Out with the Old, In with the…Old. Why Dynamic pricing is even more relevant today
Dynamic pricing is a price-setting approach relying on data analysis and flexibility. It allows to shape and control price changes on the fly, depending on customer’s previous interactions with the website and his general profile. Items like past searches and purchases, location, time and date of previous searches and purchases are taken into account to generate a personalised offer.
Dynamic pricing has been around for nearly 15 years when retailers like Amazon started testing this. So, this isn’t a new practice but each year that technology advances, so does the way we use dynamic pricing. As a business owner, the opportunities for delivering more relevant propositions has improved.
From search history to previous purchases, customer location to general tastes, it allows a business owner to personalise its offer on a user…
What’s New in Marketing? February 2014 roundup
Each month we look to keep the focus of our actionable advice from the Smart Insights blog on new approaches to grow business across the customer touchpoints of the RACE Planning framework.
In our roundup of marketing developments and advice from February 2014 we have a strong focus on how marketing can support growth across RACE starting with Growth Hacking and Fuelling Growth. I presented our research on approaches companies can use to fuel growth in my keynote this week at the Technology for Marketing and Advertising 2014 conference - the organisers made nice use of Storify for a summary of the event. We also met many Smart Insights members at our stand - it was great to chat to listen to feedback and get new ideas for content and services.
In the talk I couldn’t resist using the analogy of how Virgin Galactic…
Fuelling Internet Marketing Success in 2014
Dave Chaffey summarised the research on approaches companies use to manage the Internet for marketing in this keynote from Technology for Marketing and Advertising 2014. This page collects the resources related to the research and the Fuelling Marketing Success talks to download if you were at the event, or if you couldn't make it.
Download free managing digital marketing research report
View the 7 Steps to Digital Marketing Nirvana summary infographic
Download full Fuelling Digital Marketing Success keynote from Slideshare
Download Practical Internet Marketing techniques decks for different business presented by Dave in the CRM/Multichannel Marketing Seminars from the Smart Insights Slideshare page
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A checklist of the 13 most common touchpoint leaks
Over nearly two decades in marketing, and across well over 200 businesses – from as large as Microsoft and as micro as the back bedroom – I have yet to find a single one that isn’t leaking potential profit somewhere in their marketing operation. And, even those that have it pretty tight can usually notch it up with a few judicious tweaks.
Categorising marketing profit leaks
In pulling all this together, I found that profit leaks fall into two clear categories. The first, and most obvious, are those that relate to how you interact with the outside world. That is, the touchpoints with customers, potential customers, or anyone else who might encounter your business. Of these, I have defined thirteen typical ways that most businesses lose money in their marketing.
The second category is what I call the Foundation Leaks, and they are far more…
Practical tips based on how 1500 small business owners manage their marketing
Aweber.com surveyed over 1500 of their customers, to find out the views of SMEs on online marketing, of which 96% had 5 or fewer employees and felt like 'an army of one'. Is it true that they feel overwhelmed or are embracing it?
The infographic below shares the findings, including insight into how many hours are allocated to social media, which channels they are sticking too and where they will increase their marketing efforts.
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What's New in Marketing? January 2014
The end of January already! Does anyone not think that? The end of the month means it’s time for our regular roundup of the major developments that affect marketing and our pick of our advice on the latest practices.
When I speak with marketers I’m often asked “what’s new”, “what matters” and “what’s next” and “what matters” so I hope our summary helps answer some of these questions to save you having to sift through the content avalanche.
I also hear that it’s getting more difficult to keep up-to-date, so in our recent research on managing digital marketing I was curious to know how marketers found this. Of marketers completing the survey a majority (55%) found it challenging, with over a quarter (27%) stating that it had become more difficult recently. Nearly a quarter said it was easy - good for them - I’d like to know…
...or How real people really buy things
When people are buying something that’s important, expensive, or risky, they don’t generally do it on a whim. They go through a few stages weighing up options and looking at alternatives. Every step on this journey is one where they could lose interest. By plugging gaps between stages, you will generate and retain more profitable customers.
How considered is their buying decision?
People don’t typically go from blissful ignorance to paying customer in one great leap. They go through a series of thought processes along the way. The more important or risky that decision, the more this seems to apply.
At one end of the spectrum there are buying decisions made in a heartbeat. These are either impulse buys driven entirely by emotion or by logic, but rarely both. Those ‘I just had to have it’ moments, like a bunch of flowers or a chocolate bar. Or,…
An introduction to using the Balanced Scorecard for performance management in Digital Marketing
The Balanced Scorecard is a well known performance management tool. It suggests following a cause-and-effect logic to build a tree of business objectives moving from a financial perspective down to customers, process and education and growth, and then enriching the entire scheme with KPIs and action plans.
Who said that it is for international companies only? What about an Internet company that wants to manage its performance? I believe that the BSC framework will be very useful to focus strategic efforts on what matters.
Let's have a closer look at the marketing strategy of a business on the Internet. These will be some general thoughts that need to be adapted to the vision and mission of a specific company. So if you decide to follow these ideas then you must take them as a starting point for your own research and…
4 interview questions you must ask new content creators
Today, when content marketing is absolutely essential for all companies to thrive, creating the perfect writing team is absolutely essential.
This is why hiring the right content creator is of the utmost importance as you do not want to be stuck with a content writer who has no idea how to write interesting, relevant and well-written articles. Some companies seem to get it so wrong that they often end up with Content Creators who don’t even have basic writing skills.
Content Creators can be split into Content Writers and Designers since content can be both textual and visual. James Carson has identified other related roles such as community or outreach manager as part of his post on who you need on your content marketing team.
Given content skills are important, specialist skills it makes sense to…
Dave suggested I write something important this week, something for marketers in 2014, after all we’ve just updated our health-check tool, and recognise that our audience are looking ahead and busy planning for success this year, so that makes sense. My post from a year ago did just that, my advice was to focus on (1) content and (2) customer journeys across mobile channels. Proven advice I think? It’s interesting as those two things also came out top in an informal Smart Insights survey that we ran in early December. So am I to sugar coat the same advice and ideas differently this year? On the one hand yes, it’s still super relevant, but it’s missing some thing else for 2014.
I wake up worrying about marketing
I hope that you do too? I genuinely do worry. I run an agency with paying clients, their happiness is my focus, so it’s…
