Author: Mark Baines
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Email marketing: GDPR should make it even more effective
By placing the customer at the heart of your business, you can ensure consumers receive timely, relevant communications which will work harder for you than the scattergun approach currently used.
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CIM’s Levitt Group ‘Five Great Minds’ April 2018
Join me for CIM’s Levitt Group ‘Five Great Minds’ event. You’ll learn about the latest marketing trends and approaches, benefit from networking with leading marketers from client companies, agencies and academia, and enjoy great food and drink in a lively atmosphere. We’ve worked hard to assemble leading figures in marketing academia and business to bring…
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The value of social media: employees as advocates
Fact: a high proportion of your employees are social media addicts. Fact: a high proportion of your clients are too. Fact: large scale (B2B) purchasing decisions are made by groups of people, not individuals or machines. Conclusion: social media is a powerful way to influence your clients and prospects! Encourage your employees as advocates, and…
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The benefit of a ‘Standing Arrangement’ in marketing
You know how it is: you run a profitable business, but you suspect it’s only because you’re really good at your job. Marketing is your responsibility, but your skills are based on instinct and experience rather than training, so you can never be sure that you’re doing the right thing. You may even have a…
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Marketing in a new world
If you’re serious about marketing, please join me at the latest Levitt Group event, being run by the CIM (Chartered Institute of Marketing): Are you equipped for the professional challenges of the years ahead? Do you know where you can find the support you may need It is a cliché to say that the world…
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The 3 rules of designing an effective website
How often do you visit a site, hoping that it will offer what you are seeking, only to find that you can’t get it there? Or it’s too complicated to find what you’re looking for? Or that the site fails to instil confidence in you, so you don’t trust the content? In nearly every case…
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Why strategic planning matters more for SME businesses
I was recently asked what the most difficult professional challenge I have faced in my PR and marketing communications career has been. I’ve been lucky enough to have worked for some big agencies on some highly recognisable brands and many people generally assume that big budgets and the commensurate expectations that go with them present…
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Brand building in the Digital Age
Often the most important lessons in business will be understanding the core essence and real world value of ‘the brand’, especially the importance of brand building through digital exposure. The sectors we tend to operate in move at lightning speed – ever evolving technologies, trending social media platforms, viral videos, streams of memes, algorithmic program…
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My five top tips for creating Brand ‘Premiumisation’
‘Premiumisation’ of brands has bridged a gap between the desirability of the luxury world and the operation and necessity of the mass market. However as a lot of brands look to ‘premiumise’ their offers, the way to express this new focus on distinctiveness has to be more than simply skin deep – it’s not just…
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GDPR – How does it affect you?
Remember all the furore over Y2K? Planes would fall from the sky, banks wouldn’t function, our personal computers would stop and so on; but in the end it seemed that many of the risks were exaggerated. So, one might ask “is all the hype over EU General Data Protection Regulation a similar over-the-top reaction?” In…