Takeaway: Web Dev Basics

Takeaway one: a cheaper solution for purchasing web hosting is through shared hosting. Some sites allow you to purchase both a shared host and a domain name in one bundle, but with others you have to purchase them separately. This video talks about how these two parts interact. To let your website registrar know where all of your stored data located, you have to tell it where your site is being hosted. This is done by a link called DNS (domain name server). At your website registrar, you can go change the DNS from its default setting. So you get your DNS from your website host and then you go to the website registrar and change your DNS for your domain, which will tell your domain where the hosting is.

Takeaways: Web Design Fundamentals

For takeaway one, we discussed that web design must meet the C.R.A.P. principles: contrast, repetition, alignment, and proximity. Based on this article which breaks these principles down into specifics, I wanted to go out and try to find examples of websites in order to showcase my understanding of each element. To start, Best Buy’s website is a perfect example of contrast. Not only do they utilize color to distinguish the background from the foreground content, but they use large, bold text to highlight headings so that you understand where importance lies.

Takeaway: Client work, Mission Statements, & Site Specs

From Friday’s lecture, my first takeaway point is: asking the right questions and doing your research on the client is important to helping the client solve their marketing/creative issues. Though for the class, our client will already be assigned to us, in the real world, clients are the ones selecting us–especially in freelancing. So, to address this, I found this article about the 5 assumptions creatives can make to harm their client work. One, assuming that price is the top concern; level of talent and trust is more important.

Takeaways on Branding

First takeaway from Tuesday’s lecture: your brand reflects your company and represents your promise, so losing focus on your brand identity can be very detrimental. To support this, an article published by Forbes.com in 2012 focused on Starbucks. Their stock prices and profit margins are being threatened, which may be due to them losing focus on their brand identity. Their chain is becoming more like “a factory assembly line” where barristas are pressured to make multiple drinks at a time, straying from their uniqueness that each cup of brewed coffee is personally made for each customer.

Takeaways: Marketing Strategy & Plan

My first takeaway is that marketing research has many different methods of quantifying data. These include both qualitative and quantitative. This short but straight-to-the-point youtube video breaks down when you should use either methods. Researchers may use the former when developing a hypothesis, understanding the feelings of their target market, identify needs, and uncovering how people perceive marketing messages. The latter may be used to measure awareness, offer statistical validation of a hypothesis, determining the most desirable product concept, and determining the most effective price point. I liked this video because it compares the two and makes it easier for me to understand when and why it is used.

Takeaways: Marketing Strategy and Site Specs

My first takeaway is how copy writing sets the tone for design and development projects, especially in web. So, I looked up an article for proper dos and don’ts for web copy writing and found an article from Direct Marketing News. Three professionals discuss what they find most beneficial and least. A concept I agreed with, and hadn’t really considered, is that when you write copy, create “a dialogue, not a monologue.” You want to engage with the audience, not to. I think for us (amateurs anyway), we’re more inclined to focus on ourselves, what we want from the audience, and not enough on what the audience wants from us. The article also highlights that “your words are your virtual handshake,” so it’s incredibly important to get the copy right the first time.

Takeaway: Marketing Research

During the lecture and discussion on Friday, the following five are key takeaways I learned or wanted to further explore:

First, we briefly discussed marketing research and the types of research that exists out there. Ultimately, these research findings become quantitative data that is used to define what marketers can do differently to enhance their product/service. However, I found this interesting article  by Douglas Van Praet that slightly goes against quantitative data in marketing research.

Takeaway: Segmenting Markets

Tuesday’s class discussion was, in my opinion, a little scattered. However, I did pick up on some useful and informative topics to mention in my takeaways.

First, marketing to a B2C versus a B2B requires some analysis of segmentation as well as identifying what works in that particular selling environment. This article I found compares and contrasts how businesses sell to consumers versus other business. For a B2C sell, transactions are quick and aggressive; customers buy based on emotion in which marketers tap into their emotional buying decisions.

Takeaway: Target Audience

I felt the discussion the class had on Friday morning was incredible. There was a lot of content when we discussed the 4 P’s of marketing, though we were merely just touching the iceburg. The following five takeaways below detail a few things I wanted to touch on:

The first point I wanted to note was the mentioning of odd-cent pricing, such as pricing a good not at $5.00 but at $4.99 or $4.97. The following article from BBC News Magazine (2008) details a few theories into why shoppers fall for this pricing strategy. In short, one theory is because consumers aren’t mentally up for doing quick math on the sales floor.