One measure of how well you’ve infiltrated your brand into a local culture is how successfully you can align it with local holidays

Seasonal holidays are emotive times, whether it’s a country’s national independence day, saints’ day carnivals, New Year or the mid-autumn festival celebrations in parts of Asia. Getting the seasonal celebrations right is a big part of aligning your brand with local cultural values and engaging with your audience during a significant time in their calendar. Gift exchange and shared meals are often a big part of festivities and for many brands that represents a big opportunity for sales. Get the holidays right and you have a chance to really bring your brand into every household.

Big brand holiday case studies

KFC is a brand that has managed to transcreate itself with particular success into Japan. The fried…

UI Design Principles That Every Mobile App Developer Must Abide By

User Interface and user experience go hand in hand and as a designer, you can ensure exceptional UI for your mobile app only when you follow some tried and tested UI design principles. The user interface design for a mobile app is different than web and hence, must be approached in a different manner.

Some principles to follow while designing a mobile app’s UI

It is always advisable to stick to certain principles that are accepted by the designers’ community and aid in designing an appealing user interface. Such a user interface not only attracts the user but also helps retain them in the long run. Consistency of the design layout: Different sections of the app must be coherent in design, and there must be a consistency in the…

Good quality pictures are key to getting your content shared, here's how to create them

The value of DIY visual assets cannot be overstated - they are simply priceless when it comes to adding value to your content. Visual aids in content marketing have been proven to up engagement and achieve business objectives, such as brand awareness and engagement. Learn why your content marketing will not only benefit from visual aids, but also how you can achieve these without breaking the bank, and how they can generate increased traffic and engagement for your brand.

Increasing audience engagement with an image

According to Buffer, tweets with images receive 18% more clicks, 89% more favourites and 150% more retweets than those without - while , Facebook posts which include photographs receive 39% more engagement than those without. By adding visual aids to your blogs, your content is not only more likely to be read, but…

Research reveals how UK marketing consultants and small agencies promote themselves

Over the past few months my team at OST has teamed up with Constant Contact to produce a research report into how UK marketing consultants and small agencies promote themselves. The UK Marketing Consultants: Digital Marketing Report offers a fascinating insight into the marketing activities that experienced, but often time-poor and budget conscious marketing consultants, prioritise. One of the headline findings is that the top four marketing activities that consultants engage in are: content marketing, social media, SEO and email marketing. This gives a hint (echoed throughout the report) that consultants prefer to use their own knowledge and time than spend their hard-earned cash on marketing. Another key finding is that while 38% of consultants…

Expert tips for choosing the right Email Marketing Software

Choosing the right email marketing software is tough. There is a jungle of vendors out there and it is often hard to see what all of the vendors exactly do? But before you go out and fire up google for a wild and unsatisfactory search, read on for some crucial tips on the process by Jordie van Rijn. Jordie is the co-author of the recently published Email Marketing Software Buyer’s Guide, which is officially the biggest research ever on ESP and Marketing automation providers, has some tips for companies starting their selection.

The right order: No cups of coffee based on gut-feeling

Doing through the process in the right order is very important in a selection. The first step is to find out how you will be using the tool. Because only then it becomes clear what to look for in a potential vendor.…

Showing how switching from working client to agency side can help your career progression

After spending the best part of a decade as an in-house client-side marketer, I recently made the decision to experience life as a marketer within an agency. My ambition is to continually develop myself as a rounded marketer, something I’ve tried to demonstrate using the ‘T-shaped marketer’ approach and I felt the change to agency-side marketing would help me to meet my personal development goals. There are a number of advantages for marketers who experience both agency and client-side marketing and in this post I’ve tried to summarise some of the stand-out differences that I've experienced and how they can help marketers looking to develop their careers.

Culture

One of the stand-out differences I found when moving from client to agency-side was the company culture. I'd come…

What is Marketing Automation?

Marketing Automation is a talking point.  In some form it has been around since the 1980’s, and has been adopted by large multinationals for some time.  But it is evolving and growing.  It is becoming more relevant for a wider range of business sizes and types.  As more and more MA solutions start to appear, it is a great time to be thinking about what might work for your organisation. With that thought it mind, I’ve put together a guide to help you understand the key features, it’s uses and why it might work for you.  

A definition of Marketing Automation

From the many definitions available on the internet, I’ve chosen this one from Gleanster as it gives a clear idea of what technologies are included and what the core purpose is. “Marketing automation software…

Making purpose core to your marketing strategy

As a futurist,  I always remind my clients that the future isn’t just somewhere we go but something we actively create. Simply because our actions today directly influence and shape our business of tomorrow. In this article I introduce some of the key trends I discussed in my Smart Insights webinar on December 18th 2014- The Marketing Trends Management Toolkit - free registration to view here: If you attend the webinar you will have a chance to win a free copy of my new book the Trends Management Toolkit with a prize draw…

An integrated small business campaign example

I awoke on the last Friday of November to the usual Black Friday hangover. On checking my emails I was inundated an avalanche of offers in relation to that American import which, like Halloween, is now huge over here in the UK too: Black Friday. With the Argos, Currys, Tesco and Boots' websites all experiencing outages due to weight of demand, the British public appears to have got over its aversion to this American celebratory holiday of all things consumer. I run a niche ecommerce business that has a big US subscriber base, and based on previous Thanksgiving weekends it was clear that we needed to have a planned approach to the "holiday" season. As the day drew nearer we had customers emailing asking what we had planned as offers - it was going to be a big sales day. Now we are a small business, our turnover…

When Shanghai Disney Resort opens towards the beginning of 2016, it will represent just the latest move by western companies determined to entertain and profit from China’s new middle classes.

Chinese household spending on entertainment and leisure activities rose 56% in just one year between 2010 and 2011 and the rise in entertainment spend is predicted to continue for some time. Chinese consumers, or more specifically their newfound disposable spending power, are a serious target for the film and entertainment industry now scrambling to meet their desires. Cinemas are being hurriedly constructed and theme parks are booming as both local and foreign enterprises battle for a share of the market. Theme parks are increasingly popular in Asia and in the last decade two of China’s theme attractions have entered the world’s top ten in terms of visitor numbers. About a third of the world’s…