Quoted – Marketing to the Mommies – Demo Dirt

October 21, 2009 by Scott Testa 102 Comments

: Image by Bearman2007 via Flickr

Marketing to the Mommies

Marketers should approach mothers and women without children differently, says a Prospectiv “What Women Want” survey, which found that women with kids and women without have different reactions to various forms of online marketing.

Are mommy bloggers losing their influence? Marketing expert Scott Testa says that there is “no right or wrong answer.”

“If you look at samples, it costs less to a company to send them to a blogger than to a lot of mothers,” Testa, professor of business administration at Philadelphia-based Cabrini College. “The idea is to find out who these influential bloggers are and get information or samples to them and you can touch a market at a lower cost. It is cost-effective solution at getting the word out.”

Whether mommy bloggers are wielding less or more influence today than in the past is difficult to say, Testa adds, but there are still a few women who many moms still look to for product recommendations.

“In the blogging universe in general, some mommy bloggers hold considerable sway with their readership and to get them on your side is a very powerful thing,” he says. “Certain ones can influence new products launches and the effectiveness of new marketing campaigns, and there are some that can’t. It depends on the blogger herself and how big her audience is and how much sway she has with them.”

When it comes to marketing, Testa says he finds it “hard to believe” that reaching women with children versus women without would involve great differences in strategy, but agrees that some methods of online marketing would be more effective for some groups than for others.

“As for mommy blogging, the FCC is discussing whether to have mommy bloggers disclose how much compensation they are getting,” he explains. “When it comes to mommy blogging, that is an issue we may see come to a head in the next few months.”

http://www.demodirt.com/index.php/women/consumer-spending/303-marketing-to-the-mommies

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Filed Under: advertising, blog Tagged With: Administration, Business, Cabrini College, marketing, Marketing and Advertising, On the Web, People, Philadelphia, Professor, Scott Testa, TLC, Weblogs, Women

Quoted – Twitter’s $100M Funding Coup Prompts ‘Bubble’ Buzz -ECommerce Times

September 25, 2009 by Scott Testa 1 Comment

: Image via CrunchBase

Quoted – Twitter‘s $100M Funding Coup Prompts ‘Bubble’ Buzz -ECommerce Times

Can a company that doesn’t have a revenue stream possibly be worth $10 billion? That’s the question that a group of investors are answering with an unequivocal “yes” in the form of $100 million in cold cash. There is skepticism over the wheeling and dealing, though, and more than a few flashes of dot-com deja vu.

After much speculation, Twitter CEO Evan Williams confirmed on the microblogging site’s own blog that it has closed a “significant” round of funding. Williams didn’t cite the dollar amount, but it has been widely reported that six investors are prepared to pump close to US$100 million into the company, giving it a $1 billion valuation.

An evaluation of $1 billion for Twitter might be too low, suggested Scott Testa, a business professor at Cabrini College, considering the site’s popularity and traffic, which comScore places at close to 60 million visitors a month.

“The pricing is justified, based on the latest round of financing closed by Facebook and other networking properties,” Testa argued.

Furthermore, this generation of tech investment is different from 10 years ago, because the funding comes from institutional sources.

“You don’t see the funny money being thrown around like we did in the 1990s,” noted Testa.

http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/Twitters-100M-Funding-Coup-Prompts-Bubble-Buzz-68224.html?wlc=1253927291

Filed Under: social networking, twitter Tagged With: Business, Cabrini College, ComScore, Evan Williams, facebook, On the Web, Online Communities, social networking, twitter

QVC – Times they are a changing. . .

August 10, 2009 by saiacobucci Leave a Comment

: Image via Wikipedia

QVC and other such companies that have profited from being so innovative need to change their business models and adapt to the changing times. QVC is a very big and profitable business that started out selling products, mainly, on TV. This was pretty unique but now with the internet and the soon-to-come M-Commerce, they aren’t as unique any more.
No one in our generation wants to wait to see the product they are looking for come on TV to purchase it. QVC may profit from our parents and grandparents but unless more advertising brings us to the attention of their website and new techniques, they may not make it. I did like to see that they have a Facebook and twitter page. These mechanisms help.
I think in the time to come QVC will find a way to be innovative in these times. They are a profitable business and well established as well. They found a way to succeed before I think something creative is brewing.