Contents for Petra
This blog is post to make Petra find my blog easier. You can just click on the title can it will link to the blog.
1.a Compares two different business models
2.a How about a holiday? (Analysis 4 hotel booking website)
3.a 3 Different Popular Social Media Network
3.b How has Google Analytics been used
Search engine and keywords
Due to the science and technology innovation, the Internet becomes the important media of international communication in the world and the Internet marketing competition pattern is also gradually changing as a consequence. Many cities carry out Internet marketing actively, to transform the image of the city and enhance its attraction, hoping to improve the urban competitiveness in the global competition. Meanwhile, international marketing through the Internet may attract more and more tourists, investors, capital, and varieties of international activities.
As for consumers seeking information behavior on the Internet, with the application and popularization of Internet, net friends become more and more reliable on getting information on the web. Surfing the Internet has become an essential part of life. (Exploration of Search Engine Optimization Technology Applied in Internet Marketing, 2011)
Also according to Dou (2010), brand ranking online can be influenced by a lot of reasons, such as the searchers’ Internet skills. On the other hand, the search engine such as Google can also influence people’s feeling about the brand they are searching. For example, if people search for an unfamiliar brand and find out it is ranking higher than the brand they know, it will some how make the searcher think the un-known brand is better than the brand they know. Thus, this is the reason many company pay to get higher rank of their brand or they put different keywords to influence the search results.
The brand I am going to talk about is Pandora. As a fancy brand with decent price, Pandora is more and more popular these days.
(I really love this advertisement)
Pandora A/S (often styled PANDORA) is an international Danish jewelry manufacturer and retailer founded in 1982 by Per Enevoldsen. The company started as a family-run jewelry shop in Copenhagen before transforming to an international brand. Pandora is known for its customizable charm bracelets, designer rings, necklaces and (now discontinued) watches. The company has a production site in Thailand and markets its products in more than 80 countries on 6 continents with approximately 10,000 points of sale.
The keywords using in the webpage are PANDORA, Jewellery, charms, charm, rings.
With no doubts, if we type Pandora in Google search bar, the official page of it will jump out. Thus I tried some keywords that are tricky such as charms. It is surprised that after I searched charms, the top three results are from Pandora.
Then I searched rings, it make sense that Tiffany & Co. is ranking higher than Pandora.
Therefore, the search result shows that the keywords work.
According to alexa.com, Pandora rank 8350 in the world and it is definitely more popular in United States. And most of the people get inside the website by typing Pandora in the search engine. It also shows that female visitors are more than male visitors. Due to the worldwide brand, well-educated people tend to search for this brand. And because of the price, it attracted more working people who have some economic foundations.
Reference
Dou, W., Lim, K.H., Su, C., Zhou, N. & Cui, N. 2010, “Brand positioning strategy using search engine marketing”, MIS Quarterly: Management Information Systems, vol. 34, no. 2, pp. 261-279.
Ho, L., Lu, M., Lee, C. & Peng, T. 2011, “Exploration of search engine optimization technology applied in internet marketing”, Advances in Information Sciences and Service Sciences, vol. 3, no. 7, pp. 394-401.
Official Charms, Bracelets & Jewellery (2015) Available at: http://www.pandora.net/en-au (Accessed: 20 September 2015).
TheOfficialPandora (2015) The unique connection. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRoqk_z2Lgg (Accessed: 20 September 2015).
(no date) Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandora_(jewelry) (Accessed: 20 September 2015).
pandora.net Site Overview (no date) Available at: http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pandora.net%2Fen-au (Accessed: 20 September 2015).
Australian TV shows and network
Today I am going to compare two TV network channel using the online activities of two different TV show.
Channel 7 is a simple name of seven network. It the second Australian commercial free-to-air television network, who are currently owned by Seven West Media Limited. It dates back to 4 November 1956, when the first stations on the VHF7 frequency were established in Melbourne and Sydney. The Seven Network was the second of the five national free-to-air networks in Australia to be launched.
