Marketing Week Live

On the 30th of April, the annual marketing exhibition Marketing Week Live took place at the Kensington Olympia. There were many different types of marketing personnel present. Companies that deal specialise in brand merchandising, digital marketing, recruitment and a few others.

My main goal of attending Marketing Week Live was to build opportunities to network with people involved in similar industries, educate myself and to gain new ideas to develop myself personally and in business. One thing I must commend Marketing Week on were the talks. The talks were absolutely fantastic and the guests that were invited to speak were company executives who had been involved in different elements of mentioned campaigns etc.

There was one such talk that really inspired me, that was in the Marketing Academy bootcamp theatre. Lysa Hardy from Holland & Barrett gave a brilliant, stand out, presentation on 'The importance of using technology in marketing'. It was extremely insightful and really underlined the way marketing techniques are changing or adapting to the current demands of today's consumer. She went into detail about the ways in which Holland and Barrett have actively got customers to keep on spending money with them, both online and offline. She even revealed the early ideas they had in the making, in accordance with the ever changing technologies.

Exhibitors That Stood Out

Aside from the talks in their respective theatres, I was impressed by quite a few exhibitors as there were so many to choose from. The ones that really stood out to me were:

Winglee
http://www.winglee.co.uk

In an exhibition full of promotional marketing organisations there were few that really stood out to me. One of which that defied the odds was Wing Lee Creative.  At first I thought the company had something to do with China, (just because of the name) but after talking to a representative I discovered exactly how creative they have been and can be, in regards to promotional marketing material. The guy I spoke to showed me pieces that they had created for big brands such as Formula 1 (F1) and Babybel. Really creative pieces. One could descibe it as out of this world in terms of creativity. With products to suit all budgets this is a company's services I plan on using in the future and one you should all check out.

Gemini recruitment
http://www.gemini-search.co.uk

Gemini recruitment by name is recruitment company specialising in roles in marketing, advertising and communications. I spoke to a guy called Morgan that explained exactly what they do and most importantly how they go about helping to make the unemployed, employed. If you're looking for roles in any of the aforementioned disciplines then you should definitely check them out.

Roantree
http://roantree.co.uk

Another promotional marketing organisation. Roantree's products really drew me to them upon walking past. I spoke to a representative of the company and asked him how Roantree differs from similar services such as Vistaprint. He went into great detail taking the time out to explain thoroughly.  The personal aspect of Roantree is a sure fire selling point, not to mention the quality of the products.

Demojive
http://demojive.com

Demojive is the first company I've come across of it's type. They are solely dedicated to making video which can be used for promotional marketing campaigns.  It's a brilliant concept. Interested in some new video for your business? You must have a look.

Depositphotos
http://depositphotos.com

I'm pretty sure there are hundreds of companies that sell images/videos for business use, however from a discussion with the lady at the Depositphotos stand, I decided that Depositphotos stands out amongst the crowd. They offer brilliant images for cheaper than some other popular competitors and the percentage they pay distributors is really good too. See their website for more information.

Amazing If
http://www.amazingif.com

Amazing If are a career development organisation.  I visited Amazing If's talk at the marketing Academy bootcamp theatre about networking. Personally I didn't think I was the strongest networker, but the ladies that founded Amazing If, Sarah Ellis and Helen Tupper, enabled me to learn of many ways I can improve. Using the topic of networking they also mentioned other skills that could help me with career development and for that I just had to ensure I mentioned them in this post.

Thanks for reading my personal review of Marketing Week Live 2015. If you want to experience it first hand I've included a link below for registration. I'll definitely be there next year, so hope to see some of my audience.

Register for next year here http://goo.gl/nQnGI5

Tips For A Successful Social Media Campaign

1. Know your target audience

This is always the basis of any campaign. Always ask yourself:

Who will be interested in my product or service?
What social networks do they use?

First things first. Make sure you identify your target market and tailor the campaign to suit that demographic. You must always understand which social networks they are likely to use and customise the campaign accordingly. Do they use Twitter more than LinkedIn? Do they use Instagram? You must find these answers before planning your campaign based off what you know.

2. Content

Always consider what kind of content you should deliver and on which social platform. Video, images are usually very attractive to a user seeing the campaign. Also include links to further information that will normally expand on the reason behind the campaign.

Sometimes reading text and viewing videos and images is not enough. Try and produce content that can get the user involved. Hashtags and competitions are always good ideas. Another way to use content to your advantage to cross promote on social networks. For example use Twitter to promote your competition on instagram and vice versa. It won't just broaden your social brand, it will also weed out the users of the other social networks which will help you later on.

3. The right tag line/slogan (words that set you apart from other brands)

Ensure the choice of words for the campaign are engaging. Short and sharp messages are easiest to remember. If they are part of another campaign, i.e television, radio, make sure the words used match those campaigns.

4. Monitoring and measuring (during and after)

Monitoring your campaign is a key learning curve. It is important to note how well or badly, the engagement on social networks was before the campaign and how much it is after. It is also just as key to realise the specific time and days the target market engage with the campaign. It's a trial and error process so you can take your time with it, just make sure you take note of what is happening.

