View Post

Why Ignoring Mobile Is No Longer An Option

Too many businesses are ignoring mobile. While up until now many companies have ‘got away with it’, this situation is becoming increasingly untenable. Over a third of the UK adult population now use smart phones, with a similar percentage in the US, and the market is growing existentially.

Whitney Houston, Sony And The Importance Of ‘Reputation’

Just hours after the death of Whitney Houston two of her albums, ‘The Ultimate Collection’ and “The Greatest Hits’ were increased in price on the UK version of iTunes; one from £4.99 to £7.99 and the other from £7.99 to £9.99.

View Post

Do Not Commit The ‘Cardinal Sin’ Of Modern Marketing

The seven ‘deadly’ or ‘cardinal’ sins are commonly thought of as envy, gluttony, greed, lust, pride, sloth and wrath. However, in marketing today, there is another sin being committed by companies the world over. This offence creates so much dissatisfaction for prospects and customers alike, the punishment for committing such a crime is becoming increasingly severe.

View Post

Star Wars, Recruitment and Creating ‘Sticky’ Content

Marketing is no longer purely transactional. Historically, the major measure to assess whether a company’s marketing was effective, or not, was Return On Investment (ROI). A company would undertake, for example, a direct mail campaign and the metrics they would look at were the number of responses and deals done.

View Post

The Importance Of The Social Graph

For a vast majority of companies Social Media is still new. However, because many of the customers a business would like to reach, spend an increasing amount of time on these platforms, companies have come to recognize the importance of being involved. Therein the frustration starts to build. Businesses recognize the importance of social media and yet are struggling to make it work in any tangible way.

View Post

Welcome To The Social Web

The Web has enabled all of us to create and access this knowledge, in a way not previously known. So, for example, we can follow the collective train of thought, on any particular issue of the day, by following the comments posted on Twitter. We can evaluate the best place to stay, when abroad, by tapping into the collective wisdom on a website like tripadvisor.com.

View Post

New Marketing Is About Building Assets

‘Old Marketing’ was transactional in nature. One would organise a direct mail, telemarketing or advertising campaign, and one would measure the results obtained. If it achieved a ‘return on investment’ the campaign was deemed successful. If not, it failed. As soon as activities were undertaken, e.g., phone calls were made or letters landed on the doormat of prospects, one could hope to receive some sort of response. Therefore, using this old model there was always a possibility of some ‘quick wins’.

View Post

Marketing Is A Conversation? Oh Yeah… About What?

There is an adage which is regularly used by ‘progressive’ marketers today. That is, marketing is no longer about broadcast messaging as it was before the Web. Rather, marketing is now about engaging with customers via online tools where customers have the right of reply. Consequently, marketing becomes less about broadcast messaging and more about a conversation. That is the move from ‘one way communication’ to ‘two way communication’.