“Australian programming shown on the network includes dramas Winners & Losers, soap Home and Away, lifestyle shows; Better Homes and Gardens gameshows; Million Dollar Minute, reality; The X Factor, Dancing with the Stars, My Kitchen Rules, The Amazing Race Australia, Beauty and the Geek Australia, factuals; Medical Emergency, The Zoo, RSPCA Animal Rescue, Find My Family, The Force, Crash Investigation Unit, Border Security, SCU: Serious Crash Unit, Surf Patrol, Beyond the Darklands, The World’s Strictest Parents, Airways,Four Weddings, Please Marry My Boy, Pictures of You. Previous titles include family drama/comedy Packed to the Rafters and A Place to Call Home.” (Seven Network, 2015)
Actually from my research, Channel 7’s website I can find is full of the documents that audience may interest, instead, they put their live TV on Yahoo TV.
Channel 10 is short of Network Ten. It is an Australian commercial broadcasting network owned by Ten Network Holdings, and is headquartered in Pyrmont, New South Wales. It is the third Australian free-to-air television network to make its debut after Nine Network in 1956 and Seven Network in 1956. It first aired on August 1, 1964 in Melbourne. Network Ten is the fourth of all the five national free-to-air networks in Australia, after the ABC.
“Ten’s current Australian program line-up consists of series such as: I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here!, Shark Tank, Gogglebox, Wonderland, MasterChef Australia, Have You Been Paying Attention?, The Biggest Loser: Families, Family Feud, The Project, Bondi Rescue, Bondi Vet, The Living Room, The Great Australian Spelling Bee, The Bachelor, The Bachelorette and morning chat show Studio 10.” (Network Ten, 2015)
The TV show A place to call home is an Australian television drama series that debuted on the Seven Network on Sunday 28 April 2013.
The Bachelor (or sometimes The Bachelor Australia) is an Australian version of the American reality television series adapted from the same name.
http://tenplay.com.au/channel-ten/the-bachelor/season-3/episode-16
Promotion
For channel 10, even it is a really heat TV show, it can only link to facebook and twitter. And the newest episode has only 7 shares.
On the other hand, due to the impact of Yahoo!, even though the drama is not as popular as the Bachelor, audiences still able to share it to facebook, twitter, tumblr and other social medias.
Cross promotion
Take facebook as an example. These two network both have facebook pages.
Therefore, on channel 10’s facebook page, we can see that they shared a lot of videos of The Bachelor of Australia. Also on The Bachelor of Australia’s facebook page, we can see that it said that the new episode is showing on channel 10.
However, channel 7 is not like that. On facebook page we can only see the promotion of X-Factory. And on the A place call home’s facebook page, we can see that they put Foxtel’s SoHo channel as their showing channel. I think it can be explain that the news. Seven’s period drama A Place To Call Home has been prematurely axed mid-way through its second season, although the remaining episodes will go to air.
Communication
Focus on winning in customer service. You might be thinking, “I’m a marketer, I don’t look after customer complaints or their issues”. Wrong. With the rise of social media, and the lack of barriers customers have to brands, customer service is everyone’s responsibility. For a marketing standpoint focus on online support, FAQs, testimonials from customers, customer self-help guides on YouTube and internal culture change.
And these are the ways these two network communicate with their audiences.
The Intellectual Property Awareness Foundation (IPAF) undertakes independent research into the attitudes and actions of Australians in relation to the issue of illegal content theft of movies and television shows. The result of the research shows that 86% of Australians who download or stream illegally at least once a week said they do it is because it is free. Thus, this is a really large market that should be paid more attention.
Online TVs have some advantages that can make sure the TV shows on the network can attract more audiences.
