Overview:

• This assignment is in 2 parts. Part A is focused around Search marketing and Part B is around Freemium marketing.

Part A: Search Marketing & Big Skinny

To answer the set of questions below, assume that you are the marketing owner for Big Skinny, and you are in charge of the overall e-commerce success of the site

Questions:

1. Paid Search Strategy:
a. If you were to buy AdWords for Big Skinny, how would you go about picking the best keywords?
b. Which specific keywords would you buy?

2. AdWords:

Assume that you are bidding for the keyword 'skinny wallet'. You are bidding against 4 competitors - Bellroy, Fossil, Slimfold, and Savvy Caddy. The Max bid presented by each vendor is shown below, along with Google's quality score for each vendor.

Based on the AdWords bidding model that we discussed in class,

a. How much would you end up paying for a click-through on your paid ad?

b. Just for this sub-question, assume that everyone's quality score is identical. How much would you then end up paying for a click-through on your paid ad?

c. Suppose you wanted your Ad Rank to be #1. What do you need to do ensure that? (Be precise).

3. Other Connect Strategies:

Over and above Search, suppose you had the budget to employ two additional Connect strategies/ techniques to market Big Skinny wallets. Which two would you employ? List them in order of priority, and briefly explain your reasoning.

4. Metrics:

As marketing owner of Big skinny, what are the top 5 metrics you will track to get a good measure on Connecting with customers? List these in order of priority and explain briefly the reasoning for your prioritization

Part B: Freemium Marketing: Evernote

Pre-requisites:

• Download the free version of 'Evernote' on to both your mobile phone and your computer (if you already do not have it). You need to have this on a minimum of two devices.

• Create an account and then create and access at least several notes from at least two devices.

• Read the two articles on Evernote that I have uploaded on to the Session #04 Readings

• Then answer the following questions:

Questions:

5. Both Evernote and Dropbox have somewhat similar business models:
a. Identify key similarities - explain (very briefly) how they are similar.
b. Identify key differences - explain (very briefly) how they are different..

6. Evernote is a private company. The rough data we have about the company (as of early 2015): 105M registered users; 340 employees; paid subscribers pay $45 for an annual subscription.

Assume that the cost of servicing a non-paying user is $0.05 per month, and that of a paying customer is $1.00 per month. Also, assume that each employee costs the company $170K a year (loaded cost - including all overheads). Also (for simplicity) assume that there are no additional fixed costs.

a. What % of the 105M registered users need to become paying customers for Evernote to break even?
b. If Evernote manages to convert 5% of its user base, what would be it's profit margin?
NOTE: Just for the purposes of this analysis, assume that all the incoming revenue is only from the B2C business, and that there are no other products or services that are being offered. (For full credit, you will need to show how you arrived at your numbers for both a and b. Also, be precise to at least 2 decimal places).

7. Assume that you were the CMO of Evernote:
a. What key marketing metrics would you be tracking? (Pick the top 5). Explain briefly why you chose these over others.
b. What specific marketing actions/programs would you undertake to increase the usage and popularity of Evernote

8. If you were Phil Libin (Evernote CEO), what specific actions would you consider taking to:
a. increase conversions from free to paid?
b. increase profitability by other means?
In both (a) and (b) above, justify your action suggestions. Be very specific about your suggestions.