Hi everyone ! How are you doing today? I hope fine :). Personally, I feel very well thanks to my sister and her boyfriend who visit me this week-end. It recharges batteries for the end of the semester.

But let us come to the main subject of this post. Last tuesday, with my Marketing project course, I have visited the worldwide provider of self-assembled furnitures. You certainly know what I’m talking about ! So…? Ikea for sure ! :D. So let me explain to you this funny excursion and talk more about the visual marketing of this brand.

At first, we can easily say that Ikea plays a lot on visual stuff. For example,when we went out of the bus on the parking, we were directly immerse in Ikea world because of the huge board presenting a product with its price. Then when we entered into the store and see the most visual marketing that the brand uses : The idea to  create real house room completely furnished and decorated with furnitures of the brand (with pictures frame, clothes on the wardrobe, etc…) and inform how much it would cost to reproduce this room at house. Thanks to that, customers can imagine to live in this room and feel like home. And it’s totally in accordance with their vision and business idea which is “to create a better everyday life for many people” and offer a wide range of furnitures at affordable prices.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In addition with that, Ikea put brochures all around the store and guide customers through it with arrows on the floor and some places where there is a plan of the shop. Thanks to this pre-created path, people have to visit all the store. For some furnitures they also put some explanations about the designer and the warranty period. All this things are again visual marketing.

Finally, Ikea is well-known for its customer service and it’s well demonstrated into the store. Indeed, we can see in many places some informations points where customers can ask questions to the staff. Furthermore, there is an area where people can plan to create their own kitchen.

Thanks for reading my post again !

See you later 😉

 

Hi everyone !

Last wednesday, during our International Marketing Tools course, one of Finland’s best-known Internet marketing experts and management consultancy has come. Ilkka Kauppinen (https://www.linkedin.com/in/ilkkakauppinen) went in our class to make a presentation of his company. But which company will you ask? It’s the Arctic Warriors company. Let me introduce it to you.

Arctic warriors is a Lappish health food enterprise which was established in the spring of 2014 by three friends but especially three passionate entrepreneurs who want to save agriculture in the Arctic. The products they sell are tasty herbal hand-made products which are 100% natural ! Indeed, they use Lappish plants like roots of Angelica, roseroot, salidrosid, spruce sprout or nettle which are grown by local farmers and picked by wild herbs pickers. All these natural products are made to fight against low energy or stress but mainly help you feel better in your body.

During this presentation, Ilkka Kauppinen talked first about the story of his company, the plants they used to make their products and after he talked more about marketing issues (which are in my opinion, the main important things to learn about this presentation). To enter in the subject, he first spoke about the importance of looking around and make market researches to know the trends and make sure that you satisfy the needs and expectations of your customers. Another very important things for him is the segmentation, you have to choose the right target for your business.

After that, he talked about the 4P (marketing mix), which are for me one of the most important things to think about when you start a business. About the Place, he said something very relevant. The first question a company has to settle is : “Where am I going to sell my products?” and he added with this that we have to concentrate on two distributors at first. In their case, they especially sell to healthy shops, supermarkets and online.

Finally, Illka spoke about the exportation and some tips to know how to start exporting :

1. You must be sure that you have enough products/raw materials (even if big deal appears you have to make sure that you can deliver products)
2. Sometimes it’s hard to sell a certain type of products. For example, it’s hard to sell herbal products because of the regulation in some countries (In Corea, they can’t sell their honey products because of bacteria and it takes too much effort)
3. You need samples which can be expansive
4. In every country, the distribution channel, the consumption habits or the marketing are different so you have to find them and manage them

A last tips he gave to us is “Rediscover yourself even if you think your brand is excellent”.

To end this post, I will talk about what are the most important points when making your business global via internet and why is digital marketing so important for small business.

Ilkka said that they have used newspaper advertisement at first to advertise, But now, they use more internet marketing and try to use it in the more profitable way. So, here is the most important points when making your business global via internet :

• Have a mobile website
• Have a user-friendly website
• Use multichannel as social media
• Make a good description of your company
• Have a good referencing so that customers can find your website easily
• Show the visual identity of the brand (logos, slogans, …)

Digital business is important for small businesses because today internet takes a huge place in our everyday life. That’s true, we learn, communicate, via internet, with smartphones or tablets and other connected objects. Have a digital strategy is not a richness anymore, but becomes a fundamental to face with competitors and mainly to be on the same equal footing than them. The digital marketing helps companies to be closer to their customers. Indeed, with social media or website we can now create a real relation with customers and talk with them in real-time. Furthermore, the users of internet are more and more numerous, so companies can’t ignore them because they represent a large part of their customers.

It is now finished ! I hope you enjoyed my post and learn more about Arctic Warriors and Digital marketing.

See you !

Hi everyone!

How are you today? Me, I’m fine because it’s holiday here in Finland. So I’m enjoying some days in Norway. It is pretty exhausting because we walk so much here to visit the most beautiful Archipelago in the world (Lofoten island).

But, anyway! This week on Tuesday 11^th of October I have visited the “Circus Taika-Aika” with my International Marketing Tools course. That name maybe may mean nothing to you but this company is well-known in Rovaniemi. So let me introduce it to you.