Online TV does not depend on the presence of a cable connection and it is easy to combine with other online activities. It can offer a richer viewing experience and integrate and bundle services. Available content is practically unlimited for advanced users. There is no expensive broadcasting equipment required and customers accept video ads as part of the experience. With the rise of social networks, more diverse video content, increased interactive gaming and other such advantages in online entertainment
Write at the end
I tried to compare these two website using alexa.com, but because channel 7 are using Yahoo! as its media stage. So it is actually comparing Yahoo! and channel 10, which is unfair.
Reference：
A Place To Call Home – SoHo (no date) Available at: http://www.sohotv.com.au/shows/a-place-to-call-home/ (Accessed: 20 September 2015).
A Place To Call Home (no date) Available at: https://www.facebook.com/officialaptch?fref=ts (Accessed: 20 September 2015).
Australian attitudes and activities in relation to illegally accessing online movies and television shows (2012) Available at: http://apo.org.au/research/australian-attitudes-and-activities-relation-illegally-accessing-online-movies-and (Accessed: 20 September 2015).
Channel Ten (no date) Available at: https://www.facebook.com/channelten?fref=ts (Accessed: 20 September 2015).
Kalina, P. (2014) A Place to Call Home gets axed by Seven network. Available at: http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/a-place-to-call-home-gets-axed-by-seven-network-20140610-zs322.html (Accessed: 20 September 2015).
Network Ten (2015) in Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_Ten#Programming (Accessed: 20 September 2015).
Seven Network (2015) in Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Network#Programming (Accessed: 20 September 2015).
Seven Network (no date) Available at: https://www.facebook.com/sevennetwork?fref=ts (Accessed: 20 September 2015).
Ten, N. (no date) The Bachelor – S3 Ep. 16. Available at: http://tenplay.com.au/channel-ten/the-bachelor/season-3/episode-16 (Accessed: 20 September 2015).
The Bachelorette Australia (no date) Available at: https://www.facebook.com/BacheloretteAU (Accessed: 20 September 2015).
(no date) Available at: https://au.tv.yahoo.com/plus7/a-place-to-call-home/-/watch/17987066/a-place-to-call-home-sun-20-sep-series-1-episode-13/#page2 (Accessed: 20 September 2015).
How has Google Analytics been used
Using Google Analytics to Evaluate the Impact of the CyberTraining Project
Google Analytics (GA: http://google.com/analytics) is a useful resource for measuring and evaluating the effect for academic research. This case study provides the outputs of GA analyses and uses it to evaluate the impact of the EU-funded Cyber Training project. The Cyber Training project is a well-grounded, research-based training guide and provided to trainers though eBook (www.cybertraining-project.org). (Mc Guckin and Crowley, 2012)
According to Mc Guckin and Crowley (2012), this case is mainly about how GA potentially influences the result as a useful resource for evaluating in academic research. Exclusively, it measures the influence of the Cyber Training project by GA functioned with identifying the time of the user interrelate with online sources and the basis of all access.
This article came up with 4 figures to explain how GA works to evaluate the impact Cyber Training project.
The data has been collected from visits, pages visited, new visits, average time on site, absolute unique visits, direct traffic, referred traffic, search engines, primary sources, secondary sources, top four countries, and top content. It is kink of like what I did when I analyzed travel agents using MINT.
The first one is Dashboard. Shows the visitors and their time on the website. The second one is visitors overview. It includes all the visitors’ access information. The third one is traffic sources overview. It illustrations how many people visit the Cyber Training project and how day find it. The last one is visits came from 34 countries/territories, to present the visitors’ nationalities.
Again, the aim of the case is to confirm the evaluation provided from GA for Cyber Training project. Thus the study came up with the following result.
This shows that GA can measure the impact of Cyber Training project and it can provide suggestion for its dissemination development. It proved that GA is useful to improve different access channel for Cyber Training project other than eBook.
To sum up, in my opinion, GA can be used to evaluate the impact of website through checking the visitors’ access can be useful to company by providing data and giving references for further development.
