WEEK 5B:POLANCO TARGET MARKET

MY TARGET MARKET

When you are interested in an industry. First you need to know if there is a market for that industry. The market is formed from people that might have interest and needs for products and services in certain industry. Nevertheless, the people inside this market can have different behaviors, thoughts, lifestyle , ages, ethnicity, etc. 

As a marketer it is important to know your audience and understand what are their desires and needs. Recognizing your target market not only will save you time and money, but also will give you the results that you expect.  To develop a good campaign or a promotional plan to reach this target market first you MUST define your target market.

I am interested in the interior design decoration industry. Thus, the target market i will define is for the company: 

POLANCO DECORA

 

I recognize that POLANCO DECORA has 3 different target markets. For this exercise i will define a fictional characters.

1.- House wives

She is Martha. She is 60 years old. She was a teacher but now she is retired and stay home and enjoy of her grandchildrens. She remembers to have bought some Polanco products 25 years ago. She has medium status, because she and her husband have worked all their lives. She likes to have her house well decorated. She enjoy going on Thursdays with her friends to the coffee. Also she likes to go to the Casino alone or with some friend.

2.- Architects

He is Victor. He is 42 years old. He has his own business company. He has a family and 2 children. He give his services to house owners, hospitals and companies. He likes to play tennis and gather with his friends some weekends. Once a month,  he goes to play golf also with his friends. He likes to eat in restaurants on weekends with his family. He has a beautiful house built by himself.

3.- Hotels and Companies

He is Jose. He is the purchasing manager. He has 46 years old. He is in charge to make all the purchase of the hotel. He is conservative and follow orders. He is analytical and organized. He just make the contact with Polanco, but he does not take the decision. Even though he does not take the decision, he participates and give his opinion about what is better for the hotel or company. He likes to exercise  twice a week. Sometimes he likes to run also as exercise. He is a blue collar worker. He believes he wants to be employer all his life.

Blog comments

Abraham Mejia
Ashley E
Karim Z

Week 5A: Defining Your Target Market

DEFINE YOUR TARGET MARKET

In order to develop a good campaign and promotional plan , it is important to know your target audience. Inside an industry , it exist a market where all the people inside this market has different interest,  desires and needs. When you define what market segment you want to reach, you will be investing your money and time wisely to have the results that you expect. Because you are going to understand their wants and needs.

For this week , I chose the set 2 to define the target market of these two companies: 

Chillis

Target Market:

Women and men between 25 and 42 years old. They like to enjoy time with their friends and meet up on weekends. They like to eat barbecue  chicken and meat grills.

They can either meet in the restaurant with friends and have some drinks or also like to organize parties at home.  They could be singles or married couples who have two kids at home and that is one of the reason they prefer doing parties at home. They work normally 5 to 6 days a week. but always make  free time to meet with friends. As they work most of the time, they like  fast food. 

Chillis website offers an online orders where you can buy from home and pick your order in the location near your house. This make you optimize your time and be ready for your party.

Teri Cafe

Target Market:

Man and women between 40 and 65 years old. They like Japanese food and pasta.They like to go out for dinner and enjoy the experience and the atmosphere of the place.  They are couple that might have grandchildren or just older professional children. Not only the target audience like to enjoy the dinner time with his partner but also with his/her family. They have a medium status. They like yoga and take a walk with his/her dog.

This website is more like feeling the experience of a warm atmosphere and private place. Since the company are family owners and produce their own noodles, they might focus on the quality service for their clients, variety of plates and customization.

Conclusion

Comparing this two websites I find more differences than similarities. Each website has different target audience even though the industry is the same: Food. Each of them try to convey different message to their visitors. To mention some differences: ( Combo plate vs individual plate) ( fast food vs International Japanese food) ( Pick up order vs live the experience and atmosphere).

Week 4B: My Two Favorite Websites

MY FAVORITE WEBSITES

In this post I want to comment about 2 of my most visited websites.

Obviously, one of them is my business website. 

www.polancodecora.com

After  the class lecture of Design and Branding, I can notice this website has some positive designs, but at the same time it has some potential problems to be improved.

The pros are that the social media platforms are visible on the first look (Ease of use); it has 7 main links to connect with other pages (Depth of Content). Also the Logo of the company stands out from a second logo (Hierarchy). The logo appears in every page (Repetition).

The cons are that the Logo could be positioned on the top left (Alignment); the content can be positioned in all the width of the page instead of centered. The font can be changed and improved (Typography).

The second website I normally visit is the Facebook page. who doesn´t?  

www.facebook.com

The pros are that the colors are convenient s because they convey the message of professionalism and calm, a good place to visit and spend time relaxing. The logo is top left which give recognition (Concept and Alignment).

The cons are that there is not good (Hierarchy) in the design. For example, there is text that is not important and its font is bigger than the profile picture. The icon to create an account is in the bottom and could be more visible at the top. Personally  I believe this website lacks of design because it is very simple. 

