Digital Marketing Solutions Summit | Forum Events Digital Marketing Solutions Summit | Forum Events Digital Marketing Solutions Summit | Forum Events Digital Marketing Solutions Summit | Forum Events Digital Marketing Solutions Summit | Forum Events

All

Print & Digital Innovations Summit: Claim the last guest pass
By:
0

Make sure your name is on the guest list for the Print & Digital Innovations Summit – we have just one complimentary guest pass left.

Attendance at the Summit will give you the highest ROT (Return on Time), providing 12 months’ worth of meetings and connections in just one day.

And it’s FREE for you to attend.

  • Receive a bespoke itinerary of pre-arranged, 1-2-1 meetings, based on your own, personal requirements
  • Attend a series of insightful seminar sessions
  • Network with like-minded print and marketing professionals
  • Enjoy complimentary lunch and refreshments

The Print & Digital Innovations Summit takes place on November 14th at the Hilton London Canary Wharf.

Register your place today!

A how-to guide to Legitimate Interest Assessments
By:
0

As a business, you need to market your services beyond your own walls. However, you’re aware that you also need to comply with GDPR and PECR.

Many businesses are unsure how to apply Legitimate Interest for multichannel communications. Our new guide will help you to plan outreach campaigns that meet your personal data obligations.

So what exactly is Legitimate Interest, when can you use it, and how can you actually apply it?

Download the guide to read:

  • When you can use Legitimate Interest
  • Examples of Legitimate Interest
  • The 3 stages of Legitimate Interest Assessments (LIAs)
  • Tips to remember
  • Bonus: Free Legitimate Interest Assessment Template

Legitimate Interest can be a great option for some businesses, but you need to follow the proper steps to protect yourself, your business, and the rights of your data subjects. You will need to demonstrate that your interests are not overridden by the interests of the individuals in question. And you do that by carrying out a Legitimate Interest Assessment.

If you would like to discuss LIAs – or the GDPR at large – in more detail, and how the Regulations relate to your campaigns, please contact Nigel Copp at KPM Group. 

How is global working affecting video management?
By:
1

By Parham Azimi, CEO, Cantemo

The latest iteration of Cisco’s “Visual Networking Index” found that video will account for 82 percent of all online traffic by 2022. That means most of the content your site visitors, leads and potential customers consume will include moving pictures, and all of this needs to be managed well.

In addition to a huge increase in video content production, distributed global teams are now an everyday norm for many companies.

According to an article published in Forbes at the end of 2018, remote working is a standard operating mode for at least 50% of the US population. Employees are beginning to expect a flexible work life and Forbes is predicting that Generation Z workers will expect more choices as to when and where they work.

However, it’s not only employees who are seeing the benefits of working remotely; many employers are reaping the benefits of increased productivity from their remote staff, as highlighted by recruitment organisation Tecla in its 2019 article.

With clear advantages, it’s not surprising that there has been a giant increase in employers embracing distributed teams. However, it doesn’t just promote productivity, it opens up a whole new workforce. This allows businesses to employ well qualified and talented staff based on their qualifications as opposed to where they live. Of course, adapting workflows to enable this presents employers with some challenges. With offices based around the world some staff are starting their day when others are switching the lights off.

How can you ensure smooth and seamless collaboration for creative teams working on the same projects, but in different time zones? The benefits of remote teams mean that organisations are ready to implement technology to make this easier and more efficient. However, industries that work heavily with reams of data are faced with a decision; what solutions are suitable for the job? Is there a solution that not only enables video management, but also enhances it?

When file sharing isn’t enough

When we are thinking about file sharing, we’re considering options such as Dropbox, Google Drive and One Drive. These are popular and low-cost tools that can be a suitable way to handle media when your content library or archive is small. With capabilities to share links and set permissions, sometimes web-based sharing is enough as it does all of this very well. However, its file sharing falls short when being used for more complex workflows, such as collaborative projects that have multiple stakeholders,  teams, timezones. Have you ever tried to find a file that your colleague has mis-named, duplicated or saved in the wrong location? This is where it’s time to consider file management tools. 

