I am considering starting a business in helping the Chinese foreign students and visiting scholars to settle down in the southern California area. During the past several, the numbers of Chiense foreign students and visting scholars who come the to southern California to attend schools or participate in reasearch program has grown tremendously. My proposed business, Socal Relocation Concierge (SLR) will offer services in assisting them in moving to and settling down in their new environments here.
Target Market: Chinese foreign students and visiting scholars who newly arrive in the southern California area, who have not find a permanent place to stay and have not establish themselves here.
Demography of Target Market: Most of them will be of the age of college students or post graduate students. Some will be in their 40s or 50s if they come as visiting scholars. They could be male or female, although the female will be mostly likely to enlist our services. Marital status would be either married or single. They will be people of very good education background, mostly would have already be accepted into the colleges or graduate schools in southern California area. Their income level would be very varied with majority living within students' means while some would have family resources to rely on.
Psycho-graphics of Target Market: new to this country, these people would be anxious, unsure of their surrounding, tentative in making living arrangement, unfamiliar with American ways of conducting daily business, such as obtaining driver license, setting up bank account. They would be eager to settle down quickly to be able to focus on school works.
Behavioristics of Target Market: Their initial circle of activities would be limited to school setting and places that ethnic Chinese frequent, such as Chinese grocery stores and restaurants. They would tend to cluster around fellow Chinese students and Chinese residents living in Socal, relying on the rapport
offered there. They would be very responsive to the marketing message of local relocation experts offering relocation solutions.
Sunday, February 24, 2013
Sunday, February 17, 2013
Week 3 Assignment Part Two
After examining my web browsing habit, I come to realize that my daily encounter with Internet is quite confined to websites for utility purpose such as Google.com and Bing.com, a fact that I am actually proud of as an indication of not wasting too much time on purposeless web surfing. Therefore, my selection for websites to comment on are www.bankofamerica.com and www.fidelity.com, the two websites that I have to deal with often to manage the family finance.
Being probably the most representative of the ecommerce presence by the financial institutions in the U.S. , these two websites share as many characteristics as differences. What makes them both effective is the brand building as a conscientious effort in displaying their theme colors, logo and marketing messages in an coordinated way on their sites. Besides the necessity to come back to visit their website, both websites offer a wealth of information and knowledge in financial planning and asset management, well organized in the form of navigation bars and sections that are prominently and logically presented on their sites.
However, I found that in respect of aesthetics Bank of America website is a better site where the content area is centered across the screen and the layouts of sections are even and proportional. It resembles the look and feel of a traditional brick and mortar bank building exuding soundness and trustworthiness. Fidelity's website is oddly aligned all the way to the left of the screen and scattered with bits of information here and there which makes it hard to distinguish the relationship among the various contents. The font sizes on Fidelity's website are quite small and do not correspond to their sections' logical relevance and hierarchy
With the inclusion of friendly human images on its website, Fidelity does a better job at creating a welcoming experience for its website users. It has the around the corner small town credit union's look and feel that endears itself to the potential customers, as compared to Bank of America whose website seems be very impersonal and imposing.
What I find amusing is the straightforwardness of both websites in splashing the 'open an account with us' all across their main web pages. It is what they do for business and they did a fine job in putting the solicitation as the forefront of their websites.
Being probably the most representative of the ecommerce presence by the financial institutions in the U.S. , these two websites share as many characteristics as differences. What makes them both effective is the brand building as a conscientious effort in displaying their theme colors, logo and marketing messages in an coordinated way on their sites. Besides the necessity to come back to visit their website, both websites offer a wealth of information and knowledge in financial planning and asset management, well organized in the form of navigation bars and sections that are prominently and logically presented on their sites.
However, I found that in respect of aesthetics Bank of America website is a better site where the content area is centered across the screen and the layouts of sections are even and proportional. It resembles the look and feel of a traditional brick and mortar bank building exuding soundness and trustworthiness. Fidelity's website is oddly aligned all the way to the left of the screen and scattered with bits of information here and there which makes it hard to distinguish the relationship among the various contents. The font sizes on Fidelity's website are quite small and do not correspond to their sections' logical relevance and hierarchy
With the inclusion of friendly human images on its website, Fidelity does a better job at creating a welcoming experience for its website users. It has the around the corner small town credit union's look and feel that endears itself to the potential customers, as compared to Bank of America whose website seems be very impersonal and imposing.