Blog mates comments 

James S

Ashley E

Davina Croft

Week 4A: Aesthetics, Design and Branding

 The importance of Design and Branding in Social Media an Web presence

When you plan to develop a website for personal or business purpose,no matter the theme of your new creation,  you must consider the presentation of your work.

Yes! there are some MUST to have a quality website. Prior to the analysis I will give you in this post. First, let's review them.

• Concept and Contrast.- What are you trying to convey? what is the purpose of your website? Are you contrasting the colors to make things pop? 
• Repetition.- To be clear with your audience about your message, there are some elements that require to be on every page. For example: your logo.
• Alignment.- Every element has to be ordered and have a place. It must follow a sequence.
• Proximity.- There is a rule where elements that stay together form a group.
• Hierarchy.- Give a level of importance to your content. So what really matters has to be bigger, underlined, stand out.
• Typography.- Choose your fonts according to the message you want to convey. Make it readable.
• Ease of Use.- Make it easy to read. Tip: The logo on the top left creates a brand recognition.
• Depth of Content.- Don't be to short and don't be to long. Start with 4 or 5 main pages.

Now that you know some concepts to consider in developing your website. Let's make a bench marking of some websites.

TOYOTA 

http://www.toyota.com/

The Toyota site is a good website. As you visit the site, it has its logo in the top left where is visible and even when you change pages, it still remains in the same place. Other quality of design is the pictures of cars. The purpose of Toyota is to persuade to purchase cars. The car images are stand out and the pictures have interaction.It is easy to use for visitors when they can choose the color of the car they like and it change visually. Other attribute is that the website has 5 main links. 

HEAD HUNTER HAIR STYLING

http://www.headhunterhairstyling.com/

On the other hand, this website have some potential problems. For example, the colors do not complement one with another; the social media platforms are not visible in the top page; the typography can improve and the picture and content is centered which feature poor design. 

The suggestion to this website is to change the combination of these two color. Also placing the social media platforms icons at the top  would be more visible to visitors and will increase the followers number. Another improvement is to adjust the margin of the picture to cover all the page.

APPLE

http://www.apple.com

This is a good example of a website. As you can see , the logo is in the top left of the page and still remains when you change pages. The apple website showcase the products as a high hierarchy of importance. The website has a searcher to find words or themes faster. This features is easy to use for visitors. It has 7 main pages  and a support link.

PENNYJUICE

http://www.pennyjuice.com

This website has some problems for visitors. Does not have design at all. The colors and typography can be improve to convey a message. The main links or pages are not visible and it is hard to know where to click. It lacks of alignment , hierarchy and proximity.  The pictures can be better distributed. In the second pages, the colors are to bright and mixed which disturb the eye. 

As you can see in these examples having a good design will help you to connect with your audience and keep them interested, or on the other hand make them to just close your page. 

=Work Smart, Not Hard=

Week 3C: Business Websites

Business Websites and social Media

This week I am doing an exploration about the web presence of competitors in an Industry that i like:

"Interior design decoration".

Research 

Business Name	Interiores Uno
Web site url	http://www.interioresuno.mx/
Social Media Platforms	Facebook, twitter, instagram
Use Rate	They use well their platforms. Normally they post everyday on FB (1441 followers) while ig (555 friends) they post every 1.5 days in average. Twitter( 107 followers) posting every 1.5 days .
Last date of SM platforms	FB: February 12th, 2017 IG: February 12th, 2017 TW: February 12th, 2017
Analysis	They  use well their platforms. They post more in facebook. They have an average of 3 likes per picture and they don't have comments.

Business Name	Tapetto Veracruz
Web site url	www.tapetto.com.mx
Social Media Platforms	Facebook https://www.facebook.com/TapettoDecoracionVeracruz/?fref=ts
Use Rate	They just have the facebook as social media tool.
Last date of SM platforms	FB: January 23rd, 2017
Analysis	They are not using well the social media platforms. The website is not available. The last post have more than 2 weeks.

Business Name	Houzz
Web site url	http://www.houzz.com/
Social Media Platforms	Facebook, IG, Youtube, twitter https://www.facebook.com/houzz/ https://www.youtube.com/user/HouzzTV
Use Rate	They use well their platforms. Normally they post everyday 5 hrs on FB (2 mill followers) while ig (314 thousands friends) they post every day. Twitter( 286K followers) posting every 5 hrs .
Last date of SM platforms	FB: February 12th, 2017 IG: December 31st, 2016 TW: February 12th, 2017
Analysis	This is an international interior design decoration firm. It has comments, and questions from people. On average it has 50 likes per picture.

Business Name	Decorating Den Interiors
Web site url	http://www.decoratingden.com/
Social Media Platforms	Facebook, Twitter, IG, Youtube,Pinterest https://www.facebook.com/DecoratingDenCorporate/
Use Rate	They use well their platforms. Normally they post everyday 2 days on FB (20K followers) while ig (329  friends) they post every  7 days. Twitter( 1,177 followers) posting every 3 days .
Last date of SM platforms	FB: February 10th, 2017 IG: February 7th, 2016 TW: February 10th, 2017
Analysis	This firm is strong in variety of social media platforms. However,on  Instagram it is very new user having just 329 friends and just 54 posts.

