TURNKEY MARKETING: Idea2product4profit J

TURNKEY MARKETING: Idea2Product4Profit J. CAFESIN—INSTRUCTOR

TURNKEY MARKETING: Turn Products Into Profits BUS 34; Stanford Continuing Studies Preliminary Syllabus (Subject to Change)

Have an idea for an app, a product or service (or think you may in the future)? Want to turn an idea into a startup? Want to grow your existing company? Get financing? Go global? Takes more than an idea to realize this vision. It takes marketing tools and strategies to produce and use them!

This course teaches students how to take their ideas from their head, to the whiteboard, then develop a brand—face and voice for a product or service, and/or company, and create marketing tools and material with which to launch. Students will learn how to assess benefits to define their target market. Hands-on learning will teach students how to use visual design, copy writing and content creation, as well as social networking strategies to launch their new venture. 1. Learn methodologies of Productization—defining company's features and benefits, and what need/s they fulfill. 2. Discover target audience/s for your product/service/idea/message. 3. Perform Competitive Analysis—finding your companies differentiators from your completion. 4. Develop Branding—company name, identity/logo, tagline...etc., directed at target market/s. 5. Examine effective content for online marketing—websites, blogs, advertising and more (including SEO—Search Engine Optimization for better Google placement). 5. Create marketing content, from video and digital photography to web copy that reflect the product/service [and character] of company to its target market. 6. Explore the myriad of sales tools such as websites, videos, email blasts, collateral material, and classic advertising available, with insight to creating these tools at low cost, as well as guidance selecting professional resources. 7. Learn Social Networking strategies to build awareness of your brand and help promote your company. _____

Students Requirements: • Laptop with wireless connection for in-class use (or computer access with broadband connection outside of class) • Cellphone with camera or digital camera (or access) • Photo editing software (or access)—MovieMaker/iMovie/CS6 or equivalent • Computer proficiency in: a. Word processing program—MSWord/Open Office b. Creating and maintaining a filing hierarchy c. Experience navigating the internet _____

Grading For Student's requesting a letter grade, the final grade is based on attendance, student participation and project completion: ►Class attendance and participation: 50% ►List of [at least] 10 (ten) product/service features and benefits- 15% ►List of [at least] 3 (three) [potential] target markets (with demographic, geographic and psychological profiles for each)- 15% ►List of [at least] 3 (three) vertical, and 3 horizontal markets- 5% ►Startup [projected] name and tagline- 15% ►Three complete pages of startup website- 10% -or- (►Branded company pages on FB, Google+ and Twitter- 10%) _____

TURNKEY MARKETING: Turn Products Into Profits WEEK 1: Introductions/Class Networking Students with [or without] a product/service/message in mind will learn to develop and build a face/brand/company around their idea. (Students without a product/service they're interested in launching will be assigned one, i.e. 'You are the proud developer of a game app, and it's better than Call of Duty;' or, 'You bake the best pastries on the planet, and you want to turn people on to your passion;' or...the possibilities are endless!)

1. Marketing [anything] Foundation and Basics Marketing, advertising, PR, graphic design, copy writing, collateral, communications are, [or should be] developed as tools to SELL products/services/ideas/message. Marketing must sell BENEFITS that continually fulfill NEED/S to successfully develop, and ultimately grow any business (beyond the freakish, short-lived fad). a. Effective marketing practices: Ready, Aim, Fire (IN ORDER!) • Ready—Identify company's offerings and markets, competition, horizontal and vertical targets for product/services, and what mediums to communicate this message. • Aim—Brand company to target market/s, Define the medium on/in which your message/content will be published (radio spot is very different than a Facebook ad.) • Fire—Engage CTA (Call To Action) oriented marketing. b. Psychology 101 Using the principles of psychology to discover what motivates people/individuals. Create Desire—the difference between Need and Want

Objectivity (truth) vs Manipulation—using marketing techniques to funnel viewers towards an objective, usually to buy, or buy into an idea/message (also referred to as “false logic”). Using Storytelling to Sell—creating fiction to sell [usually] idea/message, but sometimes product/services ('tweeking' the truth). Self-interest—at the core of human motivation and evolutionary development to date. Examples of motivators to get people to act: --To be liked --To be appreciated --To be right --To feel important --To make money --To save money --To save time --To make work easier --To be secure --To be attractive --To be sexy --To be comfortable --To be distinctive --To be happy --To have fun --To gain knowledge --To be healthy --To gratify curiosity --For convenience --Out of fear --Out of greed --Out of guilt

2. Productiztion I*—Defining product/service/message [basic] FEATURES (1st draft) What product or service, or combination of both do you want to sell? a. Define product space: ♦ Software • Application Software—software programs directed at a specific function, i.e. Photoshop, Word, Quicken, Angry Birds, Call of Duty, Hulu, Amazon. Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox are application software written for internet browsing. • System Program—enable the computer hardware or system to run (without these the computer as a whole or parts of it's functionality would not work), used to direct the operation of a computer,

i.e. Cisco's Networking Software, device drivers, iOS/Linux/Windows operating systems. • Mobile App—Smartphones only? Tablets, e-readers, mp3s? Platform/s: iOS, Android ? • Industry—entertainment, social networking, information/media/communications, employment, creative/organizational/lifestyle • SaaS/HaaS (cloud platforms)—mobile and/or pc based such as GoogleDocs, Salesforce, online gaming, web hosting, systems operations such as Cisco, and development platforms from Microsoft and Amazon, (also review LaaS and PaaS)

♦ Computer Hardware • Consumer—computers, laptops, tablets, flash drives, gaming systems, connector cords, electronic devices...etc. • B2B— routers, switches, adapters, chips, CPUs, servers, cash/credit card registers...etc.

♦ Services • Brick & Mortar (may or may not include products)—schools, restaurants, psycho to massage therapy, lawyer, bed & breakfast (hospitality), real estate broker, doctor, dentist, ad agency • Itinerant (traveling)—education enrichment programs, consultants, personal sales/solicitation (politics/religion), mobile library to neighborhood vaccinations, dog walking to in-home childcare/babysitting • Online Service Provider—Virtual Education, Wikipedia, website/email/blog hosting, web portals, search engines, magazines/media/newswires, gaming/entertainment, social networking

♦ Real Products • Consumer Goods—retail and wholesale from food (markets, cafes) to cutlery to electronics to skin care products, selling brick and mortar, and/or online – Merchandise—housewares, clothing, furniture, electronics, vehicles, building materials – Commodities (product lifeline)—food, beverages, alcohol/home brews

♦ Idea/Message • Non-Profit Organizations (as opposed to Corporations)—Red Cross, religious, political, social welfare advocates * Startup offerings may include two or more categories, such as Apple that sells products, services, hardware and software, and a very specific idea/message. --- ► In 1 to 2 sentences maximum state: What Your Product/Service IS (Does—its purpose)? ► What is the #1 job function of any CEO. (Hint: #1 is not on any of the links below.) http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-8-crucial-tasks-of-a-ceo/ http://managementhelp.org/chiefexecutives/job-description.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chief_executive_officer http://startupguide.com/entrepreneurship/startup-ceo/

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3. Target Marketing 101—The Basics What does your product/service provide, and why should anyone care? What need (or desire) does your product/service fulfill. For who? a. Target Market: a group of existing and/or potential customers that a company aims its marketing efforts, and ultimately its products/services and merchandise towards. • Built-in perimeters for target marketing—from product/service FEATURES list, derive potential target customers. (Example: iPad/android game app like Scrabble may be for kids and adults, but it's still a game, and should be marketed as entertainment, even if it's “Entertain Your Brain and Get Smarter!”) • Low-hanging fruit—first go after customers who are most likely served by your product/service. (Apple users are generally fanatics, and if you have an app that works on iOS, you have a built-in target market of [at least] a percentage of Apple followers.)

