Nearly one in 18 adults in the UK – and one in ten in the USA – are actively pursuing entrepreneurial dreams, but for most those dreams remain just that. Are you looking to launch a start-up . . . to make your entrepreneurial venture a reality? John Mullins is the voice of experience and has advice on how to make the most of opportunity to deliver results.
The success and failures of last year’s Christmas advertising campaigns are now available for all to compare and here, Josh Krichefski takes a look back at which advertisers delivered some real crackers, what brands can learn from the winners and losers – and what they should put on next year’s Christmas list to ensure their festive advertising success.
Sweet and charming or cheesy and sickly – whatever your view of Valentine’s Day and the hype surrounding it, many businesses do well to leverage events marketing tactics and make the most of the first of the year’s gifting events. Valentines data shows what couples are likely to be spending their money on in 2018:
The incoming GDPR means the acquisition and use of personal data must be transparent and explicit. But how will that affect email marketing and what should email marketers do to stay within the law? Darine Fayed explains how the new data regulation will work and why GDPR & email will, actually, result in better quality communications going forward.
High street sales figures make grim reading currently, as rising inflation is clearly impacting consumer spending levels. And, with household incomes failing to keep pace, there is little sign of an upturn for retailers – in the immediate future at least. But Peter Zeun argues that in these difficult times, when it is getting ever harder for retailers to persuade consumers to spend their hard-earned cash in store or online, putting in place the right customer engagement and retention strategies is increasingly imperative for any brand. So start now, scrutinise your CRM strategies and take control of the future.
Research shows that more than half of consumers stop buying after a poor customer service interaction and that 95% ‘share’ bad experiences – so what, if anything, are companies doing to stop customers ‘falling through the cracks’ in the multichannel experience brands are offering? And how can they improve that offering? Chris Robinson says they should start by looking to their lines of communication and ensuring their customers can easily reach them.
Did the John Lewis TV ad ‘Moz the Monster’ prompt you to buy from that retailer . . . or do you fast-forward through the ads? Sweet seasonal telly ads leave a bad taste in the modern connected-up world, says Alex Hill – who believes brands busting their budgets on a big Christmas TV ad campaign should instead think audience-first, with social and digital activity leading the marketing, rather than the other way round.
All too soon, deals won in the discounts battle fought during major retail events such as Black Friday & Christmas fade into last year’s bottom line and marketers turn their thoughts to a new year and fresh battlegrounds! But Chris Baldwin has advice and strategies that will create value for retailers all year round.
As the year draws to an end, the UK DMA has staged an awards event in London, giving top accolades to campaigns that have demonstrated inspirational marketing in action. Here’s a look at some of the best ones:
The Black Friday/Cyber Monday period is the starting pistol that signals that start of ‘the golden quarter’, when most retailers lock in their profits for the year. It’s also a time when having a good customer database – along with reaching the right consumer with the right offer at the right time – is critically lucrative for brands. However, the looming prospect of GDPR is set to make the gathering and use of customer data more complex. So what should marketers be doing now to ensure their golden quarter & GDPR plans go platinum in 2018?