting material.

Ruby Ash

My main interests are in illustration, editorial and branding. I work as a designer part-time and freelance, mainly in the realm of advertising and branding work. I am interested the promotion and conceptualising of the exhibition space. However I can also produce work for the space. My research has been involved in female self-expression and identity through self-portraiture.

 Exhibitiion Space Options

Caughley

Green Street Projects

Pop-up space on Jessie st

Still looking, but green street projects is a penciled in option

Spaces are limited due to desire to project

 Sponsor Options

Best ugly Bagels - Harris has sent proposition email (monday night)

Olive - Andrew is 100% on board. He says it would be most ideal if the exhibition opening event in a monday that way he can be there to help prepare food. He has said the Olive will be able to cover the costs for food and potentially wine. However if not wine, then he has a friend who runs a liquor store who is likely to be able to help out. He plans on creating three different food items; options for those who are vegan, vegetarian, or gluten free. If our expected turn out to the event is 60 people he believes the cost for food will come to $70 (he’s got the hook ups) Palliser, pencarrow and ata rangi wine -

 Proposal/ Slideshow Exhibition Name:

Few Ideas that fit our concepts

Loose leaf, accumulation of material/ single leaf pages, coming together to form an underlying context

Liminal Space, transitional space, refering to perspective

Haptic Sensibility, touch and sensory elements within art

Tonal Nuances, in reference to colour, tones, and shift in expression

 Phrases that could be titles:

“Then there was nothing” “Without purpose” “The difference between black and darkness” “What does it mean to dwell in a place of bliss” “Something never said” “Neither nor other” - Michael Fried “You’re assuming you have a vague whole”... abbreviated from a larger quote in an interview between Donald Judd, and Bruce Glaser “Were it not for shadows, there would be no beauty.”

― Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, In Praise of Shadows “If light is scarce” ...abbreviated from “If light is scarce then light is scarce; we will immerse ourselves in the darkness and there discover its own particular beauty.”

― Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, In Praise of Shadows “composed of matter” ““To send light into the darkness of men’s hearts—such is the duty of the artist.” Jacques Maritain wrote, “What the artist seeks to experience, the mystic seeks to transcend.” allo agoreuei - The artwork is, to be sure, a thing that is made. But it says something other than what the mere thing itself is, allo agoreuei’’

Introduction to the proposed artists and artworks

Group of 5 made up of Polly, Harris and Robert who are all fine arts students and Ruby and Alfred who are vcd students.

At least 3 students exhibiting at this stage with the possibility of Ruby or Albert exhibiting too

Our exhibition would exhibit a mixture of paintings, sculpture, text and video, accompanyed by a publication. The content of the exhibition would be solely comprised of Harris, Polly and Roberts work at this stage, Ruby and Alfred would contribute the design side of the exhibition, which includes the branding, publication, posters and other marketing strategies.

Polly- Budget and Financials

Harris- Sponsors

Ruby-

Robert-

Alfred-

 Exhibition intends to be made up of a series of spatial volumes, some of which will give a clear and tight structure, while others will approach a kind of disorder and formal disintergration

An outline of any conceptual framework or thematic coherence of the exhibition

Ideas: Materiality, spatial environment, over complication, structure, dimensional space

Loose Leaf

Physically a loose sheet of paper, pages accumulating into a book, different ideas, accumulating

The exhibition focuses on the moments when materials become the essentialised basis of the artistic process allowing the substances that art is made of, communicate their own agency. The material is understood as having mass and occupying space, both physical and psychological, as well as an avenue for expression, action and the formation of thought. The various works respond to the topic through both the digital and physicality of material. Our intent is to foster a relationship with the viewer and the work of art through a manifestation of the material experiences.

 Exploring the raw nature of materials, to develop them beyond.