4. Productiztion II—Identify startup's [basic] characteristics of projected target market/s • Categorize potential customers—target perimeters can be gleaned from demographics, geographics, psychology; sociology; market research; common sense; competition in your space, predictive modeling...etc. (Example: Scrabble-type game apps target market a different target from first-person shooter games.) ►List in bulleted points in less than a sentence each the answers to the below data on projected characteristics of target market/s for your startup's offering/s (NA if not applicable): -age range -sex -income bracket -education level -location—city/country/worldwide -race/ethnic background -career -professional level (or student) -single/married -parent -sexual orientation -religion -lifestyle (i.e. city dwellers/suburbans, vehicle choice) -entertainment (i.e. types of music, books, movies, tv...etc.) preferences -political affiliation (often associated w location) -technological proficiency (often related to age/income/education) The more comprehensive this list, the tighter you've defined the target audience for your offering/s, and

the better you'll understand your market and what motivates them to act.

5. Productiztion III—Defining startup's [basic] BENEFITS (1st draft) a. Combine Features with potential target market characteristics to help define Benefits: Derive Features & Benefits list from demographic, geographic, psychological, sociological...etc. data on projected target market/s • Example: Developed a game app for mobile gaming? Projected Target Market Characteristics— boys/men, 10-45, multiracial, heterosexual, mobile literate, advanced gamers, low-middle plus income, poor to mid-plus level student, no to low level college education, single, religious, suburban, rock music, little to no recreational reading, digital life—online all the time, student/military/admin/civil service, nominal career demands...etc. Feature & Benefits fulfilling needs of projected target audience/s: –Kick alien butt! –290 advanced levels –342 killer weapons –20 planets or make your own –Mobile multi-player for iOS or Android! –Build fortresses –Lead battles –Plan tactical strikes –Buy and fly air and space craft –Mind-bending adrenalin rush! The more comprehensive this list, the greater likelihood your company's offerings can fulfill the needs (and/or desires) of your target audience. A long list of benefits, real or perceived, will be useful in creating content for marketing messaging online, in print, display, advertising, broadcast and collateral campaigns.

1. Discover and Explore Competition a. Iterative Searching: a search that is repeated, usually with increasing knowledge in each search. Finding what you want with access to...everything, isn't easy sometimes. Using Google (generally start here, unless working in a specific framework with it's own search capabilities): > 5th Grade Math >> Free 5th Grade Algebra >>> 5th Grade Algebra Worksheets >>>> 5th Grade Algebra timed drills >>>>>5th Grade Algebra drills ipad...etc. (More than a few words and most search engines get confused, and return results relevant to only first two or three words in the search query.) b. Exploring and Monitoring Competition: Search the net for data, whitepapers and companies in your product space, and/or selling to your target market/s. • Begin a file of competitors and potential competitors sites you find through research or stumble

upon. • Check your competitors site and google them frequently to monitor their progress. • Search for data, onesheets, whitepapers, user-groups, meetups, colleagues through LinkedIn and other SN sites in your company's space, and keep ongoing file of pertinent material.

2. Respond to Competition • Define the differentiators that separates your product/service from your competition. • If you have no clear differentiators— realign your Features & Benefits: After an in-depth review of competition, and accurate assessment of their offerings, current and projected, upstage competitors benefits list by adding to your company's offerings that delineates your company/product/service from competitors (even if only price point to gain market share). Example: Compare your list of Features & Benefits with your competitors. Strike-through the ones that match exactly. Add features and benefits your competition has to your Features & Benefits list where applicable. Then make a new list of your value-add/s, i.e. your differentiators: –cheaper than competitors same offering/s –lasts longer –made better, and/or in U.S.A. –smarter –smaller –faster –more capable –easier to use –cooler (as in hip, slick, and trendy) –the right thing to do...etc. b. Review vertical/horizontal markets for your product/service: Identify possible spin-off products/services in the same space as your original idea. (Example: 'Elaine's Famous Cupcakes are almost as Good as Her New Signature Cookies.') • Vertical: variations/modifications/marketing of your product or service to specific industries • Horizontal: wide range of industries all with similar or same need/s • Competition will give insight to vertical/horizontal markets, or spark ideas of similar industries/target markets to sell your product/service. • Explore your target market's needs, both in and outside of your product market space to discover Vertical and Horizontal markets, not only as a Plan B (plan C, D...etc.) if your first idea doesn't go as planned, but also as part of a working business plan with long range project goals. • Continual releases of new products or new features on existing products are a MUST for most any company to survive today! Setting up new development milestones makes it more likely to consistently achieve them.

3. Profit Models* How will your startup make money$? • Gross profit—a company's revenue minus its cost of goods sold, i.e. a company's residual profit

after selling a product or service and deducting the cost associated with its production and sale. To calculate gross profit: examine the income statement, take the revenue and subtract the cost of goods sold. Also called "gross margin" and "gross income". • Net 'operating' profit—a company's operating income after operating expenses are deducted, but before income taxes and interest are deducted. If this is a positive value, it is referred to as net operating income, while a negative value is called a net operating loss (NOL). NOI is often viewed as a good measure of company performance, as it is less susceptible than other figures to manipulation by management. • ROE (Return On Equity)—measures a corporation's profitability by revealing how much profit a company generates with the money shareholders have invested. Return on Equity = Net Income/Shareholder's Equity • Profit Sharing—Employees share a portion of profits based on corporate and business performance. * Read more: The Art of Profitability

♦ Retail: selling physical products such as consumer goods, merchandise, electronics...etc., and/or services directly to consumers • Brick and Mortar—location based storefront such as a cafe, clothing or merchandise stores: dentists/doctors; salons/spas; banks/financial institutions...etc. are generally charged per product/visit • Itinerant (traveling)—education enrichment programs; carpet to house cleaning; dog walking to in-home childcare/babysitting are charged per visit or as a monthly service. • Third party sales—selling your product through another vendor/corporation as in Amazon, iStore or Google Play

♦ Consulting services—IT/Technology/Computer services; Financial services (accountants, discount brokers, 'wealth managers'); HR (human resources); travel agencies; business management/strategic planning...etc. have a variety of profit models.

