Week 4: Target Market Analysis

Green Brew Engineering

I decided to focus on a company that my husband dreams of starting.  If he ever decides to do it, I will be helping him as much as I can and he wants, so it will be good to start thinking about all of this now!  My husband is a mechanical engineer, home brewer, beer enthusiast, and environmentalist.  He wants to start an engineering firm that helps breweries become sustainable operations, especially in terms of energy efficiency and water use.  He already designs heating and cooling systems for buildings, he has previously designed commercial refrigeration systems, and he is LEED certified- which basically means that he can assess a building and assign it an energy efficiency rating.  He has also done reports for companies that outline what they would need to do to reach higher levels of LEED ratings than they already have.   

There are already some companies that have invested a lot into the environmental sustainability and energy efficiency of their own operations, but I don’t know if there are already engineering firms or consultants out there that specialize in helping breweries achieve greater efficiency and environmental sustainability.    This company would help breweries engineer or re-engineer their brewing spaces and systems for maximum environmental sustainability and maximum efficiency of resource use.

This requires a business-to-business communications model.  The initial target market would be people who are somewhat high up within craft breweries in California, especially San Diego.  We would target breweries that are not too large - a brewery of the scale of Stone would be the largest initially as the company would not have the expertise or bandwidth to take on larger projects.  The expectation would be that smaller commercial breweries would make up the majority of the initial clients, and that the company’s services would be focused specifically on the brewing side and would not initially extend to engineering for restaurants associated with breweries.

Even though there are only something like 80 craft breweries in San Diego (which is a lot!), we could still segment further.  Also, in thinking about craft breweries outside of San Diego it is good to have a sense of which breweries are most likely to go for this sort of service.  Here are some thoughts…

1)      Any company that is already trying to do something environmentally friendly is a good audience.  This could mean that they are using local ingredients, are already implementing some energy or water-saving practices, have environmentally-friendly packaging, or in some other way have shown that they care about their environmental impact. 

2)      Any company that is a leader in their local brewing community might be more interested in championing this kind of effort so as not to be behind the times, and they might have more money to make it happen.

3)      There are some brewing companies for whom their brand identity might be bolstered by something like this, either because they’ve had problems with environmental or other issues in the past, they live in a community that places a high value on the environment, or they could generally get some marketing boost from becoming a green brewery.

4)      I think it’s important to remember that breweries are run by people, and people have their own interests.  Getting to know the interests of the people behind the breweries might reveal that they have personally been involved in environmentally-friendly types of work before or might want to get involved in something like that.  Those people can become champions of this type of effort within their companies.

5)      It might be good to look at who different breweries distribute to.  If there are some breweries whose beers are served at bars and restaurants that are either more upscale or more environmentally forward-thinking, they might be more willing to invest in greening their business as a point of promotion among their upscale or enviro-friendly business-level customers.

6)      It might be worthwhile to determine where there could tax credits available for businesses that invest in this type of effort.  If they can get a discount on the service, it might be more appealing.

7)      Determining locations where electricity and water are especially expensive or volatile commodities might help us figure out good locations were people will be more open to the upfront cost of greening a brewery based on the long-term savings and stability.

8)      Breweries that have close relationships or collaborations with other breweries that have done some greening efforts already might have a greater openness to going green themselves. 

9)      New breweries might be more open to starting out green rather than converting to more sustainable processes later.  If we can catch them before they are built, we can help them build in an environmentally friendly way.

So, those are my initial thoughts on audience.  This is exciting!!

Week 3: Two sites I use a lot and why I like them...

www.kayak.com

1)      Kayak is effective in my opinion because it allows you to do so much, but it is really easy to get started. You can make it as easy or as complicated as you want to, do as much or as little analysis as you are interested in.  Also, it is focused on helping you get what you want for as cheap as possible if that’s what you’re interested in. 

2)      Its design follows its concept really well.  They don’t clutter the page with too much random info or exciting tools, they just stick to making it easy for you to see your options in the way you want.  It also repeats things nicely throughout. There’s a header that stays on each page that identifies that you can go back to the home page, or check out their other options, like hotels or car rentals in addition to flights.  Their depth of content also seems appropriate.  You don’t get much until you put in your parameters, but then you get as much as you want, you can dig as deep as you want.  And yet, you’re not plunged into an abyss immediately either.

