Tag: marketing

  • The Evil Web Lunatic Award goes to…

    Bad marketing is everywhere on the internet. Hopefully this example will encourage you to check that your company doesn’t commit the same mistakes. This month’s Evil Web Lunatic Award goes to www.archant.co.uk, trading under the www.subscriptionsave.co.uk name. They work in a dying industry, producing and selling printed magazines, so perhaps it’s understandable that they are…

  • Customers live in the present, not the future

    In our efforts to stay up-to-date and on top of the latest opportunities we sometimes forget that customers only really care about what they can get now, not what we might have to offer at some point in the future. Take this press ad for instance. I’m sure the advertiser is really excited about their…

  • A new chapter: Wild Orange Media

    Three weeks ago I left my role as Head of Digital Marketing Strategy at Microsoft to start a new chapter in my career. For some time I’ve harboured a dream of running my own company, being more in control of my own destiny and, crucially, being able to help a wider variety of businesses solve…

  • The trouble with Groupon–it’s all push and no pull

    Groupon, briefly the darling of Wall Street, is in trouble. After IPO’ing in November 2011 at $20 a share, the stock briefly rocketed to $31, before beginning its depressing descent back to a bubble-bursting $11. Yesterday’s trading saw the price close at $11.85 after a 6.5% day rally. So what’s the problem with Groupon? Like…

  • The CMO’s Guide to The Social Landscape

    With thanks to Dr Kelly Page for sharing this, here’s a handy ‘ready reckoner’ from CMO.com that summarises some of the benefits of 15 of the big social networks, categorised against their value for Customer Communication, Brand Exposure Traffic (generation potential) To Your Site, and SEO. Of course, like any summary of this kind, it’s…

  • #FAIL: The 50 Greatest Social Media Screw-ups

    Hot off the e-press is a fabulous new e-book that I’m very happy to recommend. Written by Bernhard Warner and Matthew Yeomans* of SMI, #FAIL catalogues the 50 most disastrous social media gaffes the world has seen. But, crucially, it also provides invaluable advice on what marketers should do to avoid finding themselves at the…

  • The curse of new shiny objects: QR Code Lunacy

    As any good workman will tell you, just because a tool it exists doesn’t mean you have to use it. So why is it that so many in the marketing industry insist on jumping onto every passing bandwagon without first assessing if it’s the best ride in town? Need proof? Visit the delightfully focussed and…

  • If you have a wart…

    I love this quote which reminds me, as I hope it may you, that no matter how much we sometimes doubt ourselves, no matter how self-conscious we may feel, things are never the same from the other person’s point of view. Or, as someone wise once said to the young marketer: “Just remember, you are…

  • The Future of Customer Service and the Rise of the Social Customer

    First Direct is that rarest of breeds: a well-loved British bank. And their customer service, at least in my experience, is second to none. So it makes perfect sense for them to have co-authored a report, released today in partnership with It’s Open, that discusses how customer service departments need to evolve to keep pace…

  • My Figaro Digital Conference interview

    I’ll be giving a talk at Figaro Digital’s Social Media Marketing Conference on 5 April at The International Coffee Organisation in London. Tickets are now on sale here. Ahead of this, I recently gave an interview on the current state of social media marketing, tackling questions about the ROI of social media, the most common…