Up for Brandy and a Fight?

A month ago I was given to chance to sit down with a few cooperate heavy-weights, in a secret location that I pinky promised to not to mention. We opened the floor by discussing an age-old matter on how the door-to-door salesman was one of the most crucial elements to a company's success and alternatively, their downfall.

My argument was that the best door-to-door salesman was the person who had the greatest passion for the company, which in most cases was the owner. My major point was that the people that carry the company message best and understand the ins and outs of a firm are those who are at the heart of the company, not fly by night poster boys.

Of course, my more seasoned panel made the point that most of the marketing was done by the staff. Let us call him a small business owner, Markus Jooste. So Markus said, "20 years ago, it was all about making sure your staff had enough in their wallets to keep them happy and working at their best. Now its all about shutting down (bank) branches and downsizing staff. You can't expect people to view you as 'The People's Bank' if you keep firing the people, you just can't." All this just bring even more negative publicity upon the firm and pretty much destroys their whole gimmick about how the put the community first. By firing staff, they bring the dogs of war into their front yard and those dogs will bark all across Twitter before their bite is shown.

The discussion quickly turned sour and another infamous character of the South African banking sector, let us call him Adrian Gore. Mr Gore made the rebuttal, "I have one man behind a desk doing the work of 50. If that's not enough, he's doing it even quicker, more efficiently and by the book." This comment was about how modern companies such McDonald's are replacing their staff with machinery that is more efficient in service delivery than their human counterparts.

This shifted the whole discussion to us talking on the shift from, 100 men with hammers to 100 men with a 100 jackhammers. This mining term refers to the 5th Industrial Revolution and how humans and machines will once again, dance together and make sweet...... returns on investment.

The discussion became pretty heated as the cigar was lit and the good brandy was brought out but the main points that I learnt from these individuals, were that as much as the traditional door-to-door salesman is no longer a prominent figure in the sale process, his role has been re-branded and digitized.

The modern adverts we see online aren't always new, sometimes its the same words the that used to be uttered by the very same salesman that its replaced. The door-to-door salesman has been given internet, which in reality, equates to infinite door, also, he now knows who is behind each door and what they like, thanks to Facebook.

In the closing moments of gentlemen's chat, thoughts on a future without marketers was brought to the table. The logic behind it was that, if we can live in a reality where every day is a step closer to full conscious machines, then what if every day is a step further from hiring fresh off the boat graduates. Yikes.

The argument for Android marketers was very weak and the points against were overwhelmingly strong, but who cares. Mr Gore and Mr Jooste both stated that all this was left-wing thinking and the reality is that the government will always find a way to shut down massive leaps in Android innovation to "Protect the People."

This all turned ugly and maybe a few ministers of our parliament and banking sector, traded their words for knuckles but that is a story for Debora Patta to tell you.

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Opinion Piece

From my small understanding of eMarketing, I know that it is the Internet marketing process for a product or service. I feel in since we all currently live in the digital age, it is important for companies to capitalize on that and use the internet as an avenue where they can introduce to goods and firms.

The internet is also a place that keeps track of all of our footsteps, good or bad, its one of the best things to happen to marketing since the newspaper. It means that companies can pick their target markets and the market segments that they want to penetrate and dominate.

In closing, I personally think its all about advertisements that get users to buy products and associate with brands. I also think that it might also be really unreliable because its basing a lot of the stuff it markets towards off one specific thing. For example, I if I like a page about animal safety it does not mean

Reflection Piece

In the last few weeks I have learnt that eMarketing about so much more than just advertising good. i have learnt that it is a way both promoting and maintaining brand image.

By that, I simply mean that it allows for companies to interact and create adverts that are time conscious and more frequent. It also showed that if you expose people to different adverts of the same thing, they will eventually find the one that appeals to them. And that was what eMarketing is all about, marketing goods in the best way possible.

The internet allows for a hit and miss approach, whereby, you can make as many adverts as you want, just to address different clients. Some adverts will be a hit and will lead to a complete conversion or an increase in click through rate and alternatively, others may be a miss and not get consumers talking about the brand.

EMarketing has shown me that in our day and age that everyone who uses an electronic device, is basically giving you their information on what they like and don't like and who's hot and whose not. With this highly valuable data, marketeers can choose the best root to achieving their goals, whether it be strategic marketing or content marketing, the information they possess will show which choice is the most likely to lead up to a significant monetary gain that stems from eMarketing. This makes t easy for firms to characterize their clientele and know how to best address them. This means that adverts become better and the firms benefit even more.

In conclusion, I have learnt that is this current day and age, everything about us, is on the web. This makes the internet the most powerful resource to marketers since pen and paper.