♦ Wholesale: computer chips and cards (though some sold retail); consumer items that make consumer goods, as in sugar, fruits, grain for food; supply chain (trucking, UPS, FedEx); business management software...etc. • VAR (Value Added Reseller)—a company that adds extra features and/or benefits to products it has bought before reselling them, as in Ingram (book distribution); AT&T selling applications from 3rd party vendors;

♦ SaaS (Software as a Service): cost effective, easy to implement, easy to use, fast to deploy, but for everyone else, too! Software; Applications; Online and mobile games; Cloud computing services; Web hosting; Online education; Amazon; iStore; • License Agreement—the user agrees to pay for use of the software, and promises the software author or publisher to comply with all restrictions stated in the EULA (end user license agreement).

• Per-seat license—software license based on the number of individual users who have access to the software. 50-user per-seat license would mean that up to 50 individually named users can access the program. A user may be a person, software or device accessing the software • Subscription model—paying a monthly or annual fee to use the software or application • “Freemium” Premium Upgrade model—giving away a service like LinkedIn and charging for “Premium” use packages; or games that charge for virtual products as in extra weapons for video game • Advertising model—selling advertising on your website or social network. —iAd is a mobile advertising platform developed by Apple Inc. for its iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad line of mobile devices allowing third-party developers to directly embed advertisements into their applications. —Adwords is an advertising program offered by Google that pays websites on a pay-per-click basis for advertisements that the company displays on the websites. The advertisements are typically banner and text ads that show content related to the website's offerings. Also known as “keyword” advertising, in which ads appear as "sponsored links" on the Google results pages as well as the results pages of Google's partners such as AOL and Ask.com. The advertiser chooses keywords and a short one- or two-line text ad, which is displayed on the results pages when the ad keywords match up with the search keywords. —Read more on Advertising model: http://www.businessinsider.com/how-pandora-could-become- profitable-2013-1?op=1

ASSIGNMENTS ►List [at least] 10 bulleted points describing, in less than a sentence each, the Features & Benefits of your product or using your service or buying into your message. ►List[ at least] 3 bulleted points describing, in less than a sentence each projected Target Market for your product/service/message. Make sure to realign features and benefits of your product/service/idea/message important to your projected target audience/s. ►Look up and list [at least] 5 companies competing directly or indirectly with your startup's [or product's] offering/s. Study competitors sites. Save URLs. Copy their content into a word document [to review when writing your company's content], and file with associated URL. ►List [at least] 5 Features & Benefits of each competitor in your product/service space. ►Rate competitors success in your product/service space/target market by Googling them for ratings, comments, buzz, number of link returns. Model successful competitors—who and how they are targeting, and with what marketing tools, what words, what visuals, what media. ►List [at least] 2 bulleted points describing in less than a sentence each the benefits of acquiring your product or using your service over your competition, i.e. your differentiators. ►List [at least] 3 bulleted points of vertical and/or horizontal product/service ideas spun from your current product/service, and each of their corresponding target markets. ►List [at least] 2 Profit Models for your startup's revenue stream. ►Read: http://thenextweb.com/entrepreneur/2014/03/16/growth-vs-profit-startups-focus-first/ ►Google 'Target Marketing' in Search and YouTube for fundamentals to cutting edge approaches in

targeting markets for your startup.

WEEK TWO Students present starup's [or products] bulleted lists of Features & Benefits, including differentiators to competition for in-class assessment.

1. Branding Overview a. Branding: What it is and how it's used across all media. • Exploring our Personal Brands • Evolving Brands Over Time b. Naming a company: Names are usually derived from three basic categories: ♦ Offering/s of company (real or perceived) • Microsoft— Paul Allan (company co-founder), came up with original name of Micro-Soft—a mashup of microcomputer and software. Bill Gates first used it as one word—Microsoft. • Facebook— Mark Zuckerberg (company founder and CEO), began with Facemash, an online poll for 'hot or not' students at Harvard from face pics he hacked from school database. He began TheFacebook/Facebook (after university shut Facemash down) as a universal face book within Harvard, intenting to create a website that connect people around the university. • Apple— ripped off from Apple Records, or...lots of speculation, but Steve Jobs (founder) was known for lifting everything from software to hardward to marketing from...everyone. • Nike— from Nike (Greek Νίκη, pronounced [nǐːkɛː]), the Greek goddess of victory. • Google— Larry Page and Sergey Brin chose Google, because it's a common misspelling of googol, the number 1 followed by 100 zeros, and fit well with their goal of building very large-scale search engines.

♦ Founders Names • Wells Fargo— Henry Wells and William G. Fargo • Hewlett-Packard (HP)— Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard • Prada— Martino and Mario Prada • Chrysler— Walter Chrysler • Nestle— Henri Nestlé

♦ Location (real or fictitious) • Budweiser (beer)— Bohemia (today's Czech Republic) generally named a beer after their town with the suffix "er." Budweiser is genitive, meaning from the town "of Budweis." • Southwest Airlines— Airlines originally serviced only the southwestern United States.

• Cisco— Derived from the city name, San Francisco, which is why the company's engineers insisted on using the lower case "cisco" in the early days. • Amazon— Bezos (CEO) wanted a company name that began with "A" to appear early in alphabetic ordering. Perusing the dictionary, he settled on "Amazon" because it was "exotic and different," and also one of the biggest rivers in the world, as he hoped his company would be. • Adobe— Adobe Creek in Los Altos, California, which ran behind the houses of both of the company's founders. c. Taglines: Build brand and online presence (SEO/SEM) with voice/words/prose. d. Rebranding: Evolving a brand image over time. e. Branding Elements: Demonstrate how to used consistent visual elements of color, typography, images, icons, style, layout...etc. across corporate divisions and external media and marketing for building brand recognition. f. Multimedia Branding: Creating consistent imagery and messaging across all media.

VIDEOS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEcyLqicIzE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzCEWFldr3U

2. Design Fundamentals Using visual arts to communicate to startup's target market. • Process of design • Designing within Perimeters • Line • Shape • Balance

3. Basic Color Theory—An Overview of Light and Vision a. Subtractive Color: Pigment, ink, enamel, used in print, display, packaging, products, painting...etc. Starting with a white surface (paper, cardboard, canvas), adding colored inks and paints subtract wavelengths from the light to reflect colors. Combining pigment color produces black. • RBY—Red; Blue; Yellow; primary subtractive colors that create full color palette. b. Additive Color: Starting with no light (black) color is added to produce light. Combining light color produces white.

• RGB (screen/monitor)—Red; Green; Blue; primary light colors used in screen/monitor reproduction. c. Working with color: Using tonal properties and the color wheel for chosing effective combinations across all visual comunications. • Hue—a pure color. • Tints—adding white to a pure hue. • Shades—adding black to a pure hue. • Tones—adding gray to a pure hue. • Complimentary Colors—Two opposite colors on the color wheel. • Analogous Colors—Two or more colors adjacent to each other on the color wheel. • Triad Colors—Color schemes of three equally spaced colors on the color wheel. • Split-Complimentary Colors—Main color and the two colors on each side of its complementary (opposite) color on the color wheel. • Tetradic Colors—Rectangle or square color scheme uses four colors arranged into two complementary pairs, offering the most flexibilty and variation of color applications. • Color Scheme Designer—Cool app for picking harmonious color schemes. d. Designing in thumbnails: using basic sketching techniques in design development. Focal point and peripheral clarity of vision is explored.