3)      It provides a service that is very helpful to me.  It gives me entre into a wide variety of airline web sites and also shows me which flights are the cheapest and best options for what I want.  I like that it gives me the option to create a price alert, which reminds me about selecting a flight every day and draws me back to their site every so often.

4)      They give me pop-up windows from these other search sites.  It’s kind of annoying.  I wish they didn’t have that and that more airlines were included in the search function.

www.bankofamerica.com

1)      Bank of America’s site is effective because it allows me to see information I want to see about my finances easily.  It also lets me do things I want to do, like transfer money between accounts and pay bills electronically.

2)      They use contrast well, with a lot of white but then red to make things pop.  Their alignment is good.  It makes it easy to follow what’s going on despite the fact that they have a lot on their pages.  The proximity also helps with that—it enables me to skip over whole sections of content because I know that’s not what I’m looking for.  Nothing’s “hidden” in the wrong group.  They also handle navigation well, especially considering how much there is to navigate within the site.  It manages not to be too overwhelming.

3)      Just like Kayak, I come back again and again because the site provides a service that I need and find valuable.  It’s available in real time, the information is trustworthy, and it’s very personal to my life.  I also go back often to check in on pay day.  They also remind me of their web site every time I get an email saying my statement is ready and I can check it online.

4)      I tried to use a function recently that I hadn’t used in a while and it wasn’t really working.  They really need to have everything working all the time.  I’ve also tried to log in and the web site has been down.  These days your site needs to be fully operational all the time in order to be considered fully successful.  Having the site or a portion of the site down makes your company look unprofessional.

Week 3, Web site reviews

http://www.toyota.com/

Problem #1:  There’s a lot of content on the home page and it is sort of overwhelming.  It’s difficult to gauge what’s important because everything (below the giant header) seems to have about the same space and image power, and because there are so many things you have to scroll for a while, which is kind of annoying. 

Problem #2: For some reason there is a feature that guesses my location; it guessed incorrectly and I don’t know why.  Now I’m worried that it’s going to give me information not relevant to my area.

Problem #3: There are too many navigation options.  There are two rows of navigation at the top of the page, navigation in the feature well, navigation beneath the feature well, all those featured items under the “What’s Happening at Toyota,” a bunch of options at the bottom of the page, plus a footer.  It’s a little overwhelming to pick where you want to go.

What could be improved:  Instead of highlighting every possible cool thing about Toyotas, I think it would be more effective if they focused on highlighting the most relevant cool things for one or two particular audiences.  Then those audience would really feel like Toyotas are indeed the cars for them.  This might mean de-emphasizing the neat tools that are more geared toward techy or car nerd audiences than parent audiences, for example.

http://tectorch.com/

Problem #1: Waaaaayyy too much text on the home page.

Problem #2: The flag waving in the tope left corner is super distracting.  Plus the tagline just makes you think about things made in America and not the actual product itself.

Problem #3: The alignment on the page is off quite a bit and the left hand navigation is too narrow.

What could be improved: I would want them to have a lot more focused of a home page that is more engaging.  Instead of so much all over, they could create a feature well with engaging elements like an image of someone using their product, a customer review, and a patriotic statement about their products being made in the US if their market is into that.  That way their main messages aren’t scattered all over so much.  They could also link to the shopping page instead of packing so many products onto the home page.  I think by streamlining their site they would come off as more professional and would create a more focused perception of why their product is the best to purchase.

http://www.apple.com/

This web site feels clean, simple, and upbeat or positive.  It makes me feel like owning products made by this company will simplify my life in a positive way.  There aren’t too many options off the home page for me to sift through, and I don’t have to scroll at all.  I can choose easily where to go based on what I’m interested in.  Of course, this brand benefits from significant product awareness.  If I had never heard of iPods or iPhones I would not really know what I was looking at.  But because I do know these products and because the web site is so clean and simple, I trust the company to be clear with me and I believe their products will be straightforward to use.  This makes me feel more confident with technological products since these types of products can be intimidating for consumers like me who don’t know about technology.