  Discussion of social, cultural, historical or art-historical trigger points

Social:

Historical/ art movements: Heavily influences of modern art movements from the early 20th century, support/surfaces movement of the late 60’s that created distinctive yet remarkably attuned bodies of painting and sculpture, exploring the deconstruction of mediums and the ideologies underlying it

Monochrome expanses of colour and simple geometric patterns that derived from American Abstract Expressionism and Colour field painting. Exhibition Space

We are searching for a relatively minimalist ‘white box’ space. This is due to the paired back compositional style and colour palette of the exhibiting works, thus lending itself to a space that does not detract or conflict with the artwork. Polly’s work pairs itself with the architecture of the exhibition space, using colour and form to influence her pieces. Insight into the practical issues surrounding the project i.e. location, collaborative ‘workflows’

 A timeline or proposed exhibition schedule

Week 3: Logistics

Week 4: Space confirmed

Week 5: Sponsors confirmed

Week 6: Posters working on/ done

Holiday week 1: Distribution of posters

Holiday week 2: Opening night invitations/ distribution

Week 7:

Week 8: Site/Spacial organisation, who exhibits where

Week 9: Exhibition

Week 10: Review/ Evaluate

Week 11: Construct and Finalise all documentation for submission

 A preliminary budget

$10 week each x 5 = $50pw x 8weeks = $400 accumulated by exhibition day

Money would go towards publication, the tools and products used to install works and fix the space/site to suit, last bits and pieces (glasses, food, drink ect) and to pay back people in the group who may have paid more for things. We would pay for the rent/ lease of the space whenever it becomes necessary

With catering already provided by Olive we would not need to spend money on this aspect

[lorrainecparker]

Finding Great Music That Fits Your Production Budget

We spend a lot of time in this industry talking about images and picture quality, and few would argue that such things are not of critical importance. However, our writers have made it a point to showcase how and why audio can make an even bigger impression on viewers. Audio can immerse an audience like few other sensations, but budgets and logistics often have a way of limiting the power of that experience. How long have you spent listening to tracks to find that perfect piece of music? And if you even manage to find it, how often were you actually able to afford it?

That’s part of what makes the service from Music Vine so refreshing. The company started as a vision to democratize music licensing and to make it straightforward to find the right tracks, but they’ve taken this concept to a whole new level. Their prices are extremely reasonable, but the fact that they make it just as easy for artists to make money as they do for production professionals to sort through their catalogue is proof of their commitment to ensuring licensing music makes sense for everyone.

Lewis Foster

The team at Music Vine has put together a special offer for us, as PVC readers will be able to get 20% off their first license purchase with discount code: PROVIDEOCO20. In order to get a better sense of what you’ll be getting with that offer, we connected with Music Vine co-founder Lewis Foster to explore a variety of topics. We discuss what makes royalty-free music different, the benefits of their Suggestion Service, how their collections are organized, and plenty more.

  ProVideo Coalition: Music Vine was started as a vision to democratize music licensing and to make it refreshingly straightforward to find the right tracks. What can you tell us about how this desire and vision came together?

Lewis Foster: Before we started Music Vine, Matt and I both worked in video production. Over time we had become more and more frustrated with one particular aspect of our work: the constant struggle of finding great music within our project budgets. Too much time was being lost to sifting through cluttered ‘stock music’ sites and only rarely would we find a track that we genuinely felt happy with. So an idea was sewn for a refreshing new platform that would carefully cultivate an exceptional catalogue, offer a set of straightforward and affordable licence options, and then present this all via a minimal platform, geared entirely toward making it easy for filmmakers to pinpoint the right track.

  What makes royalty-free music different from other types of licensing?

Royalty-free simply means that beyond the initial license purchase there are no subsequent or ongoing fees required to cover the usage of the music for a given production. Royalty-free music is popular because it provides content creators with a very convenient, affordable and simple way of legally using music, and it’s in contrast to the time-consuming, complex and expensive deals usually involved if you’re looking to licence a track by a popular commercial artist.

  How does Music Vine compare to other services of this type that are out there?

One comment we regularly receive from our customers is that they find the simplicity of Music Vine to be a refreshing change from other services. Keeping things simple is really at the core of Music Vine and it permeates everything we do, from our site’s design to our license structure.

Secondly, we’ve always wanted to celebrate diversity in our catalogue and we’re really honoured to be representing such a colourful breadth of artist types and musical styles. Diversity is a value that’s fundamental to Music Vine, and it’s one that offers a refreshing alternative to the distinctly ‘indie’ ethos that some other licensing services are known for.

How have you seen creative professionals struggle when it comes to dealing with the logistics of sorting through music licensing issues? In what way specifically does Music Vine ease those difficulties?

