Introduction In this article, I discuss how the classic VRIN model can be used to evaluate modern web platforms. What is the VRIN model? It’s one of the most cited models of the resource-based view of the firm. Essentially, it describes how a firm can achieve sustainable competitive advantage through resources that fulfill certain criteria. These […]
Category: english
The difference between business logic and strategy
Introduction I started thinking this question today when reading my students’ exam answers. The questions was “Define business logic and give an example of it”, and many answers actually defined strategy. At that point, I realized it’s not so easy to see a difference between these two concepts. So, what would I see as the […]
How to use Facebook Ads for market segmentation?
This article discusses the potential of market segmentation using Facebook Ads. Why is segmentation needed? Segmentation is one of the most fundamental concepts in marketing. Its goal is to identify the best match between the firm’s offering and the market, i.e. find a sub-set of customers who are most likely to buy the product and […]
A.I. – the next industrial revolution?
Introduction Many workers are concerned about “robotization” and “automatization” taking away their jobs. Also the media has been writing actively about this topic lately, as can be seen in publications such as New York Times and Forbes. New York Times: After Jobs Dry Up, What Then? Forbes: Now, Even Artificial Intelligence Gurus Fret That AI […]
The Digital Marketing Brief – four things to ask your client
Recently I had an email correspondence with one my brightest digital marketing students. He asked for advice on creating an AdWords campaign plan. I told him the plan should include certain elements, and only them (it’s easy to make a long and useless plan, and difficult to do it short and useful). Anyway, in the […]
The Bounce Problem: How to Track Bounce in Simple Landing Pages
Introduction This post applies to cases satisfying two conditions. First, you have a simple landing page designed for immediate action (=no further clicks). This can be the case for many marketing campaigns for which we design a landing page without navigation and a very simple goal, such as learning about a product or watching a […]
Assessing the scalability of AdWords campaigns
Introduction Startups, and why not bigger companies, too, often test marketing channels by allocating a small budget to each channel, and then analyzing the results (e.g. CPA, cost per action) per channel. This is done to determine a) business potential and b) channel potential. The former refers to how lucrative it is to acquire customers […]
The ROI of Academic Publishing
Problem of ROI in publishing The return on investment (ROI) of academic publishing is absolutely terrible. Think of it – thousands of hours spent correcting formatting, spellings, rephrasing, and so on. All this after the actual insight of the research has been accomplished. In all seriousness, 10% of time spent doing research and 90% writing […]
Startup syndromes: “The Iznogoud Syndrome”
1. Definition The Iznogoud Syndrome can be defined as follows: A startup strives to disrupt existing market structures instead of adapting to them. In most industries, existing relationships are strong, cemented and will not change due to one startup. Therefore, a better strategy is to find ways of providing utility in the existing ecosystem. 2. Origins […]
A simple formula for assessing the feasibility of AdWords cases
Update [24th March, 2017]: In addition to the formula explained in the post, I would add the following general criteria for a good AdWords case: 1) Low-Medium competition (high CPCs force to look for alternative channels), 2) Good website/landing pages (i.e., load fast, easy to navigate, have text information relevant to the keywords. Introduction Google […]