Adapting your digital marketing strategy could help your business overcome the effects of inflation
Inflation as a consequence of the pandemic has affected most if not all industries, and digital marketing is no exception. As businesses try to overcome the challenges caused by the current economic state, it is necessary for companies to evaluate their digital marketing strategy to ensure they are reaching the right audience online.
What is inflation and how does it affect businesses?
As a marketing professional rather than an economist, it is probably best to give you a more official and informed definition of inflation! According to the IMF, inflation is a broad term used to describe the increased cost of living or an overall rise in prices. It is often mentioned in relation to a specific country.
Inflation: the global picture
With consumers spending less on non-essentials…
The decision to act, or not to act, can have a knock-on effect on how your company will weather the storm of inflation and change in 2022
In our recent LinkedIn poll, 30% of respondents admitted to making no changes to their marketing strategies in light of inflation.
Suggested changes we gave include making marketing more efficient (majority response at 58%) and reducing spend. Only 7% are adapting their strategy to reduce spend - which shows most of the ‘adapters’ are doing so with a growth mindset.
But, alarmingly, the same poll showed that 30% are not planning to adjust their strategy, or were not sure. The ‘not sure’ answer indicated, to me, either slow decision-making or poor management, neither being great for reacting to a global phenomenon. So what can we learn from this?
65% of marketers are adapting in light of…
First my wallet, now my phone, are stacked with customer loyalty cards, emails, and apps. But what do customers want in loyalty schemes?
The customer loyalty market is in a state of flux. While physical cards decline amidst low-contact social distancing, notifications and emails from my favourite brands are more targeted (and appealing!) than ever.
With marketing budgets tightening, customer engagement is a wise area to defend. Recent studies show it can cost up to 5x more to acquire a new customer than to retain an existing one.
[si_monthly_campaign_blog_cta_banner id=156432]
Loyalty schemes are expensive to implement, promote and very costly to manage, both online and offline. But are they making a difference? Do they increase customer engagement, and what can we learn from the best examples?
[si_learning_path_module_shortcode_block id=147548]
Managing customer loyalty schemes
Whether it's an in-house managed scheme or being part of an external…
Marketers can no longer afford to make 12-month marketing plans and review them annually. The agile approach of marketing enables them to review the performance of their campaigns every 2 weeks, recalibrate the process and iterate accordingly
There was a time when marketing was fairly simple. If you covered print, radio and television, your marketing campaign was in good shape. Marketing plans were made annually and were rarely changed.
With those simpler days gone, marketing is evolving at a supersonic pace. Most marketers still work on quarterly plans. However, in this digital world, a lot of change happens in 90 days. Marketing teams need to respond accordingly.
For example, team one measures, iterates and recalibrates their process every two weeks instead of a quarter.
Team two only adjusts their plan every quarter.
Team one is 543% faster and delivers 6x more often.
Sounds efficient, right?
While agile methods deliver at this rate, traditional marketing won’t allow you…
Businesses will always need specialist digital skills
So, Mark Ritson believes it’s time to shut down digital marketing teams for good. I disagree. Why? For the simple reason that for businesses to compete, digital marketing demands excellence in specific digital skills, which are integrated throughout marketing.
For me, larger businesses need a core digital team or Digital Marketing Centre of Excellence to ensure that digital marketing investments are prioritized and the latest techniques are used to ensure businesses can compete through digital marketing platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram, Google, and LinkedIn, which influence so many purchases today.
[si_guide_block id="84595" title="Download Free resource –Integrated marketing megatrends" description="Learn about the 10 megatrends that have already helped leading companies future-proof their strategies by ensuring all aspects of marketing are integrated."/]
I'm not saying that marketing roles aren't important, far-from-it. Marketing directors, brand, product, and campaign managers are at least as important to…
Recent news stories have shown influencers in a bad light, which could impact their effectiveness when it comes to brand partnerships
You can’t scroll through Instagram nowadays without seeing a perfectly posed photo posted by an “influencer” either selling something or themselves. This hugely popular form of marketing has really taken off, creating a new breed of celebrity and opening up now opportunities for marketers.
However, you have to question whether influencers take things a little bit too far and whether they are actually influential in the first place. It’s all well and good working with a brand that you believe in and want to recommend to followers, but the influencer world now seems to be more about freebies than authentic recommendations.
[si_guide_block id="82119" title="Download our Free Resource – 10 common social media marketing mistakes" description="Avoid the pitfalls that limit engagement with your target audience. As with any marketing or e-commerce activity, you…
Christmas advertising is bigger than ever, but are brands delivering festive cheer this year? We've taken a look at the biggest Christmas adverts from 2019
It seems like Christmas advertising starts earlier every year, with brands determined to make an impact with high-budget ads that tell stories and promote a festive feeling as well as their products.
But is this push actually paying off or are brands failing to deliver the messaging that people want at Christmas time? We've taken a look at Christmas ads from some of the biggest UK brands to see whether they think they were worth the marketing budget.
Ikea - James Story
Making a Christmas-appropriate advert that avoids all the hits (Santa, snow, large present boxes, etc.) is a challenge and Ikea takes a decent stab at things here. It’s distinct, but I’m struggling to get past…
Opinion: A writer writes, a marketer reports? - The lazy day approach to not knowing how your role is integrated with the full marketing mix
How many digital marketing skills do you think you have?
Do you think you're employable if you only have one specialized marketing skill?
You're really good at it, you get results and you know that channel or tactic like the back of your hand. But you don't know how it integrates with what your colleagues are working on, the bigger business goals, how it contributes or improves the full customer lifecycle, or even how to do the most basic reporting.
Every marketer should be able to do the most basic of reporting on their work. You don't need to report on all business finances, all channels of marketing and map these together to produce a beautifully formatted customer lifecycle map with every touchpoint and metric of performance on there,…
Despite media criticism about the proliferation of 'fake news', some marketers see nothing wrong with using it to score flashy results for clients
SearchLeeds always brings a raft of quality talks from British agencies offering their opinions on hot-button issues and advice on alternative approaches you can try out for everything from SEO to PPC, CRO, and other triple-initialled areas of digital marketing. However, one talk caught my eye for the wrong reasons.
Oliver Brett from Screaming Frog delivered a talk titled ‘How to make fake news for links’, the description of which asks:
“Tired of infographics? Got a bunch of clients nobody’s ever heard of? Got no budget, but need top-level links? Why not orchestrate your own hilarious viral news stories for great exposure?”
[si_guide_block id="85104" title="Download our Free Resource – Top 10 common content marketing mistakes" description="Our free content marketing mistakes guide…
Lush UK has ditched social media to put social back into the hands of its communities but is this a brave move, misguided or something else entirely?
Social media has become such a huge part of our daily lives, as well as an important aspect of marketing. From keeping up with friends and family and growing your audience to becoming an influencer and increasing brand awareness, social media is a powerful tool.
It’s no wonder then that social media users across the globe increased 9% year-on-year, with 3.484 billion people using social networks in 2019. This has led to more brands increasing their use of social media to reach greater audiences and networks have responded to this with tools like shoppable posts.
With social adapting to demand and digital marketing strategies attempting to keep pace, the news that…
