Behavioral Marketing - R.J. Julia Booksellers

                                      

About R.J. Julia

Is an independent bookstore own by Roxanne J. Coady who found it in 1990 , this bookstore located in the shoreline town of Madison, Connecticut. R.J Julia’s mission is to make the book store a place where readers meet writers, where its atmosphere is welcoming a chance of discovery, a place with a great ambiance to select and merchandise books.

The bookstore won several awards nationally, statewide and locally; Lucile Pannell award for bookselling excellence, Connecticut Magazine Best Bookstore, Publishers Weekly Bookseller of the Year, the Advocate's Best Bookstore and the New Haven Business Small Business Award.

The bookstore host annually over 300 events which is an effective marketing strategy where readers and writers meet authors from all over the country and from overseas who are inspired a lot of people. The events schedule is available on the bookstore’s website, so people can check early and arrange their time to attend the event. R.J. Julia is engaged deeply in social media such as, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest and Facebook. #rjjulia is an Instagram hashtag which allows readers to tag their books pictures, so they can read along with them.

This is one of the behavioral marketing, that make people post the books they read so, the bookstore can find out their favorite types of books; and marketers can easily target them and sending them latest books and events based on what they like.  On Pinterest, they categories content in great boards such as, staff suggestions, what books they suggest for teens, adults and kids. Also, they have great engagement with customers by celebrating R.J. Julia 25th Anniversary as a Family Picnic.

Marketing Strategies:

1.      Loyalty Program: Loyalty programs is always a good idea and we all enjoy it as we receive points and discounts due to it.

R.J. Julia Bookseller also has a loyalty card which is to be bought by the readers for $25 annually. Which includes the following offers:

• 10% savings on every book in the store or online
• Two 20%-off storewide sales per year
• Email Bulletins with exclusive discounts on in-demand books
• The day you sign up they give you a coupon of 15% off on a purchase of a book

Café: The RJ Café also plays a key role in their marketing strategy. It brings people to the bookstore. It also attracts tourist who come to buy a coffee that also makes them buy a book. It also attracts a lot of local customers. The café adds a great energy and a good coffee aroma the bookstore. The café space also doubles up as an event space.

2.      Book Club: Book clubs are organized every month and for every genre. The advantage of the book club is that it promotes reading and encourages people to buy new books after the discussions that take place in the book club there are also more benefits like,

• 20% off Hardcover Orders
• 15% off Paperback Orders
• Opportunity for Free Advanced Reader Copies
• Free Reading Guides
• Occasional author visits- in person or via Skype
• Annual Book Club Soiree: meet with R.J. Julia owner Roxanne Coady to help plan your Book Club's reading selections.

Behavioral Strategy:

·        Events: R.J. Julia Independent Bookseller targets the readers and the writers through the events they organize in their bookstore.

·        The whole strategy is to get the writers to the events, so they can have more readers coming to the bookstore as who doesn’t want to meet a person whom they are a fan of.

·        This increases more book readers to visit and buy the books from R.J. Julia Bookseller.

Reference:

R.J Julia Bookseller’s website

http://www.rjjulia.com/about

Marketing Strategy - Dove

     Every brand needs to implement an effective marketing strategy that convert customers and make them successful.

In this post, I am writing briefly about Dove marketing strategy, and I am adding a marketing strategy which might aligns with their overall marketing strategy.

According to Mark Wakefield, Unilever Canada’s Marketing Director of skin care and deodorants, Dove was a bar of soap and was not a beauty brand. In 2003, Sylvia Lagnado, NYC-based global brand director, changed Dove from a bar of soap to an entirely beauty brand.

Dove’s Real Beauty campaign launched in 2004. In this campaign, dove dose not chose models to represent their products. They use normal women from different ages, body shapes and colors. The campaign’s strategy is focusing on the natural beauty of every woman and how they reveal it by using Dove’s products. It’s been 13 years since Dove launched “Real Beauty” campaign. One of the main marketing strategies of Dove is developing the campaign continuously. The campaign has expanded from billboards to online videos on YouTube and Television ads.

Lately, Dove is focusing on Pinterest where women are the main audience. This platform allows Dove to visualize tips and daily routine notes in a clear and very simple way. In addition, Dove presents on Pinterest great posts of Dove’s bar of soap , which was the starting point of Dove company, and it shows the old "non scented soap" ads and the new ads with the percentage of moisturizing and new scents. According to Jennifer Bremner, brand director of Skin Cleansing at Unilever:“Pinterest offers us the opportunity to demonstrate the power and ease of mentorship by making our self-esteem resources more accessible to moms, teachers, and other mentors.”

Snapchat marketing -- Snapchat is one of the latest platforms on social media, and it has approximately 100 million daily active users. Marketers can promote their brands on Snapchat by GeoFilters and/or other filters, and they can make simple ads. I suggest that Dove makes specific filter in specific occasions like mother's day, or teaser ads for products that will come soon. Snapchat is a huge field in social media which gives marketers a chance to target new audience.

To sum up, Dove is all about inner-beauty, and it helps to sustain that positive brand image of higher self-esteem and good body image.

