Project kickoff and other meetings

Behind me there is undeniably one of my busiest but also the most fun weeks for a while. I hadn't a single day off this week, but I am nevertheless glad that I got to meet all the new great people and spend time with my dear friends. This week has included studying, work, career planning, getting to know new exchange-students, as well as partying until the wee hours at the Freshmen party. I am sure that especially about hectic weeks such as this, it is certainly fun to read afterwards.

Brief for the main project of the spring

On Monday, we had guest lecturer Pasi Latva who is sales and marketing manager in SSM, Suomen Suoramainonta. He presented us the company and its business operations, and as a most important thing; our main project that our team will be working on this spring. Our first task in this project is to make a company analysis, in other words make clear what services the company provides and who the customers are, and making a research of the target group and analysing the results. 

SSM is Finland's largest private direct mail company, whose distribution network reaches 2.1 million households at the same time twice a week. The company works closely with a huge number of city newspapers and national and local direct advertisers.

Reasons why direct mail is an effective marketing tool

• People remember direct mail better and for longer than traditional paper ads. Therefore, unaddressed direct mail is an effective media channel that has managed to maintain and increase its significance, in an increasingly digital world. Direct mail help consumers gain information about offers in shops and online.

• Targeting makes it possible to reach a certain target group or all households in a district. The smallest distribution area is a district and a district is a couple of blocks. When combining your ad with a competition, which requires a coupon to be returned, you are able to collect names and addresses, whilst gaining a better understanding of how your campaign is affecting people.

• About 85% of all households accept unaddressed direct mail. This means that a large number of people will receive and read your advert.

• When you print your advert, you have multiple choices of formats to select. Your product can be a tiny flyer or a thick catalogue; it can really be any size and format you want.  With the use of coupons, QR Codes, etc. you get your customers actively involved.

        Source: Suomen Suoramainonta

Check also the tips that Summer Gould, president of direct marketing company Eye/Comm, have listed in her Forbes article to help increase interest in direct marketing in 2017.

Creating a personal brand

On Thursday morning we focused on a completely different topic, when a company shareholder and a show dancer Petteri Avilia told us about personal branding. He told us a very interesting way the different stages of his life; as an entrepreneur starting from 2004, being jailed for serious drug offenses in 2010, and the present life and his new attitude to life.

Petteri wanted to stress the importance of personal brand and networking. He reminded that being successful always means that you're good to be around, because no matter how rich or smart you are, alone you won't succeed. By being authentic and honest people will probably forgive you more easily, as well in relationships as in the business world. Petteri highlighted that honesty is especially important in digital marketing, because in social media things blow easily out of proportion, and once you screw up your reputation in the social media, it's done and will be remembered for ages. 

Social media is a remarkable thing also when building your own personal brand. You have to keep in mind, what do you want them to know about you, what do you want them to do, and what do you want them to feel about you. 

According to Petteri there are 3 important points to remember when creating a personal brand:

1. Creativity
2. Reliability
3. Reputation

I certainly agree with Petteri Avilia that the key to happiness is to be and stay real, and of course positive. And  what comes to networking, I have to add that blending in is not an option, standing out is a key!

Case EsPa

After Petteri's lecture we got to think about in teams how to develop EsPa's (Etelä-Espoon Pallo) digital marketing so that it would especially increase the sales of supporter cards. Working as a team was once again very rewarding and we came up with many ideas together. I would say that the most important areas of development are updating the website, media manager, new slogan and commercial or high light videos in social media.

Di6iBrainiacs working on it 😃

Making-of: Introduction video

Hi Everyone!

On Monday this week our seven-person team got its first actual task, which was making a video. In the video we had to introduce all the team members, and ideally use our imagination and be creative.

At the beginning of the day Laurea's student Viveka Kulmala was giving great tips for filming and editing video. I have almost never filmed, let alone edited video, so the tips really came for need.

1. Do not change the filming direction
Film from either the horizontal or vertical direction, not both, because that kind of video is cumbersome and annoying to watch.

2. Good video equipment
If you don't own a camera for filming videos, use a mobile phone with a high quality camera.

3. Lighting and sound
Pay attention to good lighting and audibility. They will significantly increase the quality of the video. The video is more pleasant to watch, when people are visible and you can hear their speech.