What I find amusing is the straightforwardness of both websites in splashing the 'open an account with us' all across their main web pages. It is what they do for business and they did a fine job in putting the solicitation as the forefront of their websites.
Friday, February 15, 2013
Websites Evaluation on Aesthetics, Design & Branding
The website http://www.gforceracecars.com/ is a brochure type of website that serves the basic function of presenting the company's and its products information with straightforward layout and graphical contrast.
However, there are several ways to improve the overall attractiveness and professionalism about this website.
First, the Home/Welcome page, which is the main page of the website, should be shortened to a manageable length. As of now, it takes me a continuous click about 10 seconds on the scroll down bar to reach the bottom of the page, at which point I already lost track of what I saw and what the emphasis of the page is. The various sections on this page could be easily organized as additional pages with captions for the sections as link.
Secondly, The center of web pages should be expanded horizontally. As of now, the website seems to be too narrow, with the content area constrained in the center black area, outside of which is the empty red columns that occupy almost half of the screen.
The third way to make the website looking professional is to correct the misspellings, such as "draq race" on the welcome page and to present the contents in a consistent ways. For example, when "Accessories" on the left navigation column is clicked, the content area is completely black and the merchandises information is at the bottom of the page which could be overlooked if the visitors do not scroll down to the end of the page.
The website http://tectorch.com is also a brochure based website that brings the relevant information about the company and its products on to the web. However, it needs major revamp. The website's main page is very crowded with almost all the information crammed together. The company info and the products info should be separated into their own pages. The products info should be organized with proper hierarchy. The web graphic could use some help with contrasting color to segment the content into meaningful clusters of information. Also, there are too many types of fonts, font styles and font sizes on each page. The font should be streamlined into no more than three types on any single page to make it easy for the visitors to follow.
As major brands of automobile manufacturers, http://www.ford.com and http://www.toyota.com have different approaches for their online branding and marketing, with the former presenting its multi lines of models at the forefront of its website and the later delegating its website main content area to the marketing messages. While both websites are aesthetically pleasing with rich video and graphic contents, Ford's website seems to be easier with the visitor's web browsers than Toyota;s website that takes several extra seconds to load up. Ford website also does a better job at keeping its theme color consistent while Toyota's website is scattered with incompatible colors such as purple, greenish black and silver.
However, there are several ways to improve the overall attractiveness and professionalism about this website.
First, the Home/Welcome page, which is the main page of the website, should be shortened to a manageable length. As of now, it takes me a continuous click about 10 seconds on the scroll down bar to reach the bottom of the page, at which point I already lost track of what I saw and what the emphasis of the page is. The various sections on this page could be easily organized as additional pages with captions for the sections as link.
Secondly, The center of web pages should be expanded horizontally. As of now, the website seems to be too narrow, with the content area constrained in the center black area, outside of which is the empty red columns that occupy almost half of the screen.
The third way to make the website looking professional is to correct the misspellings, such as "draq race" on the welcome page and to present the contents in a consistent ways. For example, when "Accessories" on the left navigation column is clicked, the content area is completely black and the merchandises information is at the bottom of the page which could be overlooked if the visitors do not scroll down to the end of the page.
The website http://tectorch.com is also a brochure based website that brings the relevant information about the company and its products on to the web. However, it needs major revamp. The website's main page is very crowded with almost all the information crammed together. The company info and the products info should be separated into their own pages. The products info should be organized with proper hierarchy. The web graphic could use some help with contrasting color to segment the content into meaningful clusters of information. Also, there are too many types of fonts, font styles and font sizes on each page. The font should be streamlined into no more than three types on any single page to make it easy for the visitors to follow.
As major brands of automobile manufacturers, http://www.ford.com and http://www.toyota.com have different approaches for their online branding and marketing, with the former presenting its multi lines of models at the forefront of its website and the later delegating its website main content area to the marketing messages. While both websites are aesthetically pleasing with rich video and graphic contents, Ford's website seems to be easier with the visitor's web browsers than Toyota;s website that takes several extra seconds to load up. Ford website also does a better job at keeping its theme color consistent while Toyota's website is scattered with incompatible colors such as purple, greenish black and silver.