Fine Art vs Graphic Design: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QwOVLts5wY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ch7B0weMs4k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTi5SNgxE3U

ASSIGNMENT ►ONLY after researching their availability online (NetworkSolutions.com)—List [at least] 3 potential names with available URLs (or reasonably close) for your new company. (Register name online to lock in URL, if applicable.) ►Write [at least] 3 possible taglines describing in no more than eight words that (at least) hint at the company's product/service/philosophy/message. ►Submit [at least] 3 thumbnail LOGO designs with taglines.

WEEK THREE ►Class reviews startup name, logo and tagline of each student.

1. Corporate I.D./Logo Development a. Identity Design In-depth: Explore famous logos and icons, and how/why they became known. Tools and methodology to develop and design a signature image for your company that works on the side of a building or a Twitter feed, and 'speaks' to your target market.

2. Designing with Type a. Type History: Timeline of the development of English characters. • Characters as Design—explore typefaces of various languages, and using initials as logos/I.Ds. b. Designing with Type: variations in styles, weights, stresses, characteristics, categories and applications.

• Explore where to find free icons and identities that follow good design principles and will work across all media. Identify on-demand printing and specialty digital printers for inexpensive complete stationary packages.

3. Applying Identity to Marketing Materials a. Developing Stationery: business cards, letterheads, sales kits, and social networking signatures. • Cool business cards: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywA81oKwHAM b. Cross-Branding: using corporate identity standards across various marketing materials c. Logos in Motion: Exploring animated identities, their purpose and use; and finding digital production specialist to create them for your startup. • Aurora 3D • Swift 3D (learn it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vbz_sl3diUo) • Pond 5: stock logo animation fx d. Graphic programs/apps to create I.D.: Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop/Gimp, Word/OpenOffice, Paint, Adobe CS6, online tools available..etc. • Ultimate Paint—free pixel paint program • Inkscape—vector graphics program (free version of app like Illustrator) • Libre Office—similar to MSWord and Oracle Open Office

1. Creating a Brand a. Branding Beyond the Logo • Establishing Branding Standards: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wbBRe2vwvs • Utilizing Branding Standards: Watch DriveClub:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRtEDKXfX6M

2. Off and Online Branding and Marketing Design a. Elements of Design II: Basic methodologies of Print and Online design ♦ Gird Systems: layout design* for magazines (see video), ads, newsprint, websites, off and online advertising and marketing collateral • Single Column: Generally used for text documents, and books (print, and ebooks). Least amount of design flexibility with all text and images confined to a single column. • Multi-column Grid: While single-column grids work well for simple documents, multi-column grids provide flexible formats for publications that have a complex hierarchy, or that integrate text and illustrations. The more columns you create, the more flexible your grid becomes. • Modular Grid: Modular grids have consistent horizontal divisions in addition to vertical divisions. These modules govern the placement and cropping of pictures as well as text. • Gerstner's Compound Grid: Karl Gerstner’s compound grid was designed for Capital Magazine in the 1960’s. It’s a compound – meaning combined – grid of 6 column and 4 columns. This allows for very flexible layout combinations, including the unusual 5 column, asymmetric column configuration which is the basis for this layout. • Golden Ratio/Rectangle: The length of the side of one square divided by that of the next smaller square is the golden ratio. A Fibonacci spiral which approximates the golden spiral, using Fibonacci sequence square sizes up to 34. The theory is that areas of negative space and visual interested should fit within the spiral to create Page Harmony. * Books and magazines should be designed as spreads (facing pages). The two-page spread, rather than the individual page, is the visual space in which to design.

♦ Eye Tracking—what the eyes see, and how they move across a page, off and online

♦ Visual Command—dominance; weight; clarity; readability; in pics, type and visual design

♦ Layering—layering images and type for depth of field and visual command Layering in Photoshop: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSrWaP1yUDI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNuQERoJQPA http://twotoasters.com/ideas/2012/shopkick/

3. Print and Online Reproduction a. Resolution: Choosing the correct resolution for effective reproduction. • Continuos Tone—Photography, painting, tonal illustration • Dithered Tone—Dithered tone methods (like traditional 4-color printing) deliver the appearance of continuous tone by placing individual dots of color close together to visually mix colors. Also known as amplitude modulation (little circles/pixels), fixed pattern of dots vary in size (print) or intensity (digital) in order to create the illusion of continuous tone.

• Pixel—A numeric expression of a square field of color. Pixels have no specific dimension. Images are pixels packed together without seams in an ordered grid. Viewing distance determines appearance of pixels in an image. Images of 100 ppi may look pixelated when viewed from less than a foot, but at 20 feet individual pixels can't be seen. Cellphones have a very high ppi, where large screen TV's don't need it. More pixels per inch will generally look better, but in practice it is hard to tell the difference between 320 ppi and 400 ppi because 320 pixels per inch is close to the resolution threshold of most paper. A good rule of thumb for desktop inkjet printers is to divide the output resolution by 3 or 4 (720/3=240 ppi. 1440/4=360 ppi). b. CMYK (print reproduction): Traditional offset lithography uses dithered tone, generally referred to as a line screen, a regular pattern of cyan, magenta, yellow and black dots arranged in clusters called rosettes where the distance between the centers of the dots is fixed and the size of individual dots varies in order to change the overall balance of color. Line screen resolution is defined by the number of lines per inch that the screen can reproduce. A 150 line screen can reproduce 150 lines per square inch. c. Solid Color: Generally used for print, display, packaging—either one of CMYK, or picked from a palette of PMS (Pantone Matching Systems) colors. Add solid color to enhance 4/c process, or in one or two color applications, or where larege areas of a single color or opaque application is required. d. Reproducing Imagery: To reproduce digital images taken from the computer at 72 dpi larger than the original, image must be a large file. • A 15 meg file will reproduce to an 8.5” x 11” print of an illustration or photo in continuous tone. • 300 pixels per inch (ppi) are required for best print reproduction with a 150 line screen (dpi). A pixel density of 1.6 times the line screen; for a 150 line screen that would be 240 pixels per inch. To reproduce computer or digital images to print, resolution on the computer should be set to a minimum of 200 ppi, preferrably 300 ppi to achieve 150 dpi resolution in print, the minimum dpi used in magazines and most printed material. • Interpolate—To estimate a value of (a function or series) between two known values. Enlarging small images requires software to interpolate from the existing pixels to create new pixels at higher density to avoid pixelation or banding for the enlarged size. Generally an image created at a pixel count near 4,000 x 5,000 pixels can be interpolated successfully to almost any size and still look good • File size, pixel density and load time—the larger the files on the online page the longer the load time.

ASSIGNMENT ► Create a corporate identity to fit within the perimeters of effective logo design. Include tagline. (Computer generated only.)

WEEK FOUR ►Class reviews complete identities with taglines of each student.