At the end of the campaign make sure all the results are noted. Engagement is vital. Even note whether the responses were positive or negative. When the next campaign comes round you'll have the information about your target market that you need. Use this to your advantage in the next campaign.

Some good tools for monitoring:

Google Analytics 

Sprout Social

Social Mention

Topsy

5. Response

The next tip goes hand in hand with monitoring the campaign. Consumers need to know that you are taking note of their response. Try and interact with them. It can be difficult depending on the size of the campaign/brand but always try your best. Consumers need to know that you're actually taking an interest in what they have to say. It could be reply comments on Youtube or mentions on Facebook,Instagram or Twitter.

Comment/Share and Follow me @Allenbusiness on Twitter

How Depop Brings Out Your Inner Marketer?

What is Depop? Depop is one of the latest trading mobile applications, that allows users to buy and sell goods. Sounds basic enough right?...Wrong. Depop allows users to fully integrate social networks into it's app, by giving users the opportunity to effectively market products using them.

Many people may know by now, that most of people's time these days is spent on social networks, so much so, that pretty much all social networks have apps on mobile devices, as well as the traditional websites. From a marketers perspective, this is the perfect platform and clears up why Depop would target social networks.

Depop allows users to market and sell their own products by using images taken from the users phones, (which are moving closer and closer to actual camera's these days) and sell them to people involved in their social networks. If you were to assume that the majority of users on our own social networks like many of the things we do, (Yes it's a bold assumption) then from the outside looking in, you can see why this app would hold mass appeal.

From a social standpoint the things that people have in common with each other can sometimes form the basis on which they'll become friends or at the least, friends online. For example I'm a big football fan and what I have in common with most of my friends is that they are too. If I wanted to sell some football memorabilia using Depop and promote it using my social networks, then it is likely one of my friends or one of their friends might be interested.

A simple 'share' or maybe a 'retweet' can spread the fact someone selling something and potentially get me a customer willing to check out the goods I have for sale. This is probably the best thing about Depop. It only takes one person with a few hundred followers to spread the word, or maybe out of those few hundred a certain portion of those numbers, could actually become buyers. It could even mean that the buyers could follow you on these social networks and that means there is always scope for repeat buyers.

Check it out on the Play Store. Depop



Thanks For Reading!


Comment/Share and Follow me @Allenbusiness on Twitter

The Men Who Made Us Spend Ep 2 HD - Video Dailymotion

The Men Who Made Us Spend Ep 2 HD - Video Dailymotion



The second part to the intriguing video. Comment, discuss and share!

▶ The Men Who Made Us Spend Ep 1 HD - Video Dailymotion

▶ The Men Who Made Us Spend Ep 1 HD - Video Dailymotion

Click on the link above to watch this documentary. Very interesting and some very good talking points. Feel free to discuss some points with me. Personally I feel this documentary is amazing!!

How Instagram Is Used To Promote Brands

Gone are the days when social media was literally only about keeping contact with friends and seeing what they were up to. Social media still provides that function, but as many know, there is a lot of money to be made using it.

Instagram is one such social network targeted by people or brands with a business interest at heart. Originally a photo-sharing entity, Instagram has added video in addition to many other cool features to its arsenal.

On Instagram's official blog you can see the list of brands that use Instagram to promote their products or services. The reputation of the organisations that use Instagram shows the measure, the reach of Instagram and suggests a slight indication of why they use it.

Other users and/or brands sometimes use Instagram as a form of content marketing. They say "A picture is worth a thousand words". With that in mind, Instagram is the total package. There are users who not only use Instagram to promote their goods, products, services or even events, but for the user to buy into them, and become more involved with the brand. Some famous A-listers in the celebrity world use Instagram to give the audience a preview into their lives away from their professional capacity. It gives users a sense of inclusion to that persons life.

Accounts that promote fashion such as The Drop Date use Instagram to inform it's followers when new trainers are to be released. Similarly Trendset UK posts pictures of various fashion items and uses the hashtag "#Hot or #Not".

In TrendSet's case the items seen can be 'liked' and/or commented on. What this means is that fashion brands can see what products are favoured or not, measured by the 'likes' and comments. It also means they can make marketing decisions based on this information, like whether to spend money to promote the brands or not.

In terms of comments the best thing about them from a marketer's perspective is that there is no prompt to leave a comment, yet there are still people that do. This is a win-win situation for people or businesses promoting anything.

Some brands and people you should follow to get a clear picture of how instagram is used are: 

Trendset Uk 

The Drop Date

Innocent Smoothies

Nike

Nicki Minaj

Dan Bilzerian

Thanks for reading. Follow me on Twitter @Allenbusiness

Happy New Year

I'm a little late I know, but I've been really busy recently.  Just wanted to say happy new year to all and a special thanks to those that have supported my blog thus far. Even if you haven't read my post or commented (I'd really like you too lol), but you've shared on various social networks, I still appreciate it. I know I need to post more regularly and I will make more time to do so. To wrap it all up, thanks for the support and have a prosperous new year.

Anthony Allen