Can Handwritten Communication be relevant The Digital Age?

Social network usage is growing at an unprecedented rate. With the number of worldwide social networking users expected to reach 2.5 billion by 2018, around one third of the Earth’s entire population, Skype, email and text exchanges have become commonplace. However with this comes an influx of digital marketing; of spam-like emails and mailing lists, which head straight to junk or delete. It is, therefore, becoming recognised that perhaps this is not the best way for companies to market their products. Statistics show that 95% of emails are never even opened. Does this suggest that handwritten marketing communication is making a comeback?

Past: Internet Marketing and its Issues

Since the beginning of the digital age, the internet has been exploited by companies who are looking to project their service or product to the world. It is a simple way by which businesses can reach out to…

Get more from TV ads by optimising them for greater engagement

Online video advertising can be an expensive and time consuming investment, but what factors will increase engagement to avoid viewers from skipping the content or just plain ignoring it? A study carried out by Hub Entertainment Research investigated what it takes to maintain engagement with online TV content, they surveyed 1206 participants who have broadband at home and watch five or more hours of online TV content every week. The research used MaxDiff analysis, therefore the greater the number the larger the impact on engagement. The research found that having a greater control of the ads, the ads being more relevant and targeted as well as being able to control the ad load could lead to increased engagement. Earning points and getting promotional rewards for watching the ads led to increased engagement. Ads should be more…

How Trade Shows can thrive when combined with Digital Marketing

Trade shows were once the cornerstone of one’s calendar. Before the days of Google Hangouts, Skype and in fact e-mail, trade shows were a hub for industry professionals to network and for businesses to launch initiatives which they hoped would keep consumers and competitors talking for months to come. As Lima Curtis discussed in her article, what made trade shows so special is quickly being surpassed and made irrelevant in the digital age. Despite this trend, trade shows for pretty much every industry imaginable continue year on year and hundreds of thousands of people annually clear a space on their calendar to attend. So when products and services can be launched in an instant online, fellow professionals can be contacted with the click of a button and all of…

A true omnichannel strategy makes the most of offline not just online

Consider the main ingredients to a sale when a customer is in your place of business. You have product placements that suggest what a customer should buy, education on the products and services you are selling, the ability to experience your brand firsthand, and most important, people available to educate buyers and make a sale. All these make up the customer experience, and digital is just another component. Clearly, bricks-and-mortar businesses that aren’t yet capitalizing on their digital channels were successful before the internet took over their industries. There are reasons for that success, and those can give you an edge over your internet-born competitors.

Digitizing Your Offline Strategy

A successful online strategy shouldn’t be a matter of abandoning old tactics and replacing them with a trend. It should…

Desktop continues to trump mobile in directing online traffic from print according to new DMA research

DMA's report on 'Mobilising Print Media' polled over 1,000 UK adult consumers, to find out how consumers are 'driven online by brand and charity print marketing'. Nick Barnard, Chair of the DMA Inserts Council and head of Telegraph Reach at Telegraph Media Group, said: ' Today, the path to purchase is more complex than often thought, particularly on how certain media channels are perceived. What media owners, agencies and clients need to remember is that in the end the consumer is always the most integrated and important person in the marketing mix.' Results were interesting as collated in the Infographic, which highlights: 54% of respondents were more likely to visit a brand/charity's website after receiving a direct mail piece; 25% visited the website from a smartphone or tablet. Main barrier to mobile phone usage for direct response is the functionality; 1…

Consumer research on use and perception of TV and other media

Recommended research: On TV: perspectives on television in words and numbers - Deloitte/YouGov Value: [rating=3] Our commentary: This research has been widely reported in the UK newspapers and online with print journalists using it to knock the Internet - always a favourite. It's staggering that they don't mention that the research was commissioned for presentation at the recent Edinburgh TV Festival... I wonder why? It's a classic example of developing a methodology to make the statistics fit the story you want to tell. In its press release Deloitte state that "Online advertising struggles to make an impression" and that "television advertising still packs the greatest punch" and elsewhere "Advertising on television, still the nation"€™s favourite format". FWIW Here's some of the major flaws in the methodology and reporting in my view: 1 The effectiveness of…