5 Options for charging fees and paying for agency resource
There are a wide range of marketing agency costing and budgeting options for marketers to consider when outsourcing their marketing activities. The fees model used will vary by both type of agency and client engagement as you seek to agree what is a practical, mutually beneficial remuneration mix. Whichever model(s) you use, an agency or consultancy should ensure that all elements of activity are captured and you minimise working ‘for free’ e.g ‘giving away thinking’ in order to secure production work. I say costing model(s) since it’s common practice for an agency to have a preferred approach, but to vary it on a case-by-case basis depending on clients requirements and expectations.
How much you should charge clients for specific elements of work that you undertake will be based on a range of factors e.g. your fixed overheads (office rent, management salaries etc),…
A working marketing funnel ensures a steady influx of leads which forms the basis for business growth.
Have you ever been in a situation when you’ve done everything you could to sell your product, but people didn’t buy it? You may have a fantastic product, a lot of great ideas and motivation to run your business, but unfortunately, that is not always enough to succeed. This blog will review how optimizing your marketing funnel can help you overcome this dilemma!
According to Forbes, eight out of ten entrepreneurs who start businesses fail within 18 months. If you don’t want to repeat their fate as a businessman, you need to understand how to sell your product or service. To do that, you need to be able to build an effective marketing funnel.
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Eliminate bloated bottom lines by adopting a zero-based budgeting approach
The ability to develop an efficient and effective budgeting and forecasting process requires extensive experience and on-the-job training that can take years before your boss finally - if ever - says, “You don’t need me anymore.”
Accurate forecasting (even close to being in the ballpark) is the hallmark of the great marketers I have worked with. Sadly, I can count them on one hand. In addition to a wide-ranging combination of consumer, channel, process, and delivery knowledge, they were also comfortable and capable in the numbers department.
Although we’ve introduced different forecasting techniques to brief marketers on how to use a more data-driven approach, the concept of zero-based budgeting is becoming a popular technique.
As campaigns running all around us right now prove, anyone, can invest/spend/blow (take your pick) money that flows from the magic money tree that…
Over 95% of consumers say customer service is the most important factor in their choice of a brand
The customer service game is quickly changing. Customers tend to expect more from their interactions with brands and consequently, brands are forced to invest more in customer support innovation to up their game.
It's a small wonder that, according to Gartner, almost 90% of businesses are going to compete mainly on customer experience, and over 95% of consumers say customer service is the most important factor in their choice of a brand.
Is your business keeping up?
Your customer support team may not be available 24/7 but your customers may have questions every day, all day long. Imagine how many unhappy customers you may have been able to win back if only your team could be there to promptly help or direct your lost leads in the right…
Five steps that you can take to gain insight from your customer feedback and prepare for your recovery
Just as no one could have predicted this year’s events, no one knows exactly what a post-Covid world is going to look like. One thing we can be sure of, however, is that some change is on the cards. The longer this situation plays out, the more we’re all seeing shifts in consumer behaviour, product demand, customer relationships, and priorities – even the term ‘essential’ has taken on a different meaning for many of us over the past few months.
Changes in your business are happening right now. It’s time to react to your consumer’s behaviour, gather all of data that will help you take the steps to recovery, and make sure your customer experience (CX) is ready and suited to this new post-Covid customer base.
1. Evolve with your customers – find out what’s…
How to write briefs that deliver great design work
In an increasingly crowded world, design work is key for businesses as they fight for mental availability through distinctiveness and clear branding. As businesses put design at the heart of their processes, there is a growing need to deliver great design briefs that work. In over fifteen years of writing design briefs, great ones, average ones, and bad ones, I can unilaterally state that if a design brief is rubbish, packed full of non-essential information, with gaps in critical parts and devoid of emotional hooks, even the best designers are going to struggle to do great work.
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No one starts to…
As more competitors on the landscape compete for keywords and "airspace", it’s now more important than ever to explore new ways to engage and communicate with your target demographic and community
Marketing has come a long way since those smoky days in the Mad Men-style advertising board rooms. It has, at one point or another, revolved around each medium that has engaged us as humans, from newspapers and radio to television, and now, the internet and social media.
What we used to call "traditional marketing" (the direct mail and radio/TV advertising) has now morphed into "digital marketing," a way to reach people where they are: online. Digital marketing these days covers a wide swath of channels: search engines, social media, and email, among others.
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It may have originated in the world of software development, but agile ways of working can significantly benefit marketing teams to perform more effectively.
What is 'agile', I hear you ask?
Focused on collaboration, communication, and iteration, agile methodologies have long been used by development teams to speed up time-to-market, reduce waste and risk, and rapidly respond to new trends and opportunities. Its popularity is such that 94% of software organizations and teams now practice agile, according to VersionOne’s latest State of Agile report.
Today though it’s not just those involved with software development that can benefit from an agile approach. Indeed, I’ve personally delivered coaching for organizations across a range of industries - from an events management company through logistics and automotive firms to universities and membership institutions - to support their successful transition to agile ways of working.
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Recapture the attention - and transactions - of your e-commerce cart abandoners with effective email marketing sequences
Every hour of every day thousands of e-commerce website visitors add items to their shopping carts, then quietly leave without purchasing anything. Even more surprising, most website owners don’t follow up with these visitors in any way. This lack of follow-up represents millions of dollars of lost revenue, not just from the current purchase, but from additional purchases these shoppers would end up making over time. It is therefore essential, for an E-commerce website to engage these visitors with effective email marketing sequences to help maximize revenue opportunities.
True, some of these cart abandoners were ‘just browsing’ or otherwise had no immediate intent to buy, but others were on the cusp of converting and something wasn’t quite right. In this post, I’ll describe how to recapture the attention - and transactions - of…
Reasons why you should consider text message marketing as part of your customer communications
As more brands look to target customers on the move, SMS is becoming an increasingly essential part of effective multi-channel marketing. However, with few digital marketing agencies featuring SMS as a core offering, their clients are potentially missing out on communications with customers and increased ROI.
Organisations mistakenly believe that mobile marketing requires heavy investment in apps and does not allow for personalised, targeted communication and lacks strong analysis to support ROI. The reality is that access to mobile communications is far easier than perceived and gaining access to mobile consumers (smartphone and non-smartphone) can be as simple as sending a personalised, targeted text message. The means to instigate two-way SMS messaging between a company and their mobile users is essential to building a brand in households around the world provided consumer privacy is protected through legal requirements…
