Mauricio's Marketing Blog

Once you have your product developed, it is imperative to know that you need a solid distribution channel to connect your product with your customers. Think of the best strategy to fit the needs of your customers and your capacity to respond to the demand. Then, define what are your indicators of success by using a data-driven methodology. It may take into account the lifetime value of a customer, the cost of acquiring a customer, and the payback period on the cost of acquiring a customer. If these metrics indicate your strategy has flaws, consider changing your strategy! (Yu, 2021, pp. 80-87). Before setting a price for your product, develop a strategy too - a price strategy. There are many pricing strategies but think of your targeted buyers, their ability to pay, any direct and indirect costs, your customer acquisition cost, etc. Make sure your strategy is competitive not only to make profits but also to compete with rivals. Finally, think of how you solve your customers' proble...

As learned before, to take advantage of this AI tsunami we need to embrace it. And, to embrace it, we need to remember the words "adapt," "adopt," and "adept." Adapting means learning and paying attention to how things are changing and in what direction. A helpful tip to adapt to something as complex as AI is to write down what you learn. For example, you can write a blog or journal. Please, be careful with inconsistency. Starting something is very easy but building a habit is one of the most complex things to do for many people. So you can help yourself with reminders or a calendar of things to do and add your daily or weekly practice of learning about AI. You will notice how important it is to seek consistency. Finally, encourage yourself to look for sources that challenge you to learn more and more. You can start with articles, then take books more and more specialized. As you learn more and more, you will find it fascinating (Kelsey, 2018, pp. 80-93). ...

All that we have learned up to this point is just the beginning of our war operations, but we can be sure we have set our marketing plan on a strong foundation. Now, we need to begin planning our guerilla marketing attack with an appealing, core story. To do this, you have to be aware of what business you are in, what goal you are pursuing, what benefits you offer, what your competitive advantages are, what your fears are, etc. Also, for your strategic target, consider the Big Four - relatively new markets that have emerged as viable targets: (a) older people, (b) women, (c) ethnic groups, especially Asian Americans and Hispanics, and (4) small businesses, especially home-based businesses (Levinson, 2007, pp. 37, 38). Your strategic plan must consider the purpose of your campaign. It should not be just that you want your public target to see your ad. Instead, it should be something more strategic like what you want your target to do with your ad. Do you want them to visit your stor...

Last week, we learned the importance of seeing what your Minimal Viable Product (MVP) is and why it is important. We also saw how you will pilot your product by asking relevant questions. This week, we will continue our process of ascending your start-up by asking two additional questions: First, what product category are you REALLY in? You need to understand your product and your industry to know how well how your product fits in the market, customer segmentation, competitive landscape, distribution channels, market trends, etc. Second, who will be by your side, and who will leave? At this moment, you must make important decisions. If you have friends or family members in your start-up, ask yourself: are they really knowledgeable or they are there just because I love them? Make the decision to keep the best and hire the best people you can to fit the positions at your company. Once that happens, think that if they succeed in their roles, your start-up will succeed as well. Then, think...

AI already is part of our day-to-day lives and will continue to increase the impact it has on us. In this regard, you may ask yourself: "Is it a good thing?", "Is it a bad thing?". Well, the truth is nobody knows yet the full impact AI will have on our lives and when this big change will cause the most impact on us. What we know is that we are facing a tsunami of opportunities and challenges. We have to be realistic about it and be prepared for the changes that are upcoming. We need to surf the tsunami.  It is important for you, business owner, grocery store employee, or doctor, to embrace AI. Think that AI can learn to do your job and AI is a rival that you just cannot compete against. You must go with the natural flow of things, adapt to the new technological environment, evolve by learning, and become the best you can in AI. No matter your field or career, do not let this AI tsunami take you down. Instead, learn AI as soon as possible and let this tsunami be an o...

Either you have a small or big business, you must know the impact that well-driven marketing campaigns have on your firms perofrmance. This week we will learn that guerilla marketing does not only depende on how well you use all your weapons but also on how you use them. In the book, Guerilla Marketing, of Levinson, there are several key words that are important for guerilla marketing practicioners to remember, but the most important, in my view, are these following:  (1) Commitment, because a mediocre marketing plan with commitment works better than a brilliant marketing strategy without commitment (Levinson, 2007, p. 25). (2) Investment, because marketing is a slow-cooking investment Do not expect to have inmediate results. Commit to your marketing program because marketing is a conservative investment (Levinson, 2007, p. 28). (3) Consistent, because consistency produces familiarity, and famliarity produces confidence, and confidence produces sales (Levinson, 2007, p. 29). (4) Pa...

