Email marketing can work brilliantly in a recession. I heard about an example from Howies
who apparently made the decision to go to sale on the Thursday morning, and by Friday lunchtime, were on for the biggest single day in their history!The email itself disobeys many of the rules of best practice in email marketing, but demonstrates the importance of having a clear message and very engaging copy. Judge for yourself.
I was at the Farnborough Air Show on
Monday. Flightglobal had a chalet with a fabulous view of the main action.One thing, I was very impressed with was the way they had used Social Media to engage the marketplace using 'Stefan the Pilot', Flighglobal's social media avatar.
Stefan first made his appearance two years ago at the Paris Airshow. Since then, he has grown his profile via an effective use of social media, primarily Twitter
and Facebook.The big idea for Stefan at Farnborough was a competion, offering visitors the chance to win an IPAD if they spotted Stefan around the event. Stefan (who is only 30cm tall) was all over the show, 'checking in' to various locations via Twitter, Facebook and FourSquare
. Those who did find Stefan, were given a signed postcard of Stefan which they then took to the Flightglobal Media Lounge to enter the draw.Pictures
Further Information
See how Personnel Today exploited social media by creating Career Coach personas
The RBI Digital Marketing Conference took place 1st July - it was a really good event and a great opportunity to share lessons on topics including: web analytics, persuasion architecture, online lead nurturing and social media. There was also a really useful presentation from Aziz Musa, RBI's Head of Global Product Management (link: http://uk.linkedin.com/in/azizmusa) who passed on some useful lessons to marketers who need to brief web projects into an IS department:
2. Start big and then narrow down your ambitions
3. Do it in pieces (rather than all at once)
4. Measure your success
The overall theme of the day was that the world is changing rapidly and I thought I'd share a few, thought-provoking videos from the event:
Finally, for amusement, take a look at these cartoons and see if they ring true with you...
I spent the bulk of Tuesday judging 8 categories in the B2B Marketing Awards campaigns. It was interesting to see what B2B companies have been doing during the downturn. I can't give anything away, but there were some impressive entries in the categories which included lead generation, new product launch, social media and integrated marketing. You'll have to wait until November 25th to see who has won.
B2B Marketing Awards Night
If you've had a similar 18 months to me, you'll appreciate why I like the thought of having a 'flexible' cost base. It's so reassuring to be able to tap into world-class services when you need them, but pull back when there's less demand or at low seasonal times. We took to the decision to outsource all of our creative services at the end of last year. Though a very challenging episode, it is proving to be the right decision as the team now have access to a much wider pool of creative and design talent.
However, though the requirement to outsource may be there, you often can't move forward simply because you just don't know who to outsource to. Certainly selecting, inducting and managing a supplier is a skill that should not be underestimated. Poor briefing, changing your mind frequently, shouting at suppliers, not paying on time are examples of how not to do it.
However, rather than give you a list of do's and don'ts of managing suppliers, I wanted to make you aware of what you can outsource to give you more time in your day and achieve more overall:
1. Virtual assistants - a fabulous resource to assist you with specific organisational and digital marketing tasks. Lots of examples of companies that offer this service eg www.getfriday.com
2. Data cleaning and acquisition - eg http://www.cheersin.com/
3. Copywriting
4. Design
So what's left to do in-house? The overall responsibility to the customer, the strategy and the development - in other words, everything.