1. Online Marketing (overview) a. Operating Systems (OS): software that supports a computer's basic functions, such as scheduling tasks, executing applications, and controlling peripherals. • iOS—ONLY on Apple devices • MS Windows—available for most computers, PCs and mobile devices except Apple • Android—(Google's mobile OS), available on cellphones and tablets from every manufacturer except Apple • Linux—UNIX open source development platform b. Browsers: a computer program used for accessing sites or information on a network (as the internet, or intranets) • Explorer—Microsoft • Chrome—Google • Firefox—Mozilla (rated #1 in security, privacy, speed) • iOS—Apple (only) • Solaris—Sun Microsystems (UNIX base) • Opera—Scandinavian company c. UI vs. UX: Exploring User Interfaces, interacting with electronic devices. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wZUTe70w1Y • UI (User Interface)—The means by which the user and a computer system interact. The goal of this interaction is effective operation and control of the machine on the user's end. Operating systems to websites to online advertising all must have a UI. • UX (User Experience)— This term is still evolving, however, current venacular refers to interactive site engagement—keeping users engaged with website with polls, quizzes, games, contests, giveaways...etc. UX also focuses on emotional response, i.e. pleasure and value rather than on interface performance as with UI, however, UI and UX are intricately connected. • Navigation—table of contents using headers on your site: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUCUsQUxU0k; mobile nav: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5skiLFpKuc; d. E-Commerce: Commerce conducted online (or electronically). ►Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhgtoQIfuQ4; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTtMbyrH2dk • Shopping Cart—software that allows online shopping customers to accumulate a list of items for purchase, described metaphorically as “placing items in the shopping cart” or “add to cart”. Upon

checkout, the software typically calculates a total for the order, including shipping and handling (i.e. postage and packing) charges and the associated taxes, as applicable. • PayPal is an e-commerce business allowing payments and money transfers to be made through the Internet. PayPal performs payment processing for online vendors, auction sites, and other commercial users, for which it charges a fee. Merchants using PayPal—Directory. • Security—Transport Layer Security (TLS), and Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), are cryptographic protocols (such as key agreements like passwords...etc.) that provide e-commerce security over the internet. • Creating an e-commerce site—You'll need a Merchant Bank Account to accept on-line credit card payments as well as a payment Gateway to securely process card data. Some banks have very strict standards for shopping cart sites. Others are more realistic. Either way, you need to use a shopping cart that meets Payment Card Industry (PCI) compliance and is also compatible with your Gateway. Popular Card Processors: PayPal— https://www.paypal.com/webapps/mpp/merchant Google Checkout— http://checkout.google.com/sell/? Authorize.net— http://www.authorize.net/ Popular Shopping Cart Solutions: Cartweaver— http://www.cartweaver.com/ Web Assist— http://www.webassist.com/support/ecommerce-options.php Adobe Business Catalyst—Built-in turn-key e-commerce: http://www.businesscatalyst.com/ Shopify— http://www.shopify.com/ Mals-E— https://www.mals-e.com/index.php Ton of ecommerce hosting solutions out there. WordPress handles only small to medium transactions, while Google and Amazon Cloud Ecommerce solutions handle much more!

e. Cloud computing: Using a network of remote servers hosted on the internet to store, manage, and process data, rather than a local server. Cloud service has three distinct characteristics that differentiate it from traditional web hosting. It is sold on demand, typically by the minute or the hour; it is scalable, i.e. elastic—a user can have as much or as little of a service as they want at any given time; and the service is fully managed by the provider (the consumer needs nothing but a personal computer and internet access).

A cloud can be private or public. A public cloud sells services to anyone on the Internet. A private cloud is a proprietary network or a data center that supplies hosted services to a limited number of people. When a service provider uses public cloud resources to create their private cloud, the result is called a virtual private cloud (VPC).

Cloud computing services are broadly divided into three categories: Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS).

Infrastructure-as-a-Service, like Amazon Web Services, provides cloud computing that allows a company to pay for only as much capacity as is needed, and bring more online as soon as required. This pay-for-what-you-use model resembles the way electricity, fuel and water are consumed, it's sometimes referred to as utility computing.

Platform-as-a-service in the cloud is defined as a set of software and development tools hosted on the provider's infrastructure. Developers create applications on the provider's platform over the internet. PaaS providers may use APIs (application programming interface), website portals or gateway software installed on the customer's computer. Force.com, (an outgrowth of Salesforce.com) and GoogleApps are examples of PaaS.

Software-as-a-service cloud model, the vendor supplies the hardware infrastructure, the software product and interacts with the user through a front-end portal. SaaS is a very broad market. Services can be anything from Web-based email to inventory control and database processing. Because the service provider hosts both the application and the data, the end user is free to use the service from anywhere. Adobe software is now SaaS.

• Middleware—software that connects computers and devices to other applications such as software drivers; gaming rendering. • Virtualization—simulating a hardware platform, operating system (OS), storage device, or network resources. • Runtime—the time at which a software or multimedia program is running.

2. Elements of Online Design Websites, advertising, blogs, PPC/CPC...etc. a. Design vs Development: the difference between creative marketing and web development b. Call to Action: Words that urge the reader, listener, or viewer of a marketing message to take an immediate action, such as "Write Now," "Call Now," or (on internet) "Click Here." Two clicks should be maximum required of users to purchase or follow additional instructions (such as click on link, or take the poll, or respond to query). All marketing material should have a CTA! • Rewarding customer loyalty—motivate customer engagement with discounts, giveaways, rewards, special offers...etc. • What is the objective of your CTA? --To sell directly (on or offline i.e. brick&mortar) --To spark interest and generate further investigation c. Exploring Resources: finding competent marketing, graphic and production professionals • Placing ads in Craigslist under Gigs • Posting on LinkedIn groups applicable to your business needs

3. Website Development I (overview) User Experience (UX/UI), Navigation, Creation/Execution a. Common elements of a website: what makes an effective website • UI ease of use

• Navigation— Setting up an effective UI means funneling viewers to CTAs! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUCUsQUxU0k; mobile nav: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5skiLFpKuc; • Readability—eye tracking, visual command • relevant, to-the-point content • UX—site engagement; interactivity • ecommerce/online sales—using referential purchase links to outside vendors—Amazon; Google Play; iStore b. Website Layouts Good website information: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64TvvJyUlvY; Typical Website Components—Website components are often INDUSTRY SPECIFIC (targeted). CNN has very different site components than Guitar Center, Cartier Jewelry or Remax Real Estate. • Landing/Home Page--Image/Video; Headline; CTA; (optional: testimonials; twitter/fb/news-feed widgets; site stats and related widgets; forms...etc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1i_Kbj1kKR4 • About company--Image; Headline; Bodycopy; CTA (implied or actual) • Products/services (one or multiple pgs)--Headline; Bodycopy is Features & Benefits in BULLETED points after 1-3 lines of bodycopy; CTA (real or implied). • On-site Blogs (sites more interested in conversion—motivating purchases [i.e. Nike, Apple] generally don't need a blog. Blogs are used for engagement [for branding, and funneling conversion], and SEO ranking.--Headline; bodycopy; CTA (usually implied). • E-Commerce/Purchase---Headline; bodycopy; CTA (usually buy button) for shopping cart pg; SSL payment pg** • Contact/Locations/Team or Staff/Profile/InTheNews/Events/Testimonials...etc. --- • Responsive Design—responsive web design (RWD): websites coded to provide an optimal viewing experience across a wide range of devices (from mobile phones to desktop computer monitors): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Responsive_web_design • infinite scroll—websites that scroll vertically and continually add new material instead of having to click on older pages, i.e. Pintrest, Twitter, FB • horizontal infinite scroll—scrolls vertically instead of horizontally • Parallax—common theme used today which scrolls vertically with a specific stop. Good for mobile devices for swipe control on small screens: http://themify.me/themes/parallax; http://www.responsivemiracle.com/ • Custom—designing and implementing a unique website from scratch. (HTML5; CSS; javascript, with CMS system like Drupel..etc.) c. Online Advertising Email Blasts—span filter triggers word list: http://www.mequoda.com/articles/audience-