Reference:
Mc Guckin, C. and Crowley, N. (2012) ‘Using Google Analytics to Evaluate the Impact of the CyberTraining Project’, Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 15(11), pp. 625–629. doi: 10.1089/cyber.2011.0460.
3 Different Popular Social Media Network
Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn
Nowadays, whenever we reading articles, we can always find some small button next to the articles or under that say, “share this article to Facebook” or “share this article to Google+”, etc. These social media are making our life more and more conveniences, at the same time, the variations of social media do cause us some troubles. This blog is going to analysis the difference between Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.
In general, Facebook is a general social networking site. You can post pictures, articles, stories and events. Instagram is more like a social photo sharing app, more focusing on photo sharing. LinkedIn, on the other way, is more for businessman or businesswoman.
From the picture we can see that, Facebook have the most quantity of people (1 billion users). Facebook has more opportunities to promote the advertisements and also users are more likely to share things on Facebook. As a user of Facebook, I can see what kind of video my friends like or what happens in my friends’ lives. Also, Facebook is a fun way to share you opinion with your friends or even some strangers. For Instagram, users are more likely to use the hashtags to add the topic to their pictures or what they are willing to say. Instagram also work with other hit event such as MTV to create more topics. LinkedIn is more like a brand that is participating. It giving potential and current associates, it also a place to networking and connect. This social network is targeting older person who is already working or has his own business. Compares to Facebook and Instagram, LinkedIn is for the business perspect, other two are more for entertaining and sharing.
IMC-integrated marketing communication
Kliatchko (2008, p. 140) defined IMC as “an audience-driven business process of strategically managing stakeholders, content, channels, and results of brand communication programs”, suggesting a holistic view of IMC well beyond simple message consistency.
Social media represents even more opportunities for leveraging integrated marketing strategy to increase awareness and preference for products and services. The use of tools, including Twitter, Facebook or MySpace, to connect with various audiences, combined with blogs, websites and other online tactics have exponentially broadened the reach, and lessened the cost, of communicating with the masses.
I think it’s safe to say that Facebook is the most common among all the social media marketing tools out there. Facebook uses the social graph and activities to target demographics and people, making Facebook Advertising incredibly awesome. Think about it, any product/service you advertise on Facebook basically gets put into the hands of the exact person who wants or needs it. While it’s mainly a B2C platform, every fan that has LIKED your page is truly interested in what you have to offer.
Share valuable content and interact. Do not forget to INTERACT! This is very important. People love to see that there is a real person behind your brand. If you don’t show your face, people get weary if it’s really you or not. And for all you busy CEO’s out there, it doesn’t have to be you posting either. Have someone in the office do the job. Make sure you keep that Facebook page active, interesting, and never stop engaging!!
Instagram is an application or so-called function belongs to Facebook and it is not a traditional social networking site. You can’t inbox people or anything. The only thing you can do is uploads photos and videos and have followers and can follow people with photos you like.
However, these days more and more people using Instagram to promote or advertise their products or company. Articles across the Internet read: “For Your Next Social Media Campaign, Look to Instagram”; “Instagram Is a Marketer’s Best Friend – For Now”; and “Instagram’s Sweet Spot: Better for Brands than Facebook and Twitter?” Social media marketers have noticed a decline in reach on Facebook and heightened engagement on Instagram. It shows that Instagram is used as a market tool now, or we can say it is the IMC strategic of Instagram now.
LinkedIn is definitely different from the rest of the social media outlets out there for business. Instead of just connecting with individuals themselves such as clients or customers, you can connect with other business as a whole. LinkedIn carries a feature that most social media platforms don’t, you can see who views your profile! And it’s not like those silly Facebook apps that everyone clicks at one point in time. This one really works!
Stream all your social media profiles to this one page. Everything from Twitter, Facebook and your blog can stream right to LinkedIn, making it the home of where all your social media will live. It doesn’t get much easier than that. LinkedIn is great for business because it allows you to promote your company, post a job opening, and find talented individuals that fit the job description you’re trying to fill.
