Are you dialling in? Best practice for virtual and hybrid presentations

The past year has brought a magnitude of changes for the marketing teams that most people thought would take a decade to take hold. The immediate impact of the pandemic was cancelled events, and sales presentations and marketing activity had to be re-geared for a virtual environment. Of course, the entire world of business communications had to change. 

The past year has condensed a huge amount of learning into a short space of time, and there’s plenty of best practice you...

Case study: B2B marketing is tired: How Wasabi used its entertainment roots to spice things up

Remember the heydey of jingles? The short song that accompanied commercials for your favourite products, one that would start playing in your head out of the blue even if you hadn’t seen the ad in days, weeks, months, years? Even after all this time I still find myself humming the theme for Klondike Bars, Band-Aid Brand and Oscar Meyer… maybe it’s my brain’s subliminal messaging for telling me I’m hungry.

Like any fresh marketing professional coming out of college, I...

Sustainable Marketing: How to Drive Profits with Purpose book extract: On CEO and brand activism

Whether you think it is a good thing, or a bad thing, CEO activism is a real thing!

There are an increasing number of CEOs taking a stand on political and social issues. Their view is that a company should have a higher purpose beyond maximizing shareholder value, and that they can use their position of power as a force for raising awareness and doing good. Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce, has written extensively on the topic.

In his latest book, Trailblazer – The...

MarketingTech 2020 review: Covid-19, CMO strategy, and compassion

How tough was 2020 for marketers amid a global pandemic? In many ways, it depended on your industry. But navigating Covid-19 was a struggle for all.

It was okay to not be okay at times, with the knowledge that 2021 will - all being well - improve, and the knowledge of the marketing best practices which emerged over 2020. As Scott Brinker put it to this publication in December: "This is stressful, but you're not alone. Everyone's in the same boat, so that makes it a little bit...

How marketers can streamline requests and improve productivity in 2021

Marketing teams responding to the ongoing COVID-19 crisis and worldwide social tensions have witnessed their workloads, budgets, and priorities being put under scrutiny during this time of upheaval. With events either being cancelled, put on hold, or switching to a virtual environment, social media and digital campaigns along with increased demand for targeted content, have increased. Alongside this, the workforce has also moved online and those water cooler conversations and the ability to...

WTF do B2B tech marketers do when the world is WFH?

Technology has really come into its own this year, with broadband straining under the enormous pressure of back-to-back Zooms (“You’re on mute…”), a massive rise in online shopping, and the digitisation of so many parts of our lives. Lenin’s famous quote, “There are decades when nothing happens; and there are weeks when decades happen” has never felt more pertinent than this year when we look at the scale of digital transformation across business and personal...

As eCommerce becomes more vital, the right content strategy is required – whatever your industry

The Covid-19 pandemic has forced marketers' hands in a variety of areas. One of the most evident is around the near-exclusivity of eCommerce - or, anything which isn't bricks and mortar.

Writing for this publication in July, Joel Davis, co-founder and CEO of Mighty Social, noted the need for change in messaging. "Take into account that during the crisis many consumers closely re-evaluated their consumption habits, what they define as essential products, as well as how to live...

In a year of Covid chaos, consistency and compatibility are the key watchwords for marketers

Session If you're reading this and not having a great day for whatever reason, then one surefire way to feel better is to look at 2020 prediction articles issued at the start of this year. MarketingTech's is a good example. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, never in the field of marketing predictions was so much gotten wrong by so many.

Okay, it is unfair to expect marketing executives to predict a global pandemic. In one way, of course, their forecasts were right around...

How do you create a compelling digital proposition for 2021 after such an uncertain 2020?

If 2020 has taught us anything, it’s that things change quickly. And when things change quickly, a business needs to adapt and respond even quicker.

The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic over the last 6 months has seen changes that no one could have ever predicted: the global tourism industry facing the loss of 120 million jobs, the permanent closure of approximately 14,000 shops in the UK, and nearly half of people in employment in the UK working from home at some point this...

How good design can influence return on investment online

It’s very easy for organisations to look at design as an added expense, rather than an investment.

A company’s business plan will typically include the costs of staff, infrastructure, and products and services – but why should the creative be seen as an ‘extravagance’ or overlooked entirely?

In fact, design can be the accelerator needed to generate company leads – it can be the difference between brands retaining customers, and their key targets venturing to...