http://www.ford.com/

This web site’s branding is not what I’d expect.  I’m more familiar with Ford branding like “Built Ford Tough.”  I expected to see more trucks.  This web site impresses upon me that Ford is more about intelligent efficiency, especially in terms of MPGs.  This messaging flows nicely into their highlighted vehicles, which are all vehicles that fit well into that message.  It gives me the feeling that purchasing any one of those cars is a smart choice because the engineers have been very forward-thinking about the technology and have been aggressive in their pursuit of fuel economy.  It’s especially interesting that the trucks are not highlighted at all on the home page.  This signals to me that the company is really shifting their emphasis toward fuel efficiency and that they are striving to be a leader in this area at the expense of other aspects of their business.  Even the image behind the cars looks like San Francisco, which has a very tech-oriented reputation, and so I think more about the fuel-saving technology than something like the towing capacity or off-roading capability, etc.

Social Media Mavens

Below is a list of companies that have a social media presence, and on which platforms you can find them:

 

British Airways:  http://www.britishairways.com/travel/home/public/en_us

·         Facebook

·         Twitter

·         Google +

·         Linked In

 

Barnes & Noble:  http://www.barnesandnoble.com/

·         Facebook for the store and Nook

·         Twitter for the store and Nook

·         Email newsletter

 

Anthropologie: http://www.anthropologie.com/anthro/index.jsp

·         Email newsletter

·         Blog

·         Twitter

·         Instagram

·         Youtube

·         Facebook

·         Pinterest

·         Google +

 

Blind Lady Ale House:  http://www.blindladyalehouse.com/

·         Blog

·         Email newsletter

·         Twitter

·         Facebook

 

The Casbah: http://www.casbahmusic.com/

·         Facebook

·         Twitter

·         Youtube

·         Email newsletter

Traffic Ticket Trauma

I recently had an interesting experience trying to solve a problem with the Superior Court, which is not technically a business, but I think there’s a lot of applicability here.

I got a ticket from the Highway Patrol for driving while holding a mobile device.  I was actually only listening to the GPS tell me how to get to where I needed to go, but apparently that’s illegal now as of April, so beware!! 

First, the officer I dealt with was very confusing, and the ticket I received was very confusing.  Then the web site was also very confusing.  I wound up thinking I was supposed to go to night court on the date of my court appearance, but really if I wanted to do night court I needed to make a special appointment.  Luckily I figured this out on the day of my appearance, and was able to request an extension online.

So, knowing that I needed to make an appointment for night court at that point, I tried to schedule it right away.  It turned out that it takes a while for the system to register that you have received an extension, so you can’t do it right then.  Once the system finally recognized that I had an extension, I tried to schedule my appointment using their online scheduling system.  It didn’t work on my home computer and it didn’t work on my work computer…

So I tried to call.  There is an interminably long recorded message on the phone line, which does not give you the option to schedule an appearance at night court, and does not mention the hours to call to talk to a real person.  Eventually I saw in a strange place online that the number to call is only available between 8:30 and 11:30am on week days.  Awesome.  Once I figure that out, I called at the right time and I was placed on unlimited hold.

At this point I am very frustrated with the whole situation.  I email the IT guy about the online system not working for me.  Amazingly he responded very promptly!!  We discussed my issue though, and he couldn't figure it out.  He was very nice and helpful though.  While I was on hold waiting to talk to someone on the phone, and the IT guy was failing to solve the computer dilemma, I finally realize I might be able to do this using the internet on my phone, which I do.  I was able to make the appointment on my phone where two computers and two humans had failed me.

So, when this question came up in class, I immediately thought of this situation.  First, the problems with the confusing instructions from the cop and the ticket and the web site need to be fixed.  However, another strategy that might help people like me actually handle our tickets would be to have social media avenues where it’s possible to connect with people who can help you in more real time, where people can see what the solutions were for others in some sort of archive function, and can avoid having to call or email because they can see other people who had this problem and how it was fixed.  A more user-friendly web interface with the court’s “customers” would help us meet our requirements and give us a more positive feeling about our experience with the court.  Maybe we would be less likely to avoid jury duty if the court was actually a helpful, friendly place that wanted to make sure you had the tools and understanding you need to deal with whatever situation put you there. 

Also, I think it’s ridiculous that laws like this go into effect and we’re responsible for knowing them without any systematic notification.  Social media could be a great tool for keeping people up to date on new laws so people like me don’t end up dealing with antiquated systems in the first place!!