development/subject-line-spam-trigger-words/; http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/30684/The-Ultimate-List-of-Email-SPAM-Trigger- Words.aspx Text Ads—Text Injection: http://www.besttoolbars.net/solutions/ad_networks/; http://www.internetmarketingninjas.com/blog/search-engine-optimization/search-and-social- snippets/ Display Ads/Pop-up Ads (fancybox) • Animated/rotating gifs: combining several still images into a single GIF file. Animated GIF files can be highly compressed and tend to be quite a bit smaller that other animation files (such as Java applets). Additionally GIF animation is supported by nearly all Web browsers. Wordpress rotating images: http://wordpress.org/plugins/dk-new-medias-image-rotator-widget/ • Flash animation—an animated film which is created by Adobe Flash or similar animation software and often distributed in the .swf file format. Flash is often used for animate. Low cost Flash softwared television series, animated television commercials, and online film shorts. Free Flash templates (one in many). Video Ads/Commercials—Those annoying video ads are popping up everywhere! http://techcrunch.com/2014/10/30/instagram-video-ads-go-live-because-everything-good-must- come-to-an-end/ Infomercials--typically between 15 and (more commonly) 30 minutes in length. Used a lot for Direct Response TV (DRTV), but shorter forms of 3-5 min long are used during station breaks on local channels (see KRON4 Morning News). Blogs (business model—mommy bloggers; news blogs...etc.) • Popular Blogs: http://www.ebizmba.com/articles/blogs • Types of commercial blogs: http://www.twelveskip.com/guide/blogging/229/22-creative-types-of- blog-posts-you-can-write-about • Free Blog Platforms: (a few popular sites among many) --http://www.blogger.com/ --http://www.wordpress.com --https://www.tumblr.com --http://www.weebly.com --http://www.livejournal.com

4. Developing Visual and Audio Content Using Today's Technology to Create Marketing Materials a. Ripping photography/video/illustration: creating professional quality visual content using Google images, YouTube, Vimeo, cameras and other devices and sources at minimal to no cost • Google Images—simply the best for still images (lift high resolution images only) • Vimeo—one of many free and low cost downloadable video clips • YouTube—use free, online video converters to rip from YouTube • LastFM—one of many free downloadable music soundtracks (FMA is another)

b. Design in motion: • Animated/rotating gifs: combining several still images into a single GIF file. Animated GIF files can be highly compressed and tend to be quite a bit smaller that other animation files (such as Java applets). Additionally GIF animation is supported by nearly all Web browsers. Wordpress rotating images: http://wordpress.org/plugins/dk-new-medias-image-rotator-widget/ • Flash animation—an animated film which is created by Adobe Flash or similar animation software and often distributed in the .swf file format. Flash is often used for animating low cost Flash television series, animated television commercials, and online film shorts. Free Flash templates (one in many). c. Web Hosting: a service that stores your website on servers, allowing access by internet users. Web hosts also provide functionality on servers for use by clients, typically in a data center. Complex sites call for a more comprehensive packages that provides database support. • Reseller web hosting—reseller purchases the host's services wholesale and then sells them to customers at retail. • CDN (content delivery/distribution network)—a large distributed system of servers deployed in multiple data centers across the internet to serve content to end-users with high availability and high performance. Used for large downloadable objects (graphics), applications and streaming media/videos. • CMS (content management system)—Joomla!, Drupal, Wordpress, and website development platforms: Westhost; Yahoo, Bluehost; JustHost • Top 10 Website Builders 2013 • Explore Wordpress*—Exploring Wordpress.org vs. Wordpress.com * Look up “How to make a website in Wordpress” on Youtube for tutorials. d. Creating with code: creating websites and other online marketing materials from scratch. • HTML (Hypertext Markup Language)—the main markup language for creating web pages and other information that can be displayed in a web browser. • CSS (Cascading Style Sheet)—a markup language for describing the look (color, text font, size and style...etc.), used as a flexible template for styling multiple web pages written in HTML or XHTML. • JavaScript: code to write functions that are embedded in or included from HTML pages for interactive content like games, playing audio and video, or allow users to post status updates without leaving the page. • PHP: a general-purpose scripting language for web development and can be embedded into HTML, used for comment boxes, polls, quizzes...etc. • Wiki—is a web application which allows people to add, modify, or delete content in a collaborative environment like Wikipedia. • HTML5 (mobile)

e. Tools, techniques and programs to create visual content: hand drawing and scanning to using the camera on your laptop or smartphone, and then using drawing, layering and morphing apps to create copyright-free imagery. • Storyboarding site maps (thumbnails)

Drawing Sofware (a few among many): • Adobe Photoshop—expensive and difficult to master, but HUGE range of tools and functionality • Autodesk SketchBook Pro—easy to use, but it's not Photoshop • Corel Painter Essentials— inexpensive and simplier to use, but not as much functionality Video Editing Software (a few among many): • Adobe Premiere Pro • Final Cut Pro (Apple only) • Corel Video Studio—inexpensive and much simplier to use, but not as much functionality • Microsoft Live Movie Maker (Windows only)—free, but very limited functionality f. File extensions explained: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_file_formats; http://www.fileinfo.com/filetypes/common; http://www.youneeditall.com/web-design-and- development/file-extensions.html • jpg—Best use = rectangle or square photos and photographs on your website. • png—Best use = logos, icons and other images where a transparent background is preferred. • php—online forms (stores to database/data warehouse to analyze info) • java—play online games, video, audio, chat with people around the world, banking apps, shopping carts...etc. (heavy UI components) • wiki—dictionary/encyclopedia g. Load time: the time it takes for a website or online content to appear on your computer screen. Pages that take more than 2 seconds to load lose customers! • Bounce rate—refers to the people who hit one page and then leave. Also refer to users who hit a page and then quit that page (i.e. bounce) before the page even loads. • Slow servers or shared hosting kills load time. Web hosts like Wordpress are generally shared, but WB engine is not shared. • Optimize images—reducing file sizes increases load time. SmushIt is one of many online optimizers. WordPress has another smushit. • Pop-ups (ads, sign-up for site or newsletter) increase load time. Avoid them! • Page speed load testers— Google: Google ranks quicker loading pages higher; Yahoo! Yslow; WebPageTest; Pongdom • Way to decrease load time. • Additional ways to decrease load time.

h. Cross browser testing: a type of compatibility testing designed to ensure that a website or application behaves correctly across browers, operating systems and devices. • http://crossbrowsertesting.com/ • http://www.browserstack.com/ • DNS—part of the foundation of how we communicate on the internet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72snZctFFtA i. Basic copyright laws and restrictions: also review patents; trademarks...etc.