Reference：
Branding, I., Design and Bozzuto, A. (2012) The Difference Between Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Google+, YouTube, & Pinterest. Available at: http://www.impactbnd.com/blog/the-difference-between-facebook-twitter-linkedin-google-youtube-pinterest (Accessed: 13 September 2015).
Kitchen, P.J. , Kim, I. and Schultz, D.E. (2008), “Integrated marketing communications: practice leads theory”, Journal of Advertising Research , Vol. 48 No. 4, pp. 531-546.
Lehman, S., Leslie, M., Farrington, M. and Ledbetter, S. (2014) Facebook vs Instagram: let’s compare – or not. Available at: https://blogs.chapman.edu/smc/2014/05/02/facebook-vs-instagram-lets-compare-or-not/ (Accessed: 13 September 2015).
Lewis Howes (2013) LinkedIn Marketing: 5 Steps to Growing Your Business on LinkedIn. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCKtfcAGUTE (Accessed: 13 September 2015).
Richards, L. (no date) ‘Examples of Integrated Marketing Strategies’, Small Business Chron, .
Shopify (2014) Instagram for Business: How to Build an Audience of Followers for Your Brand. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhfX21jz17c (Accessed: 13 September 2015).
localmobileguru (2013) Facebook Advertising For Small Business Presentation. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GF3iGHc7bz8 (Accessed: 13 September 2015).
My first video!!
This is my first youtube video! I took it on my way to the gym and the weather is really lovely.
Hope you all enjoy it and enjoy the nice weather.
How about a holiday? (Analysis 4 hotel booking website)
How you plan your holiday? For me, I am always the one who plan everything above. I have to book the hotel and ticket one month before I be there. And I tend to use Booking.com to book my hotel. Sometimes you can find very cheap hotel at there. And I also found a really fancy and cheap hotel on that website for my friends’ holiday in Gold Coast.
Thus, today I will compare 4 different travel/hotel booking sites—Booking.com, Trivago, TripAdvisor and Wotif.
- Site traffic
We cannot have the full data from Alexa.com but we still can grab some useful information as a free user. After the cooperation between these 4 websites, the first thing I noticed is the global ranking. Apparently, Booking.com is the most famous one in these 4, and followed by tripadvisor. Trivago is only rank at 3086, in my opinion, is due to its simple webpage, which is not as fancy as others. Seems like not many people choose to use wotif.com, its ranking is way too low compares to others.
Honestly, I am a little bit surprised with this result. Because I thought there might be more people use tripadvisor than booking.com. The screenshot of the commons leaved in tripadvisor always be the evidence of the ranking of hotels.
Similarly, from the picture of historical traffic trends, we can see that all traffic sites are increasing except wotif.com, it dropped 2826 rank during the past 6 months. The rank of booking.com and tripadvisor.com all increased 23% respectively. And trivage.com increased from 4795 to 3086 between Aprils to September. The traffic site of trivago.com has the highest amount of increase.
Therefore, these pictures show the search traffic data and analysis where people find these websites. Wotif.com has 24.6% search visits and 3.63% of it comes from the key work accommodation. Tripadvisor.com has 28.7% search visits and most of it comes from the direct search of its name. Trivage.com has 22.4% search visits and facing 2% decrease, and all of its search come from the search of anything related to trivago. Same things happens to booking.com, its name already big enough for its search visitors to find its website directly and its search visits is 16.4% and 1% increased.
- Product offering
Although all these websites offer hotel booking, there are still lightly differences between these 4 websites.