Sunday, February 10, 2013
Business Websites with Social Media
There are the five business websites I surveyed that utilize social media as part of and also an extension of their website contents:
www.fidelity.com with Facebook, Twitter and Youtube links.
www.walmart.com with Facebook link
www.forever21.com with Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Instagram, pinterest Links
www.kearnypearsonford.com with Facebook and Twitter links.
www.vons.com with Facebook and Twitter links.
www.fidelity.com with Facebook, Twitter and Youtube links.
www.walmart.com with Facebook link
www.forever21.com with Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Instagram, pinterest Links
www.kearnypearsonford.com with Facebook and Twitter links.
www.vons.com with Facebook and Twitter links.
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
Is Social Media the Place to Lodge a Complaint?
It has happened often that after hours of being put on hold or switched back and forth between rosily-called customer services representatives and their next level higher ups, I ended up with no solution to my complaint but with a skyrocketed blood pressure level and brutally bruised self esteem.
Then I felt such an urge to let known my frustration and misery as the result of being overpowered by the Big Bad Business. Before the dawn of social media, I would have to resort to shouting in a crowded place to disseminate my messages which would surely die down within a few yards of me.
Now with the social medium providing a central and easily accessible forum, people whose voices are as trivial as mine now have an opportunity to have their voices heard, their experience shared, and their anger and frustration based on common cause released as collective and coordinated barrage at the Big Bad Business.
Even a Big Bad Business is surely concerned about their public image being tarnished by cohort of people lodging complaint about them. However, is online gripping going to fix the problem at hand for us?
Probably not. Quite as often as in brick and mortar market place, an individual customer’s complaint on the online public forum is drowned out by so many other voices shouting at the same time for attention for a myriad of agendas. It usually takes a person with a lot of patience, tenacity and belligerence and with the luxury of ample time to push his/her cause through on the online world to be able to build up enough followers, commiserators, and fellow plaintiffs in pursuing a specific problem with a Big Bad Business. Also, someone who stands up to a business by writing negative comments on social media website such as Yelp could end up facing legal problem in the name of defamation lawsuit brought against him by the business.
Then I felt such an urge to let known my frustration and misery as the result of being overpowered by the Big Bad Business. Before the dawn of social media, I would have to resort to shouting in a crowded place to disseminate my messages which would surely die down within a few yards of me.
Now with the social medium providing a central and easily accessible forum, people whose voices are as trivial as mine now have an opportunity to have their voices heard, their experience shared, and their anger and frustration based on common cause released as collective and coordinated barrage at the Big Bad Business.
Even a Big Bad Business is surely concerned about their public image being tarnished by cohort of people lodging complaint about them. However, is online gripping going to fix the problem at hand for us?
Probably not. Quite as often as in brick and mortar market place, an individual customer’s complaint on the online public forum is drowned out by so many other voices shouting at the same time for attention for a myriad of agendas. It usually takes a person with a lot of patience, tenacity and belligerence and with the luxury of ample time to push his/her cause through on the online world to be able to build up enough followers, commiserators, and fellow plaintiffs in pursuing a specific problem with a Big Bad Business. Also, someone who stands up to a business by writing negative comments on social media website such as Yelp could end up facing legal problem in the name of defamation lawsuit brought against him by the business.
Saturday, February 2, 2013
Business Oriented Social Media Platforms
It is quite hard to me to evaluate the business worthiness of a social media platform, simply because I have not been an active participant in social media. I only have a Twitter account which I rarely log in.
However, from what I read and heard about the social media websites, it seems that websites such as Facebook and Twitter are geared towards the personal and social use while websites such as Linkedin and Google+ are better equipped with handling business aspects on the web.
To further justify the above observations, I believe I would need to open accounts with these websites to gain insight into how they operate. But I am an intensely averse to signing up accounts by giving away my real name. Can I use a pseudonym to set up the acount?
However, from what I read and heard about the social media websites, it seems that websites such as Facebook and Twitter are geared towards the personal and social use while websites such as Linkedin and Google+ are better equipped with handling business aspects on the web.
To further justify the above observations, I believe I would need to open accounts with these websites to gain insight into how they operate. But I am an intensely averse to signing up accounts by giving away my real name. Can I use a pseudonym to set up the acount?
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