To build a successful brand for your product and ascend your start-up, you need to ask yourself relevant questions constantly. That will keep you on track and not miss your objectives. Last week, at the beginning of our journey, we responded to five questions: 'Why are you on this journey?', 'What problems are you solving?', 'What does success look like to you?', 'How will you honor your brand?', and 'How will you prepare for the climb?'  This week we are going to respond to these two more: 'What is Your Minimal Viable Product (MVP)?' and 'How will you pilot your product?' When you respond to these questions, you are looking for developing your product with only a basic set of features. You do not need to create the perfect product for your start-up. What you need is a perfect, minimal viable product (MVP) that can capture the attention of your first customers by providing them with a unique solution to a problem.  Bringing your i...

In today's world, artificial intelligence (AI) is used in almost anything you can imagine. It helps make things easier and faster. Think of all the automatic features of many of the cars that are already on the market and streets. Some cars have sensors that tell you when you are getting too close to the car in front of you or when you are off the road. Some other models tell you when you should take a rest because the car can "see" when you are yawning or blinking too many times. Now, the most significant technological advance we will attain in the near future is the popular use of self-driving cars. Of course, all of this is possible with AI. Just about anything can be automated with AI. The most visible forms of automation have occurred with things we can see - just as the self-driving cars mentioned in the paragraph above. However, AI may have its greatest impact on virtual processes and analysis. These are sophisticated forms of AI that allow all the physical process...

Through these posts, we are learning how to do guerilla marketing. Just as guerilla warfare consists of fast-moving and small-scale operations instead of a direct confrontation, guerilla marketing consists of various yet less-costly and effective operations to position our companies in the spotlight. You do not want to spend your resources (or weaponry) all at once. Guerilla marketing is about learning how to best utilize your arsenal on various front lines to meet determined objectives. In this regard, we should learn that the internet should become one of the best tools in our arsenal to practice guerilla marketing. We should adopt it as one of our favorite weapons. The internet will not only allow you to advertise, which is good but not necessarily required in guerilla marketing. Instead, in this guerilla marketing that we are embarked on, we can adopt a better yet less-costly way of doing marketing: through word of mouth (Levinson, 2007, p. 10). Note that word of mouth is a very co...

The better data a business has, the more profitable it can be. Companies like Facebook, Google, and Amazon, are powerful because they focus on data collection. But collecting data is not an easy task. It requires lots of effort for humans. That is why we should consider using artificial intelligence (AI). AI does not only collect data faster than humans but also generates, retrieves, and interprets data at a much faster pace and automatically (pp.7-10).    AI currently has a big impact on most of the human technologies used nowadays. However, just a few machine-based technologies are automated. Automation is crucial for continue harnessing all the benefits that AI can give us. This can improve processes even more in all the areas of our lives, from hardware robots like bottling machines in factories, to software robots like Excel and Access. However, the most we can obtain from AI is probably machine learning. Machine learning is an advanced way for machines to process data, i...

Starting up a business is definitely not an easy task. People who embark on the journey of starting up a business will face many difficulties from minute one, so you must be prepared for the challenge. The author of the book Ascend your Start-up, Hellen Yu, divides the process in three stages: Base Camp, Slope, and Summit (2021, p. 32). Through this blog, we will explore the three stages but let’s begin with the first one: Base Camp. At this stage, you probably know you do not have as much money as you wish to bring to reality all the brilliant ideas you have in mind. For this reason, it is important to have a map, a strategy that tells you where you want to go. Just remember this journey is not a sprint but more like a marathon. This means you need to understand it will take time and effort if you do not want to fail. Sometimes, you will even need to step back to re-formulate your strategies and re-design your map road to Summit. Yu mentions five questions to ask yourself to keep on t...

Marketing is the art of promoting a product or service for customers to buy it. To do it, firm owners should always remember that marketing is every type of contact your company has with people. Do not consider only heavy traditional artifacts to do marketing like radio, TV, newspapers, magazines, direct mail, and the Internet. Consider every little contact your company has with the people and consider that many of them are not necessarily expensive, many of them are free (Levinson & Conrad, 2007, pp. 3-10). Marketing is also the art of getting people to think differently about something, or to maintain the idea they have about your product if they already like it. To be able to do it, marketers have to pay close attention to every detail. In modern marketing, everything is intentional. Marketing is about turning something good into something fascinating. Do not just transmit how good your product is. Sell the idea that things are better with your product, and this is attained thro...

My name is Mauricio Arias. I am from Peru and I am glad to be in this marketing class. This is my 4th class in this program and I am excited about it. There is still a long way to go but the first classes were a success, so hopefully, I can continue on that track!  Currently, I work as an administrative clerk for a group that owns dental clinics in Wisconsin and Illinois. Just before this, I worked in a non-profit organization in the grants department. Working there was great but it was time to move on.  In my personal time, I enjoy playing board games with my family, biking, or learning something new on YouTube. I also like to travel and know different foods and cultures.  I hope we all can meet our goals with this course and succeed.