User Experience Perspective - Loot Crate Website

Analyzing Loot Crate website from the user experience perspective:

I was wondering what are these black mysteries boxes that my brother receives every month. My brother is very obsessed to movies, TV series, super heroes. He got to know about Loot Crate from YouTubers who are big fans and obsessed with the same things.  He treats himself every month by receiving the box, all he knows is the theme of the month, but the products inside the box are surprise. The box includes t-shirts, figures, mugs and other exclusives. I love the concept and since it is only an e-commerce, I decided to analyze their website form a user experience’s point of view. 

Loot Crate

Loot Crate incorporation is the worldwide leader in fan subscription boxes. It has founded in 2012. In its first five years, Loot Crate has delivered over 14 million crates to fans in 35 territories across the globe. Loot Crate partners with industry leaders in entertainment, gaming, sports, and pop culture to deliver monthly themed crates.

By searching on Loot crate, it can be found easily at the beginning of the searching page. Loot Crate has a friendly user navigation. When the user navigates the website, there is an orange button appears clearly on the home page to get your Loot Crate. By clicking in that button user can select the subscription plan, and the very important point is Check Out box is at the same page which make users doing their purchase decisions faster. Also, there are other four choices in the header bar.  The logo is on the left top which take the user back to the home page.

Loot Crate website is very simple. It has few options to select and it works as steps. Pick a crate and get Loot Crate which is the main concept of Loot crate website. Also , they have gifts option, and the new option is Loot Vault which is an online store that selling some of their exclusives.

The website is colored in black which I believe it refers to their black mysteries boxes. It has a lot of empty spaces that give the user the ability to navigate and find the options clearly.

Loot Crate influenced by social media especially YouTubers; such as, New Rockstars ,the concept of their videos' is breaking down movies, trailers, and TV series. At the end of their videos, they usually offer Loot Crate discount on exclusives stuff related to the theme that they already talked about in the video. As a result, users will have the desired to subscribe and get that pleasant experience. The website is very easy to use and all the options are clear. It is worth trusty to subscribe, all their contact information available on their website and social media accounts are verified. In addition, my brother has subscribed and he is satisfied of what he receives every month.

Loot Crate offers a good perceived value. The contents of the box generally cost more to buy individually than the shipped loot crate costs.

LEGO

     LEGO company is one of the most popular corporations in the world when it engages towards children's toys. The headquartered of LEGO Group is in Billund, Denmark and main offices in Enfield, USA, London, UK, Shanghai, China, and Singapore. It is owned by Kirk Kristiansen family who found it in 1932.

LEGO is expanding in social media successfully over the past few years. The reason behind the success could be attributed to its inspirational social media marketing strategy is when it is starting to treat its adults and kids fans the same. LEGO’s page on Facebook has over 12 million followers. On twitter, they have around 500 thousand followers. Over 2 million subscribers on YouTube.

Here are some examples of LEGO’s contents in social worlds:

1-     Twitter

#LEGO_Group

On Twitter, LEGO did exclusive giveaways through simple competitions such as Retweeting. They got over16,000 retweets. Also, hashtag #LEGO_GROUP encourage LEGO lovers to share their LEGO buildings. 

2-     LEGO movie and LEGO Batman

By making this movie, children feel that they have their own version of batman movies. At the same time adults enjoyed it as it is a fun Dark Knight movie.

3-     Instagram

LEGO highlights most of the holidays such as Easter and Christmas.

LEGO has two main target audience: buyers (Parents) and users (children). Adults or parents are the audience whom sharing and participating on LEGO’s social media world.

LEGO group develops their content on social media which drives to brand awareness. They have managed to stay relevant by participating in some well-known characters such as Star Wars, Harry potter, Disney cartoon characters. Also, highlighting holidays which helps them connecting with customers engage with them in their special holidays.

Their message is encouraging kids and even adults to use their imagination and build their own characters. Also, happiness, when parents and kids are fully engaged in building their characters. Learning is one of the LEGO’s important goals which is by helping kids to develop new skills like putting parts of bricks together, taking them apart and so on in different ways. Parents also learn how to be patient in playing with their kids. In general, the company focused on growth and development of children's creativity via playing and learning by assembling LEGO brick.

LEGOs wants engagement in their social media accounts. They want their fans to be playful and create creatives buildings and characters that bring out the inner child and share them under LEGO’s hashtags and LEGO’s social world.

According to Christopher Ratcliff LEGO company has the ability to stay on people minds for over eighty years is a proof for product's quality and how strong is the imagination which enhances in every generation.

According to Chief Marketing Officer of LEGO company Julia Goldin there are some keys of effective content marketing. We focus on the audience by identifying for whom the product we created and the product should not be boring it should foster the imagination and encourage the creation of something new. Also, All the departments in LEGO company work together. They don’t operate in silos. In some certain tasks, Julia said “all gather together and start working”. Moreover, customers always come first for the LEGO company. They determine the interesting and most relevant ways to communicate with audience.

LEGO’s marketing strategy is treating children and adults the same. writes E Consultancy’s Christopher Ratcliff. “LEGO’s invitation to its audience is a catch-all policy: “Hey come on in, we’re all the same here, we’re just a bunch of people who love LEGO.”

To sum up, LEGO’s has variety of content and it is somehow related to each other. The LEGO’s brand values that built their persona are quality, the great reputations for producing products that trusted by all customers. Also, LEGO helps kids to use their imagination in building their characters which lead to encourage creativity. LEGO is caring about their customers and wants to make positive change in their lives.