Google+ best practice tips from Cadbury and H&M
Although brand adoption of Google+ is way behind other social networks, notably Facebook and Twitter, some businesses have jumped in and are making waves to stir up interest, engagement and interaction with their fans on Google+.
Confectioner Cadbury UK (see Google+ case study) and clothing brand H&M (see the Smart Insights details of H&M Google+ case study) are leading the way with their Google+ pages and are utlising the network to great effect.
But what is the "secret to their success"? Here are five best practice Google+ tips from two of the network’s leading lights:
Know your audience
Before jumping into Google+ it’s important to have a good idea of your customers and audience beforehand. Every social network is different and each has its own idiosyncrasies, so ensure that you build a platform…
5 marketing tips from a Premiership footballer
After a prolific rise to almost 1.7m Twitter followers in about 10 months, it appears that Joey Barton knows a thing or two about social media, or at least he has a natural handle on it.
At First 10, we've been working with Joey for about 12 months and it's remarkable how quickly he's understood and adapted to the social media landscape. From helping raise the profile of the Hillsbrough campaign to the rib-poking of Piers Morgan and commentary across sport, politics and culture, he's become somewhat of a Twitter enigma.
Having just designed and built Joey's new website - www.joeybarton.com - we can reveal that it has received some pretty serious attention with 135,000 unique visitors in the first 24 hours of go-live,…
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09 Aug 2012
Generate a buzz with your marketing content by making it viral
Getting your content to "go viral" must appeal to every digital marketer, so I thought it would be worth sharing this recent viral video on successful viral marketing plus some tips on different types of viral "hooks".
The video talks about the history of online viral video and goes into detail about why and how they happen, as well as the impact viral videos are having on mainstream culture.
Lisa Romagnoli, Assistant Producer, Off Book says:
"whether rooted in comedy, spectacle, schadenfreude, cuteness, politics, performance, or deep meaning, the idea of viral videos, and the huge audiences they generate, have forever changed the values and potential impact of video online".
Six viral marketing hooks
I also noticed an interesting …
Implement a CRM system and your prayers will be answered? Greater efficiency, improved customer service and conversion rates …..
The arguments for implementing a CRM system are well known: improve the number and quality of leads; improve quality of service and increase customer retention. But that’s the theory of course...
A system is only as good as the people who own and support it; or it can lead to poor quality leads, unsatisfactory customer experience, damaged reputation to the company, inconsistent processes and a lack of a shared working strategy to deliver the business case.
In this post I’ll share my experience in selecting and managing a CRM system for a public sector organisation to show some of the problems that can develop and what to watch out for.
Here are my tips learnt in the first year of implementing a system within a…
A visual of the multichannel universe
Many activities are needed to succeed in multichannel marketing. Whether you work for a company or for an agency, you need to communicate to colleagues or clients what is needed for success. I found the Twiss Universe visual an interesting way of showing what's needed to develop multichannel strategies, so thought I'd share it so you can compare it to your approaches.
Twiss say:
"Our Map of the "Universe" provides an overview of available mediums, technologies and services that comprise Multi-Channel marketing as a whole. Every brand has its own footprint of involvement, large or small".
(Click to Expand)
I like the emphasis that the visual puts on measurement, testing and customer research and coverage of the main "carbon" and "electronic" tools.
It's not so strong on process, for that I recommend Dan's "Marketing Wheel" infographic.…
New report highlights opportunities for companies to attract global trade online
Against a backdrop of a challenging economic times in domestic markets, many companies are looking at opportunities for international expansion.
In our recent white paper, Web Magnetism: Attracting Global Trade Online we review the opportunities and look at how companies are responding. This post gives a summary of our main findings.
1. Use of the Internet to drive overseas sales
Our research showed that, surprisingly, 64% of senior decision makers do not recognise the Internet in their top three avenues for driving overseas trade. The survey, conducted in Q2 2012, analysed attitudes amongst 350 senior decision makers in ‘large enterprises’, defined as companies with 200 employees or more, spread across the UK.
The white paper demonstrates that UK businesses seem to be missing out on a golden…
Localisation – much more than just translation
In the previous post in this series, I looked at the opportunities for growth from international markets. Now that you have identified that you want to expand internationally, you’ve got your budget approved, but what about all that web and printed content that you now need to translate? Well, the good news is that you are not ready to think about translating anything just yet. Before you do so, you will need to consult with other stakeholders in the business and where possible, existing and potential customers to identify what your strategic objectives are.
There are a lot of issues to consider that need to go into your plan:
[caption id="attachment_16312" align="aligncenter" width="600"] Localisation project activities[/caption]
High-level questions you should collectively be asking yourselves at this stage include:
What are our competitors doing and to whom are…
Repurposing with a purpose
Content marketing is a large investment both financially and strategically for any business. This post is designed on the principles that if you are investing a lot into content creation it makes sense to be creative in how you use your content in order to get the most out of it.
Advantages of re-purposing content
There are always loads of things we don’t do simply because we ‘don’t have the time’. I can’t suggest how to find more time, but I do have suggestions about how you can save time and improve your content marketing.
Why reinvent the wheel when you can repurpose content? In an era when content marketing is essential, it is time to start thinking outside the box about how to use your existing content effectively as well as how to create new material. Maximising the usefulness of one piece of content will save you time and…
Differentiation vs Amplification
We shared Seth Godin's Circles of Marketing blog post a couple of weeks ago, it captured our attention because of the simplicity of the message, the focus on the fundamentals, Seth's always good at that.
The marketing paradox
We believe that Seth has described something of a modern marketing paradox, and we wanted to illustrate it step further than he has. We believe that the marketing paradox that we face is Differentiation and Longevity vs Amplification and Speed. Does the marketer seek genuine differentiation or does he or she chase an opportunity to measurably amplify the brand? The latter is realistically faster, it's what's expected, and just maybe you get a bit of luck or already have a great product, in which case amplification can then work for sure. Yet the inner rings are defensible, considered, harder and longer lasting. They're also the base to upon which you can amplify…
10 mistakes to prevent using an Email pre-flight checklist
In my 10 years plus in email marketing I have been involved in sending hundreds of e-mailings and reviewing just as many in my consulting and training courses. Does everybody make mistakes? Yes. Can you make less if you check and double check? Yes.
It is good practice to always have a checklist "to hand" when sending an email campaign. I'm guessing you have one, at least an informal one? If you don't have one or want to see how complete your checklist is, try my helpful PDF with a 51 point email marketing checklist.
To give you a flavour, let me give you some real life examples of impactful email marketing mistakes we avoided because we did a last minute check. Here are 10 of most worst email marketing mistakes we prevented just at the last moment...
Very embarrassing spelling errors (don’t ask).
Picture of…