5. Copywriting Basics— Developing Copy Content a. Copywriting Methodology (applicable across all media) • Break down complex content such as websites, white papers, marketing campaigns into separate components. Flow/navigation charts for websites and other multifaceted campaigns is highly recommended, not only for consistent branding across all media, but also to break down the copy into manageable FOCUSED content. • Review your product's list of Features & Benefits: refer to, review and update benefits (and new features to stay current and relevant to market/s) list often. • Promote your company by its benefits (real or perceived, i.e. buying Apple products makes you cool), and how those benefits meet the need/s of your target market/s when creating copy [and even visual] content. • Review competitors websites and marketing material for messaging. Copy content into a Word files and review, restructure, rewrite for unique, targeted copy content for your product's audience. • Consider your target market/s use of language and write per page content in target's dialect. • Use short sentences! • Use simple language! • Use short words whenever possible! • Use verbs whenever possible! • Use active instead of passive voice! http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/active- voice-versus-passive-voice https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/539/02/ • Correct spelling is a must. Have someone else proof read your writing if possible. • KISS! Keep copy as short and succinct as possible (even when educating readers with new products or technology). • Consider the format of copy delivery, i.e. cellphone; pc/laptop; tablet, print, billboard—where will the copy will appear? • Use keywords applicable to your product/service features & benefits; target market/s; competition (sometimes), for use in headlines and content copy. • Read aloud what you've written. Even better, record what you've written then play it back to

yourself! • Rip-off copy from websites, ads, brochures—anywhere you find copy content that works. Start an online file of ripped copy in a Word Doc (with the URL); and a hard copy file from ads, mailers...etc. Rewrite and restructure good copy to work for your target market/s/product/services. • Don't waste words! Avoid cliches; and abstractions—state-of-the-art; user-friendly; advanced technology; or 'a lot'/many; powerful; fast...etc. • Stick to one (1) topic/message per webpage/ad/email blast/presentation...etc. This is (or should be) the topic of the headline. • What gets YOUR attention? PAY ATTENTION to what gets your attention in online and offline advertising and marketing and then define why. SCAN Google IMAGES for what pops. Define why. • Good series on effective copywriting—Scientific Copywriting by Seth Czerepak b. Copy Content Anatomy (in order) ♦ Headline: http://www.procopytips.com/tested-headlines; http://www.infomarketingblog.com/100- good-advertising-headlines-victor-schwab/ • In a print advertisement, it is the visual FIRST, then the headline. • In a brochure, it’s the cover. • In a radio or TV commercial, it’s the first few seconds of the commercial. • In a direct-mail package, it’s the copy on the outer envelope or the first few sentences in the letter. • In a press release, it’s the lead paragraph. • In a sales brochure or catalog, it’s the front cover. • In a sales presentation, it’s the first few slides or flip charts. • On a Web site, it’s on the landing/home page. • In an e-mail marketing message, it’s the From line and the Subject line.

♦ Body Copy • Bodycopy must pay off headline. Especially at the beginning. In fact, all copy should play to the headline. • Selling/writing points—outline complex copy before writing, break them down into manageable sections, i.e. web pages, campaign components...etc. • Keep copy as short and succinct as possible. • Use bulleted points whenever applicable (which should be a LOT) • When using referential links always have them open in outside tab unless to funnel sales.

♦ Call to Action (CTA)--applies across ALL MARKETING MEDIA, print or online. c. SEO/SEM/etc...; ): using keywords, phrasing and links within copy content. HUGE amount of

this is bullshit. If you design a site with relevant content and images, make the site informative and engaging for users, you'll rank higher in search engines. • SEO (Search Engine Optimization)—the process of improving the visibility of a web site or a web page in search engines. A strong SEO plan includes keyword research, content optimization, user experience, site design, and the presence of a blog with great content that’s updated frequently. Read more... • SEM (Search Engine Marketing)—a form of internet marketing that involves the promotion of websites by increasing their visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs) through optimization, advertising and AB testing. • Keyword research and analysis—ensures the site can be indexed in the search engines. Finding the most relevant and popular keywords for the site and its products, and using those keywords on the site in a way that will generate and convert traffic. • Google Adwords Keywords Finder ♦ WATCH OUT! Google will block you from their search engine if you SEO too aggressively! Avoid “Unnatural Links Notices” and other infractions only known to, and ever changing by Google!: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hd9S2QrFvBk • Google's “Bad Neighborhoods”-- will get you blocked from Google if the external links to your website appear on websites Google considers bad. (One of many “Bad Neighborhood Checkers.”) • Unnatural Links—as defined by Google: Any links intended to manipulate a site’s ranking in Google search results may be considered part of a link scheme. This includes any behavior that manipulates links to your site, or outgoing links from your site. Manipulating these links may affect the quality of our search results, and as such is a violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. • Google Panda—an algorithm for detecting SEO abuse. Read more from Google... • Google Penguin—an algorithm update aimed at decreasing search engine rankings of websites that violate Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. • Disavow Tool—If you believe your site's ranking is being harmed by low-quality links you do not control, you can ask Google not to take them into account when assessing your site. You should still make every effort to clean up unnatural links pointing to your site. Simply disavowing them isn't enough.(These are Googles words and bullshit. Once you're blocked, you are extremely unlikely to get unblocked!)

HOMEWORK ►Create slide show or video (whether spoken and/or text onscreen), with music [created or acquired] if applicable, that speaks to your target market/s: -OR- ►Create at least] 3 pages for your company's website. a. Landing/Home pg b. Products/Services pg c. About Company pg (or individual if marketing self as consultant) All pgs must have: • Unique visual content

• Headline • CTA Products/Service Pg & Company Bio must have: • Headline • Bodycopy (bulleted points; icon-bullets where applicable, which should be a lot!) • CTA

WEEK FIVE

►Class reviews startup websites.

1. Social Networking (overview) Using social networking to build brand awareness and to sell startup offering/s. a. Social Networking: the use of internet-based social media applications to make connections and communicate with friends, family, classmates, customers and potential clients.

