Module 11- BCBS

Discuss how BCBS could measure the results of their communications plan. 

This is where the consumers have an impact on the communication plans. So in this case, I think that BCBS should measure consumer responses and feedback of the plan.  This will help decide which direction to go in so that communication is more effective through various channels.  BCBS should also get an overall scope of how the communication plan impacts every sub group of the Company (organizational, employees, consumers).

How could BCBS-NH measure their communication effectiveness with their own publics?

Just asking for general opinions, I have seen company’s do either door to door survey’s, phone calls, or emails just to see what they want to see out of a company.  Putting on community events, sponsoring and doing health fairs and getting some responses from events like that. BCBS will definitely get some feedback from that especially by BCBS being in the healthcare sector just to keep everyone engaged 

How can BCBS-NH measure the relationships it has with local offices? Be specific.

As far as local offices are concern, we should focus on things like competitors in the success of their productivity, operations, what is the rate of community & public involvement etc.  We should also focus on the areas we lack because all of these have an impact based of communications effectiveness.

Module 11- Communication Across The Sales Channel

Pizza Hut Franchise

I used Pizza hut as my chosen franchise.  Pizza hut basically leaves everything up to its customers.  On the franchisee website it states that:

 “You’re in business for yourself, but not by yourself. Pizza Hut provides innovative approaches to customer engagement and continues a long history of brand awareness with consistent marketing and advertising. “

From those initial statements, our focus points will be on marketing and advertising and customer satisfaction. These are the crucial factors for pizza huts success nationally. I have been to various pizza hut restaurant over my lifetime and I must say that there is reasons as to why they are one of my top favorite restaurant for pizza and it goes beyond the taste. That shows that Pizza hut holds its brand to what they make it out to be. They are serious about advertising and customer satisfaction.

Advertising and Marketing

Each pizza restaurant I have been to be doing well in the advertising and marketing side of business individually. They are very active in their community, good quality commercial’s, billboards/ ad’s, online marketing, and  they have the willingness to do sponsorships for different business and individuals, and the employees play a role in advertising and marketing too based of the image they hold as an employee. I have received great service and Pizza Hut really does make everything about the customer. 

Customer Satisfaction

The customer experience at each pizza hut restaurant in my region has pretty much been the same. The employees are very respectful and welcoming, my food is always fresh, and the service is done in an acceptable timely manner.  Customer engagement is key with this company.  Like any other pizza restaurant, Customers are allowed to mix and match specialty pizzas and pizza hut would actually advertise it. Pizza hut has had different contest and customer can receive prizes. The local pizza hut customer involvement has been a success overall. It seems the communication chains are working properly so I would advise Pizza Hut to keep doing what they are doing.

Module 11- PR Crisis

PR Crisis

My response is going to be rather short and straight to the point  due to the small amount of content I found about the Best Buy scandal. 

So, The Company I choose was Best Buy obviously and the short term crisis they suffered was based off The Best Buy CEO Brian Dunn. The biggest issue was that Brian Dunn left the company. The reason for him leaving was because he had an inappropriate relationship with a female employee there. Richard Schulze, Chairman of Best Buy confronted Dunn about the situation between him and the female. Richard did not report the situation to anyone else on the corporate level which later caused everything to be misconstrued.  Best Buy did not explain the reason why he left which caused assumptions, rumors, and misconceptions to flair up. Words that could be sensitive to an organization like “scandal” and “misconduct” began to spread amongst the organization and to the public which eventually blasted into the media. As time went on, no one really tried to clear it up or giving reasoning as to why Dunn left which made Best Buy look suspicious as if they were trying to hide something. Reporters decided to dive deep into the situation and later found out that Dunn left because of the negative relationship with the female employee. This really placed a negative effect on Best Buy's brand because of the rumors and misconception.

 Best Buy really did not handle this situation properly. When the CEO is involved, I feel that they should have taken every proper measure possible to clear up an issue like this so people can know what is going on. The issue was not even that crucial, Dunn leaving the company was just a proper business decision he decided to take to cease any prolonged conflict with another member of the company. Something like that they just could have come clean with. They could have watched communication amongst the social media to make sure the brand is protected.  They also could have measured and analyzed how sales were affected during this period of the scandal. Most of the resolutions and measures could have been regulated amongst the organizations corporate level. They should not have let it get this far to the point that people are creating misconceptions about the company simply because of the sake of the company’s brand.

Multichannel Campaign Analysis

• What type of campaigns is your company using?

It is known that footlocker customers want the best in performance and style when it comes to its retail products.  One way Footlocker launch campaigns is by launching marketing & advertising campaigns with NBA all stars. They place the superstars in Ad’s as they model the shoe, some superstars might buy into designing a shoe and having it named by them (e.g. Michael Jordan Retro 3 gym shoes or Carmello Anthony’s M8 gym shoes) Then the superstar is placed in a commercial.  Another way is by pop-up ad’s on websites that footlocker target like Facebook (pop up will probably happen if you add yourself to Facebook group or like the group) you will get pop up ad’s on twitter as well.  Overall, Footlocker does campaigns with like Nike, Jordan etc but one of there biggest campaigns I know of is using  NBA superstars but not limited too because I have seen football players and Golf Tiger Woods as well.