We recently held a survey seeking insights and opinions on music licensing from filmmakers around the world. One comment was made frequently: that on some platforms the licensing process can be complex and confusing, and also that the large number of variables determining a license price can make it very hard to know beforehand what the final cost will be. We combated this issue by condensing our licenses into three very simple categories: Web, Broadcast and Film. While the prices of these do vary a little dependent upon the duration of each track, they keep around a similar price point within each license tier. So if you are producing a production that is intended for web distribution, you know for certain that you’ll be paying around the $45 mark, give or take $10 if the track is longer or shorter. Importantly, the simplicity of this structure and pricing makes it much easier for video producers to confidently budget for music within their production (and manage expectations with their own clients), with no nasty surprises down the line when it comes to finalizing the license.

  Besides the licensing aspect, are there other ways you feel you’ve eased the logistics associated with finding/securing the right music for a given project?

Making it easy to locate that ‘perfect’ track amongst a catalogue of thousands is a puzzle that we have put a lot of thought into. We know that the task of searching for music can eat up a lot of time for video professionals, so the challenge of improving this is a responsibility we take very seriously. From our collection suggestions on the browse page to the ‘similar music’ sections on each of the track pages, everything about the Music Vine’s layout and interface has been designed with locating the right music in mind.

What level and type of professional is going to get the most out of your offering?

Music Vine was launched with the intention of democratising the licensing of exceptional music and so we have found that it has been embraced by a spectrum of creatives, from hobbyists to international brands and even Hollywood movies. Those brands and professionals who seek out the very finest music for their work will find Music Vine to be an invaluable resource, while those who work on projects of smaller budgets will find that Music Vine provides access to a caliber of music that would have previously been far too expensive.

Tell us a little bit about your collections. How are those created and organized?

We’re glad you asked about these, our curated collections are something we’re particularly passionate about! Collections are great for the simple reason that they’re made by real people (i.e us!), with a lot of care and effort. We choose the collections we create very carefully – each one is geared specifically toward a theme in video production and this is something that can make them a more useful means of discovering music than the traditional ‘genre’ and ‘mood’ filters. Collections are updated regularly to ensure they remain fresh and showcase the latest relevant additions.

Your free Suggestion Service sounds like the perfect thing for a busy professional who needs to find the right music, but doesn’t have the time to find it. Was that the reason it was created?

We created this free service for the simple reason that we wanted to be able to offer help to those who may be short on time to search for music, or who may be struggling to find a particular type of track. Our team spend a long time curating and updating our catalogue, so we’ve come to know it like the back of our hand – we figured that there would be no better way to put this knowledge to good use than to make a helpful service available to our users.

  What can you tell us about the process to become an artist on your site?

The process of applying to become an artist is straightforward, however our quality requirements are rigorous! An interested musician can apply by simply completing the Artist Application Form on the Music Vine site and they will then be added to list of applicants reviewed once per month. We gauge the suitability of an artist against 6 criteria: overall production execution, musicianship, instrument/sample quality, arrangement coherence, emotiveness and commercial relevance. If the artist scores sufficiently in all of these fronts then we will invite them to join Music Vine.

  How do you see your service evolving in the short and long term?

We recently received significant investment which we are using exclusively to rebuild the Music Vine platform from the ground-up. We’re hoping for a Summer/Autumn 2017 launch of the new site which will bring a huge array of improvements across the board including a much broader and more powerful filtration system, a refreshed contemporary aesthetic and a very advanced algorithm for putting the most relevant tracks in front of users (we’re particularly excited about that one!). We are a young company but are already being recognized as one of the leaders in the music licensing industry – we intend to continue listening carefully to the video professionals who use our service and to constantly refine our platform and catalogue. Within the next 2 years, we’re passionate about becoming the world’s go-to resource for licensing high-end music at an affordable price point.

  More than anything else, what’s the one thing you want video professionals to know about Music Vine and how it can impact video professionals who need to find the right music for their project?

If I could tell you only one thing about Music Vine, I’d say that as a platform and as a company we don’t just value craftsmanship and diversity in creative work, we celebrate it. Music Vine is fueled by this deep care and enjoyment for all aspects of the work we’re involved in: music, video and UX design. It goes without saying that video production is an art; so we believe that in order to create a truly valuable and forward-thinking resource for video producers, the same level of passion and attention to detail is needed. Music Vine brings this in bucket loads!

  Ready to try out Music Vine? Get 20% off your first license purchase with discount code: PROVIDEOCO20

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