Booking.com: Hotel, homes and apartments, business,
Trivago: Hotel
Tripadvisor: Hotel, flight, vacation rentals, restaurant
Wotif.com: Accommodation, flight, packages, activities, car hire
- Target market
First of all, from these screenshots we can tell that these 4 webpages are the most popular in on of the countries. Wotif.com is really popular in Australia, and I assumed that is because it includes car hiring. Booking.com is really popular in Italy. It ranks 17 in Italy. Both trivago and tripadvisor are better known in United States. In my site of view, these mean that these websites should have some different market strategies in these countries.
Also, we should check the advertisements. Sometimes, companies tend to put their target market inside their ads to attract the visitors they plan to.
Summarized the target market of different websites.
Booking.com: Family and business
Wotif.com: Vocations
Trivago: People who finding the place they can trust
Tripadviso: People who willing to live in better accommodations
Also, from these pictures we can see that female and people who have higher education are more likely to book their trips or hotels online.
- Mint data
5. References
- https://mintglobal-bvdinfo-com.ezproxy.canberra.edu.au/version-2015820/Redirect.serv?_CID=15&context=EPJHBMPK6I3MAAZ
- http://www.tripadvisor.com/
- http://www.trivago.com.au/
- http://www.booking.com/
- https://www.wotif.com/
- http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/trivago.com
- http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/tripadvisor.com
- http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/booking.com
- http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/wotif.com
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGFimiB4bVQ
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-OXqGVDfKA
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtsmJgmGOiQ
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9k27rqOyCec
5 Is of marketing
5 Is of marketing
The 5 Is of the marketing mix were developed by Peppers and Rogers (1997), as stated by Chaffey and Smith (2013), the 5 Is are matching to the 7P’s of the marketing mix. The 5 Is define the processes required to satisfy customer in combination with the variables such as the 7 P’s the marketer controls.
Identification
Find out who your customer is and learn as much as possible from them, there are useful methods on-line to do this like website registration and quick on –line surveys.
Every time you open Facebook page, the first thing you see is tell you to sign in or log in. This is the typical identification of a webpage. It is the best way for webpage to know who you are and show your customized things once you log in. Same things happen on Youtube. Although you do not have to sign in to watch those channels, an account can remember your preferences and record the channels you have watched even give you notification once there is new videos update.
Individualization
Tailor your approach to your customers needs by customizable web pages e.g. personal greeting and ability to change site according to their individual tastes.
Lots of webpages will recommend something, such as apps, videos, friends etc., for the customers based on their preferences on record. When we using Facebook page, not only it will recommend the people it think you may know, it also provide some apps and games based on the games you are playing. Due to many games can log in with Facebook account, it has opportunity to track customers’ preferences. For Youtube, once you log in, it will record what you type in search bar and what kind of video you have opened before. Then it will generate the recommendations for you.
Interaction
Learn more from your customer by continued interaction. Dialogue used in order to understand the needs of the customer and what they value in the business, interacting and building the relationship.
Continuing to find out more about what customers’ needs or their special requirements, almost all webpage have search bar and help center to solve customers’ problem. For Facebook, if you have any problems that help center cannot solve, you can leave a common on the Facebook’s Facebook page anytime. It also set help community to let customers help each other. Youtube also has help center to solve problem and record customer’s needs. Except that, Youtube also leave a lot of contact channel for different proposal.
Integration
All aspects of the firm’s behavior toward each customer must be driven by the firm’s knowledge of that individual customer, across the entire enterprise — all its functions, divisions, and geographies. The company that commits to 1to1 relationships with its customers will not be able to operate solely within discrete functional or product units.
As I mentioned above, due to Facebook account can be used as an account in many different apps or games, it is easier for customers to share the link to Facebook. From the scream shots we can see, posts showing on Facebook timeline can be shared from app (Criminal case), other social media (Instagram) and video webpage (Vine). Meanwhile, interaction shows on Youtube is the different way. It can share its video to other website such as Facebook, Twitter, Google +, etc.
Integrity
The most important aspects of CRM is quick response times, with automated e-mails and on time deliveries playing a big part in building trust with your customers.