Circus Taika-Aika, it’s a team of 12 peoples which is now implanted in Rovaniemi since 2002. This is a circus school which has for principal aim to offer various course to children/teenagers from 1 to 16 years old but they also have course for students and adults. In addition, they propose a show if someone organize an event like a birthday party or even a wedding. They also participate to some events over the year and present a show at the end of each semester.

Everybody know that it’s very important for a company to be present on social media nowadays, even if you are a non-profit one and even more if your target group are mostly children and teenager. And it’s the case of Circus Taika-Aika. That’s why I wanted to make a SWOT analysis of their social media in this post.

STRENGTHS:

• They have a Facebook page as well as an Instagram account;
• They show on their website that they use social media;
• Good description of the company on the Facebook page;
• Contact information on the Facebook page;
• Presence of pictures and videos on both social media;
• They put the link to their web-site on both social media.

WEAKNESSES:

• They don’t use all social media like : YouTube, Linkedin or SnapChat;
• Only 509 likes on Facebook and 225 followers on Instagram;
• They don’t put regular post on both social media. For example, the last post on Instagram dated from 13 of December 2015;
• Less or no comments on Facebook posts;
• Only 4 reviews on the Facebook page;
• On both social media they only speak Finnish

OPPORTUNITIES:

• Translation in English;
• They don’t have direct competitors (There isn’t other circus in Rovaniemi);
• Be more present on social media which means put more post, videos or pictures on Instagram and Facebook but also subscribe to Linkedin, YouTube and Snapchat;
• Put a direct link to their social media on their web-site.

THREATS:

• Indirect competitors like Santasport or HopLop.

As we can see after this SWOT analysis, the Circus Taika-Aika has strengths but also a lot of weaknesses. That’s why I write a blog post today, me and all the other students of my International Marketing Tools are going to help this non-profit organization do better on social media. So, I have some suggestions that they can use to improve it.

My first suggestion would be to translate all the social media in English. They have to be bilingual for all the tourists who come during holiday (thus the period when they organize shows).

My second suggestion is that they have to reconnect with social media. They have to be more present on it and put really more on each social media. So that, more people could follow us. In addition with that, it’s very important that they adapt to their young target and subscribe to other social media like SnapChat.

I think that’s all for today! I hope you have liked this post.

I will be coming soon with an article about another Finnish company : Arctic Warriors

So stay tuned !!

Hi everyone ! How are you today? Me, I’m fine (That’s understanding because it’s friday afternoon :D).

Today I will talk to you about something a little bit different… I’m a beginner in the world of blogs, and I want to improve. So I have decided to look at some other blogs and learn from these ! Always Marketing blogs of course ;).

I have my own idea of blogs. And you do you have your own? For me, It has to share experience or advice and that can be useful for others (by others, I want to talk about people but even company). Kim Garst created that kind of blog, she is a best-selling author and the CEO of Boom Social. This blog is very easy to read because it is well-structured, indeed we can choose the subject of the articles we want to read and there is a clear menu above. It is also friendly and it tempts to stay on (If you’re a fan of Marketing obviously). All these things are real strengths of the blog, but not just… Kim and all the others authors write a lot of articles in which they give tips and share their experience. So, I think as a marketer we can totally trust them and be inspered by them!

Unfortunately, I’ve noticed something very upsetting ! What is all these advertisings present on the right side? That’s very horrible to see that while reading an article, that give an impression of “commercial blog”. Okay it’s about marketing but it’s a little bit too much for me.

To continue speaking about Marketing blogs, I have visited another one : http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing#sm.00005kspj016edf3osgfpa0cxou9e  (Always about marketing for sure).

This blog is also good but has a more professional (or strict) aspect. I say that because of the colors, the font and the lack of pictures (each article on Kim’s blog had a very colorful and good picture in relation with the post).

However, the quality of the posts is really good too ! Some titles and topics had captured my interest. Because I want to improve my blog and my skills in bloging, it’s essential (on my opinion) that I have to read some other blogs (Like I do right now). So, particularly one post retain my attention “16 of the best examples of beautiful blog design”. I put you here the URL of the post : http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/34143/12-inspiring-examples-of-beautiful-blog-homepage-designs.aspx#sm.00005kspj016edf3osgfpa0cxou9e (Don’t hesitate to read it and start a discussion on the forum about it!!).

I have found another one very appealling for me “An introduction to blogging for nonprofits”. That’s very cool to find that kind of article because on my opinion and as a student in marketing, I think that EVERY company has to create a (nonprofit) blog and try to be more closer to their customers by that kind of communication.

So I have read both texts and you’re probably wondering “What did she think about these two texts?”. The first is bigger because it gives examples but it is pretty well written, with pictures and real good advices. The second is very short, but it says everything ! These two articles have strengthened my idea about blog !

It’s now time to end this post but one question occured to me… “If I was invited to write a blog post for HubSpot website, What would I write about and why?”. I will probably write about service improving because of one of our course in which we have to find idea on how we can improve the Santa Claus Village for the next 3-5 years. It’s important for me that every service be in a constant improvement.

Thanks for reading this post and I hope you have enjoyed it ! 🙂

See you !

Hi everyone !

My name is Emilie, I’m 20 years old and I come from Belgium 🙂

I will talk about my Finland Erasmus in Lapland University of Applied Sciences where I study International Business (Marketing) 🙂

So, enjoy and welcome to my spot …