4. Learn how to use editing softwares

• iMovie for Apple devices. Free to use.
• Windows Movie Maker. One of the simplest and easiest tools to edit videos. Free as well.
• Adobe Premiere Pro. Paid.
• Final Cut Pro X. Paid.

5. Royalty free music

• Free Music Archive
• Youtube Audiolibrary
• PCMag UK

We had time for making the video until Thursday morning, so we started to get busy right away. Our team had from the beginning good visions of video content, especially Joni was really creative in the brainstorm. We got a large part of filming done as soon as on Monday. The scenes have been filmed in different parts of the Otaniemi campus, in a grocery, in a bar and some at the team members' home. The next day, when the boys started editing, it became clear that some of the content of the video was gone, so Iiris and I we had to film our introduction parts again by ourselves.

However, I'm really happy with the end result, and through the small adversities we always just learn something new! I'm also really satisfied with the logo that boys developed for us. The logo appears at the beginning of the video. Just perfect! For timetabling reasons, only a part of our team members was involved in video editing. Next time we'll share our tasks in a slightly different way again, so that everyone can learn the secrets of editing in practice. So, a big thank to our team's menfolk for your great editing work!

Enjoy watching:

On Thursday, our video was presented to the whole class, and we were able to take a look at the other teams' outputs. It was so rewarding to see how different videos were created in different teams. So great boldness and creative thinking in all the teams. It was also nice to get to know a little more of the people, which I haven't yet had time to get to know so well.

Also on Thursday, we got two guest speakers from two different companies. The first speaker was from a company called Nielsen, which studies consumer behavior in over a hundred countries around the world. By studying the needs of customers and the factors influencing their purchasing decisions, Nielsen is able to help its corporate customers to increase sales. We learned, among other things, why after the entrance of department stores there is always some free space before any products set up, and how much the average consumer spends time to select one product in the grocery. The lecture was overall very interesting and gripping.

Later introduced a representative of AFS, the American Field Service. AFS Finland is politically, economically and religiously independent, volunteer-based international education organization that engages youth exchanges. I think that the activities of such organizations are very respectable and I appreciate the work being done on behalf of a more open-minded world and to bring cultures closer together. It was great that there was also a Laurea student telling about her experiences as an intern at AFS.

I think the week was just a good balance between practical and theoretical. More of these, please!

New year, new challenges

Hello dear readers of my  blog!

My name is Viivi and I'm 23-year old business student from Laurea University of Applied Sciences. Along with my studies I work in a clothes shop and dream of an internship among marketing and sales. In particular, sales have always interested me very much, and I believe that my work will always be among sales one way or another. At least I hope so.
In this blog I will update mainly things that I learn on digital marketing course , as well as my own thoughts on digital marketing and its development.

For me this year has begun very busy and rushing in, and I knew in advance that it would give me a lot of new experiences and things I've never before been up to. For example as a tutor student, I have got an opportunity to meet and get to know a huge number of new people from both Finland and abroad all over the world. Starting to blog  is also something completely new for me. I have read a lot of different kind of lifestyle and fashion blogs during the youth of my life, but never written any blog myself. Sometimes I've thought about it a little fleeting moment, and envisioned its appearance, themes and pictures of my posts. Due to time constraints, however, I have always buried my dream somewhere far into the future.

But then, this week, my teacher Anna Ikonen told us that we all need to set up a blog. I was excited and terrified at the same time. Terrified, because the time is still my biggest problem of all, and really excited because now someone has given me a permission to do what I have dreamed of for so long: spend time just to write up my thoughts and feelings. Even though the topic of the blog is quite limited this time, I think I will learn and benefit from this so much. During the course we work in groups with both exchange students and Finnish students. Including me there are six Finnish second year students and one exchange student from Netherlands in my group. This week was just to orientation and get to know each others and our three wonderful digital coaches.

Yet I am not entirely sure what will happen and what we're actually going to do, but I'm really looking forward to it. Maybe the next week will show us. In terms of learning my goals are high and I do my best to keep you readers up to date of all the interesting aspects and happenings during the course.

You'll hear from me within a week again!