Easy ways on engaging a customer is by simply having a frequently asked questions (FAQ) page on your website to answer common questions and minimize time spent fielding nuisance calls.
For Facebook page, the most important things customers’ care is its information security aka privacy. Facebook set privacy basics for customers to change their information show in public. To remove the concern about the safety of their accounts, Facebook also have a page to shows data policy. For Youtube, it has policy and safety hub to make their security works go public. It also give some tips to customers to help them keep their Youtube safety.
Reference
Chaffey, D and Smith, PR 2013, Marketing Excellence fourth edition, Routledge, New York, NY.
Compares two different business models
Compares two different business models
Business model is one of the most important things that marketer should focus on. A business model is an “abstract representation of an organization, be it conceptual, textual, and/or graphical, of all core interrelated architectural, co-operational, and financial arrangements designed and developed by an organization presently and in the future, as well as all core products and/or services the organization offers, or will offer, based on these arrangements that are needed to achieve its strategic goals and objectives.”[1] Both in theory and real life, business model is been wildly used to describe the core aspects of organizations, such as purpose, target market, strategies and sourcing etc.
Business model design contains modeling and description of the following areas of an organization. Value proposition, target customer segments, distribution channels, customer relationships, value configurations, core capabilities, partner network, cost structure and revenue model.
There are many different types of business model such as bricks and clicks business model. This article is going to compare two different business model with examples.
Direct sales model
Direct sales model came into use in the mid- and 1800s when manufacturers noticed that they could actually sell their product directly to the customers without going through the retail stores. Thus, the products normally are ordered by the customers online or through phones instead of open a physical store and reduce the cost. The key factors lead to the success of direct selling is social network and good product.
The most important advantage of direct selling is the facts that products are selling through the channels provide by the company and the company can control the whole selling process. Moreover, it increases the opportunity for the company to provide customizations for customers.
The most famous direct sales model company is Dell.
Also the following picture list the pors and cons of Dell direct sales model.
Value-added resellers model
A VAR (value-added reseller) is a company that resells software, hardware and/or networking products and provides value beyond order fulfillment. To explain it in the sample way, it can be described as, if you have a product but you don’t have enough money to publish it, you meet a businessman who have enough money with good market, thus you give your product to the businessman to do it. The businessman is the VAR in this case.
The example like VAR is everywhere in our daily life. Such as JB Hi-Fi, Dick Smith, Officeworks, David Johns and Mayer etc. Nowadays, there are even VAR in hotel renting. Some people bought apartment and give it to agencies, they rent this apartments to the tourists.
The example of VAR model is Microsoft 365. While not all VAR business models are the same, you can successfully integrate Microsoft Office 365 into your practice. In fact, Monitor Group reports that VARs who resell Microsoft Office 365 can boost their operating margins in comparison to reselling equivalent on-premises or other cloud-based services. And those VARs are cutting their sales cycle in half when measured against a traditional, on-premises–oriented sales process.
Compare
The Direct sales model chooses to sell the company’s products directly from the manufactures to customers. However, the value-added resellers model tend to five their products to VAR such as some physical store to let them help the company to sell its products. These are two completely different business models. Therefore, the two companies I set as examples—Dell and Microsoft are both successful companies. Thus, it is hard to tell which business model is better, it is more depends on the situation of the company. Even using the same model, different organizations still have to set different strategies.
Reference:
- Al-Debei, M. M., El-Haddadeh, R., & Avison, D. (2008). “Defining the business model in the new world of digital business.” In Proceedings of the Americas Conference on Information Systems (AMCIS) (Vol. 2008, pp. 1-11).
- http://www.slideshare.net/yiyidhe/case3-dell-direct-fianlv2
- https://pgbarranca.wordpress.com/2010/05/23/dell-business-model-and-distribution-network/
- https://mspartner.microsoft.com/he/il/pages/solutions/downloads/office-365-value-added-reseller-guide.aspx
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