BusinessName	House Beautiful
Web site url	http://www.housebeautiful.com/
Social Media Platforms	Facebook, twitter, instagram, Pinterest and Youtube https://twitter.com/housebeautiful https://www.facebook.com/HouseBeautiful https://www.instagram.com/housebeautiful/
Use Rate	They use well their platforms. Normally they post every hour on FB (7 mill followers) while ig (1.2 mill friends) they post twice a day in average. Twitter( 447K followers) posting on average 5 times a day . Pinterest (234Kf)
Last date of SM platforms	FB: February 13th, 2017 IG: February 12th, 2017 TW: February 13th, 2017
Analysis	They use their social media tools very well. They are pretty active. They have different pictures in each social media most of the time. They do not share the same picture in different platforms. A pattern that exist in twitter is that they share the same videos 3 days in a row which is ok, because sometimes the audience is not the same in certain days or hours.

Analysis

I can infer that most of the interior design decoration firms use social media as a tool to inform, showcase and connect with their audience. The Social media platform that has more popularity in this industry is the Facebook.

The five interior design firms have the most amount of followers in this platforms than any other. Some of the post from Facebook are connected with other social media as twitter or IG. Even though Instagram is a platform to post attractive pictures as visual aid; it is still Facebook the platform where exist more interaction in comments, pictures and questions between the audience and firms. It might be that Instagram is an emerging platform for this industry.

I discovered that only the big firms have presence in YouTube. One reason for this could be that making videos for you tube request time and budget.

Week 3B: Comments to bloggmates

Clark Bryce
Edwina
Sharp James

Week 3A: Experiences In Social Media

Social Media: A New Way Of Communication

 It is known that the concept of communication is an issue related with relationships and interacting with people in a personal way. Nevertheless, the communication with customers, as far as businesses was concerned, is an important theme in order to understand their needs and desires. Today the businesses focus on reaching the wants and satisfactions of present and potential customers. 

Despite i have had few difficulties when communicating with businesses. I know at least once someone has had a bad experience communicating with a Business.It is not always easy to create positive experiences at all moment because services are hard to control.

Fortunately Social media plays an important role in Communication

The social media is a tool to facilitate the communication in two ways. The businesses receives feedback from their customers which help to understand them and create their desires and wants.

About My Experience With Social Media

  

As a consumer, My experience has been few. Normally i just use the Google search to look for business information as telephones numbers, open hours, addresses.

In my mind, i do not have a positive event with any company to remember.

As a business, I do manage social media accounts (Instagram, Facebook and blog). Although i have had this account for more than 3 years. Just since last year (2016), i have become more aware of the importance and commitment that demands a business account. 

I have noticed from 2016, Social media accounts started to have some interactions and inbox message. For example, we receive some inbox message by Facebook, asking about availability of products and prices. About the Instagram account, I posted a picture last month of  the Aria  Resort & Casino hall in Vegas to distinguish its interior decoration and i received a question about the picture. This is a positive experience as a business because i realized that people start to read and be interested in the content.

Either a positive or negative comment, the best way to respond is to be honest and transparent to gain trust as well as answer as soon as possible . 

As the first learned lecture mentioned; Success will come with  some key points:

• Staying consistent
• Setting realistic goals
• Organization and planning
• Knowing your target market
• Following your competition

Accounts
Instagram:  @polanco_decora
Facebook:  Polanco decora mi vida  and Polanco Decora
Blog:          Polanco Blog

Week 2B: Post Commented

Bloggmates!

A2

Bryce Clark
Ashley Enders
Abraham Mejia
Davina Croft

Week 2A: Social Media Platforms

Let´s talk about Social Media Platforms...

There are many social media platforms that people use for PERSONAL, BUSINESS or just SOCIAL use. I believe that each platform was built for some specific purpose. 

But which ones are designed for Personal use?

In my opinion, Facebook and Twitter are the tools made for personal use. Facebook was the first social media  tool to start connecting with people. In it you can post pictures, videos and comment your ideas. The structure is very friendly for all to read. Also, you can write  private messages and attach files. This make easy and fast to share information with your friends.

Even I have an account with twitter; i do not use it anymore. However, I believe Twitter also give you the opportunity to express your ideas and thoughts in a personal way. I imagine Twitter as a cloud in the air, where you can just think out loud with the freedom of knowing or not knowing who is reading you.  Please correct me if i am wrong!

On the other hand, if you ask me: 

What social media Platforms are for Business use? 

I would say:  Youtube and Linkedin. Youtube is a tool where you can upload videos. Most of these videos  you can find are to inform, persuade or entertain people with the purpose  to give a message to the people who have searched the video. Thus, it is a great tool to use it with business purposes. 

Linkedin is a tool where many people upload their resumes and background with the purpose to connect with other people in the same industry or with a target profile. Another great tool to take advantage for business goals.

There are other social media platforms that i would like to talk about in my future post. By now, from my point of view these two of each category are the mainly used.