Marketing 250: Source the Product

At the beginning of this week we learned an skill I thought was interesting. How to quantitatively compare. One sets up an excel spreadsheet to compare two options. First you set up your parameters. What are the factors affecting your decision? You list them, probably 3-5 factors. Then you assign each of them a weight. Say the first factor is the most important factor, so you give it 45% of the weight in your decision. Then you rate each options on a scale of 1-10, 10 being the easiest or most desirable. You can then quantify your options, helping to identify which option best fits your criteria. I think it can be a useful tool when making many types of decisions.

I've also enjoyed learning about drop shipping and affiliate marketing. The two do have similarities, but some important differences as well. Neither have a very high barrier to entry, which in my mind likely makes it more competitive. Almost anybody can do it, which means there's probably lots of people trying. Neither have to deal with inventory, and both require little more than a website to get started.

All in all I've learned some very interesting things about both of these business models.

Marketing 250: Week 2

This week I was impressed by the tools that we were introduced to. I'm new to Google Ad Words. I've never really used it or explored it. This week we created a free account and began to learn about the power of keywords. Because google is by far the most used search engine in the United States and probably the world, they know what is popular and what is trending. Keywords gives you access to that. You can actually get data on how popular certain search terms are, as well as how competitive advertising is in that space.

The excel spreadsheet we filled out is an example of how someone can use the available data to estimate how successful a certain business or idea might be. How can also estimate how much of your advertising budget would increase sales. It's fascinating and I'm looking forward to exploring this further in the next few weeks.