• How might they be able to tell which channels are giving them results?

I think that using the NBA superstars is the best campaigning decision made. The campaign comes during a key selling season for Foot Locker stores, which offers a broad variety of clothing to help complete the fall look. Sneaker fanatics (like myself) will also be able to connect with their favorite NBA athletes through social media channels to share photos and engage in commentary. Multi nation footwear designers like Nike, Addias, and Reebok is also an effective channel for footlocker simply because these companies are doing campaigns on their own. After their campaigns are launched, customers are wondering where can I purchase these Nike and Addias products and that is where footlocker steps up to the plate to provide. 

Comments That I found and liked on YouTube ads
 “At Foot Locker, we know that our customer wants the best in style and performance so that they stand out with confidence, and that’s exactly what we are providing them,” said Foot Locker EVP of Marketing Stacy Cunningham.  “As an authority and source for top men’s athletic footwear and apparel, we pride ourselves on delivering the hottest sneakers and apparel with quality to match. If it’s at Foot Locker, it’s Approved.”

• How can they track results that may flow across online to offline (or vice versa)?

The campaign comes during a key selling season for Foot Locker stores, which offers a broad variety of clothing to help complete the fall look. Sneaker fanatics (like myself) will also be able to connect with our favorite NBA athletes through social media channels (facebook, twitter, YouTube) to share photos and engage in commentary. As a customer, it then motivates us to go out to the store and see what is available. Word of Mouth really does have an affect. Footlocker really has a lot of support and strategies to make their marketing campaigns highly effective. 

Module 10- Long tail- Search Strategies

For footlocker, I feel that the budget is in a good range especially for our tail range. They are spending less money on the visitors that already know about them and they are choosing to spend more money on the people that don’t know about them as a firm. I would recommend that foot locker would add an extra 10% on their head key phases.  That 10% would help during its seasonal time period of special featured products (Jordan releases, back to school sales, Christmas sales, Black Friday etc.) During these times foot locker needs that even-level of exposure especially during those time periods. SEO would be helpful during special featured product periods. After that 10% added in, this would fit perfect into foot lockers budget.  If everything goes well with sales, web marketing, and exposure the company would be more inclined develop a successful ROI for this year.

Module 10- Path Analysis

 A Good Use of Time? Do you agree or disagree with his post? Why? How could your company use Path Analysis? What advantages or disadvantages would path analysis provide?
I agree with AV. as a customer I like what I like. I have different perfences and each company has different products set out for us as consumers. I agree that we should pay close attention to what our consumers need and want and then create a path for that for them to follow. Everyone's website experience might not be the same. I still think we should have some kind of desired outcome though or at least some kind of goal for a specific desired outcome. Striving for a specific goal produces good results in most cases. Foot locker can  simply use path analysis for online sales and customer experiences as well.

The advantage is that path analysis would help define the companies direction and give clarity. I think the only disadvantage is that you are not going to have everyone that see eye to eye with you. Some consumers might not follow the path you intended. That is why we have to work hard for what we got and at least attempt to please every customer and possible gains. Searching for a path is the best method. Doing research on what people want and need first and the establishing that path for people to follow seeems much easier.

Module 10-Context Queen

You're a web analyst for a company and are handed the following report on search traffic to your website.  What would you do to provide context to the data?  Explain what context does for your reporting to management.

After looking at the page In terms of adding context, I would simply add a comparison in each category for the previous year. Something that original never gets old and it would keep it’s viewer up to date with its performance. The goal is to always do better and improve from the previous years. Each category will also show what search engine and server the visit are coming from and how many times that server is used. This will show where most of the attention is coming from and show us how we can pick up in areas that we are lacking.  That focus would also tell us what motivates our visitors to comeback and visit the site and show us how to add or improve more features to the site to strike more attention. We can even do annual comparisons from 5 years ago just to give us a percentage on how much we are improving.

Module 9- Measuring influence with employees

    I am going to use Quicken Loans for this portion of the assignment. I used to work for this company and I find them to be excellent with communication with employees and customers as a whole.

 

What are they doing to communicate effectively with their employees?

Quicken Loans has various blogging site for employees to use. Those blogging sites are known as Quizzle, Whats the diff, and ZING. On all of these websites, employees can blog about customer experiences in a positive manner. They can also blog to share ideas and different experiences they grow upon. This makes everyone in the company aware of what’s going on so they can stay in the loop of things. Another social media tool they use is something kind of related to Skype or Google talks. It is called office communicator which is an instant messaging system. This helps with efficiency of communication and I am a witness of that. If it is something really brief, office communicator is very useful and you can have group conversation through it. Another benefit is that you can work office communicator form home if you had the office laptop or something.

2, What are your recommendations for how they should measure their influence?    

3.  Do you have any suggestions for improvements they could make in their communications?

I can answer two and three with in the same question because my responses are going to basically answer both questions. Quicken and Dan Gilbert himself is really big on communication and timely responses. I assumed based of our large customer base. With that being said, right now I really do not have anything to recommend due to proper measure that are already taken. There are stipulations for those who are not communicating in an effective and timely manner so I believe that is an influence within itself. That factor will influence employees to effective use the communication tools that are present.