♦ Common online marketing myths Google is going to make you a lot of $$ with PPC ads on your website or blog. Not likely. • PPC (Pay Per Click)—an internet advertising model used on websites, blogs...etc., where advertisers pay their host only when their ad is clicked on. • PPC by Google: https://www.youtube.com/watch?;v=g_w9YJeJgUwhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oX9fS3gd WYs; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOXpYc4WdSU • Cost per click (CPC)—the sum paid by an advertiser to search engines and other internet publishers (newsites, blogs...etc.) for a single click on their advertisement which directs a visitor to the advertiser's website. • If I post it they will come. Bullshit. You must market what you put out there, get attention while literally competing with billions these days, both on and offline, globally. • Flooding social media with my messaging will help sell my product/service/message. Bullshit. You must target what you are selling to specific markets—the tighter the better: Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Romance > Mystery & Suspense > Mystery

♦ Social networking ediquette: DO: • Share often! Pose relevant information, questions, give tips and ideas. • Be courteous, and politically correct. • Stay On Topic. Groups and forums are for discussions about the subject of the group.

DON’T: • Be mean, confrontational, rude, or not suitable/safe for work (NSFW—pron, nudity...etc). • Don't USE ALL CAPS (on par with yelling). • Do NOT Spam. No spam allowed at all including advertisements for products or services. If you’re questioning whether or not what you’re about to post is spam, it probably is. Don’t post it, or risk getting thrown out of groups or off of sites. • Groups and forum moderators (like business owners) reserve the right to remove any posts that they determine to be inappropriate.

♦ Social networking sites: Maintain consistent corporate standards across all SN sites. • Twitter—mostly link referrals • Facebook—social networking for fun • Google+—social network • LinkedIn—employment and job/career related • Meetup—on and offline groups and meetings • Pinterest—content sharing service to promote products, services, company, interests and hobbies • List of active SN sites

2. Marketing with Social Media Marketing through commenting, group discussion, cooperative linking; guest blogging b. Building followers and fan base: Choosing the right sites and groups for your personal interests and professional needs. • Micorblogging—posting of very short entries or updates on a blog or social networking site, typically via a cell phone. • Hashtags (#)—short messages on social networking services such as Twitter, Tout, identi.ca, Tumblr, Instagram, Flickr, Google+ or Facebook may be tagged by putting "#" before relevant words to be displayed in specific categories. • Retweets • Favorited • Likes • Share Post • Google +1 • Hootsuite • RoundTeam c. Interacting with groups • LinkedIn vs. FB vs Pinterest vs Google+

3. Creating SN Pages—Using Startup I.D., Design and Copy Elements for SN Branding a. Setting up Social Networking pages for your business: • Facebook • Twitter • LinkedIn • Google+ b. Third party sales pages: Amazon, Barnes&Noble, Google Play, to sell a specific product.

2. Classic Consumer Marketing Tools Applying your brand identity across various media a. Print and Physical advertising: magazines/newsprint, brochures, sales kits, collateral, consumer, direct mail, billboards, trade show, product display...etc. b. Broadcast: advertising and commercials on TV, radio, internet c. PR (Public Relations): getting other people to chat you up, or a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their public. • Press release—news release, media release, press statement or video release is a written or recorded communication directed at members of the news media

2. Cross Media Campaigns a. Direct, wholesale and third-party distribution and sales: marketing campaigns that adhere to corporate standards across all media b. Cooperative Marketing: working with vendors, and compatible companies in marketing and advertising partnerships

4. Analytics (overview) Using A/B Testing, response rate tracking, Google Analytics, Salesforce, and other analytics to increase sales, retain clients, and convert potential customers from competition. Search “Analytics” in YouTube for educational videos on using analytics. a. Business Intelligence (BI)—refers to computer-based techniques used in spotting, digging-out, and analyzing business data. Common functions of business intelligence technologies are reporting, online analytical processing, analytics, data mining, process mining, complex event processing, business performance management, benchmarking, text mining, predictive analytics and prescriptive analytics. • CRM (Customer Relationship Management)—a model for managing a company’s interactions with current and future customers. CRM software packages (a few among many):

Salesforce OnContact Avidian Prophet • Data warehouse—a large store of data accumulated from a wide range of sources within a company and used to guide management decisions. • Conversion—visitors to a website who take action beyond a casual view of website content, such as read the blog, sign up for the newsletter or company news and updates, and/or buy the product/service. • ROI (Return On Investment)—the investment gains measured against the investment costs. b. A/B Testing: a way of testing an advertising campaign (generally direct mail in print), website, or online marketing material (including email blasts) involving two different versions to see which is more effective. • A/B Testing optimizer—http://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com/ • Real Time Analytics—allows monitoring of visitor activity as it happens on your site often used for instant response to A/B testing, tracking visit duration and page hits. c. Predictive Analytics: techniques from statistics, modeling, machine learning, and data mining that analyze current and historical facts to make predictions about future. • Predictive modeling—the process by which a model is created or chosen to try to best predict the probability of an outcome. • Recommendation Engine—software that uses past purchases and page views to predict customer preferences, i.e. movie ratings, purchasing choices. d. Google Analytics: a free service offered by Google that generates detailed statistics about the visitors to a website such as traffic sources, viewer duration, conversions and sales. Understanding Google Analytics--https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXQSWV4JaNY • Remarketing lists—Remarketing with Google Analytics lets you follow up with people who have already visited your website, and deliver ad content specifically targeted to the interests they expressed during those previous visits. • YouTube Advertising: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmCk8EaBMow • YouTube Analytics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvE--2aAcvc e. Sentiment Analysis: uses natural language processing, computational linguistics, and text analytics to identify what the user/writer is thinking and how they are feeling.

5. Venture Capital and Angel Funding-- 3 Necessities for Start-up Success - Marc Andreessen (Serial Entrepreneur)-- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIJi_GYplsU a. Getting money for your start-up before it's up and running

Finding the right type of capital ($$$): • VC firms: generally handle only potential billion dollar business, and take a good percentage of your company for their financial contribution. • Angel investors—private firms or individuals who fund smaller operations, and often give less of an initial investment but take less equity. • Iterative research for appropriate VC or Angel firms. Create lists of personnel, their emails with short bios including VC Name and Areas of Interest. Search “Venture Capital” Sand Hill Road” for the larger VC firms. b. Pitching to VC and Angel investors • Elevator Pitch- one or two lines (no more than a minute!) about what your business does • Business Plan Deck (or just Plan Deck)—video or powerpoint presentation on your product/startup no more than 15 minutes. Should include: --Elevator Pitch --Startup Team: Company staff/team and their credentials (from Stanford with a doctorate in AI Analytics and you can basically tell them how much you want) --Product/service Features & Benefits list that fulfills the need/s of company's projected target market/s --Projected upgrades and/or new products (horizontal/vertical markets) --Projected sales/costs over time --Marketing Plan including potential advertising and marketing campaigns to company's current and future target market/s c. Crowdfunding: individuals collectively raising money/funding for creative and business projects and endeavors by artists and entrepreneurs. • Kickstarter—the biggest website for funding creative projects. All-or-nothing model which requires one to reach the proposed monetary goal in order to acquire the money. • Debt-based funding—allows a group of individual (or institutional) lenders to lend funds to individuals or businesses in return for interest payment on top of capital repayments. Rebuilding Society • Equity-based crowdfunding—also known as hyperfunding, enables broad groups of investors to fund startup companies and small businesses in return for equity.

END SESSION