The case for Media Management 

Finding lost files wastes valuable time. Add to this the complexity of collaborating with creative teams and clients across multiple locations and you can feel the metaphorical sweat beads starting to form. Metadata may be part of the solution.

Combining AI—which allows computing brain power do the heavy lifting—with rich metadata will provide the tools to make media searchable and easier to find. Automated and bulk metadata tasks can allow for efficient media management. Tagging media enables a huge set of parameters to search for content.

Instead of manually choosing where to file media featuring a family, on a day trip, travelling by train, with their dog, you could choose a better option and make the file discoverable using any one of those search terms. Better still, AI capabilities have now been developed to a point in which it can identify the images within the footage, translate this into metadata and provide the user with the content when searched for.

However, global working creates a challenge when managing how you store your data; metadata needs space and remote teams need scalable storage solutions that are easy to access. How should global businesses be storing their content? Can the right storage increase efficiency? 

Storing files and workflows

With many global organisations recognising their complex storage requirements, time must be spent considering how to use storage and workflows to improve efficiencies on an operational level. Sharing files with global teams and clients for review is often quickly and effectively handled by applying cloud-based workflows.

A cloud-based workflow can route all of the steps in the process for approval, regardless of where staff are located. Cloud-based workflows also drive productivity by taking workflows online and reducing manual steps; this rapidly increases efficiency, often at a lower cost than alternatives. As legacy systems start to creak under the strain of modern working challenges, many organisations are considering whether the cloud holds the solution to streamlined workflows.

Cloud working has become a widely adopted computing term.  Most marketers understand that taking storage power from hardware on premise and placing it in the cloud is beneficial for many reasons. However, when swapping to the cloud an organisation’s first decision is whether to adopt cloud storage or a hybrid. Hybrid cloud is a combination of both cloud storage and on-premise storage. It offers users with flexibility when it comes to file sharing and keeps egress costs at a minimum. Add in proxies, which I’ll address later on, and you’ve got a powerful, modern solution.

An editor may already have several hundred gigabytes of data for just one project, which makes sharing and global collaboration difficult. Projects with a fast turnaround can easily encounter bottlenecks that slow down processes and defeat the objective of a media management solution. Enter: proxies.

Proxies

To avoid a content bottleneck, cloud-based media management solutions should provide the ability to offer proxy workflows, particularly non-linear editors (NLEs). With proxies, editors can edit content and the project timeline without having to use significant amounts of bandwidth that are required when moving the high-resolution files around. Working with and moving much smaller files has cost implications for egress (getting your files back out of the cloud) and should be considered when selecting a vendor for services. 

The right tech is the solution

Whether collaborators are across the hall or across the country, organisations need their staff to have the ability to access, edit and share media easily and quickly. Businesses are now turning to sophisticated media management tools to make it simpler to share media at various stages of production, review, edit, and seek approval – no matter where teams are based. All of the advantages of hybrid cloud-based file management produce fewer obstacles in developing and collaborating on creative content. 

Hassle-free, secure and reliable, hybrid workflows support global organisations while they solve their media management challenges. A customised and robust hybrid cloud platform offers a smart solution that enhances ordinary asset management whilst enabling collaborative working. The benefits of remote working outweigh the challenges; equip your business with the right tools and there’s no reason not to hire the best person for the job, regardless of where they are in the world. 

Do you specialise in Creative & Design? We want to hear from you!
By:
0

Each month on Digital Marketing Briefing we’re shining the spotlight on different parts of the print and marketing sectors – and in November we’ll be focussing on Creative & Design.

It’s all part of our ‘Recommended’ editorial feature, designed to help marketing industry professionals find the best products and services available today.

So, if you specialise in Creative & Design solutions and would like to be included as part of this exciting new shop window, we’d love to hear from you – for more info, contact James Howe on j.howe@forumevents.co.uk.

Here are the areas we’ll be covering, month by month:

Nov – Creative & Design

Dec – Online Strategy

For more information on any of the above topics, contact James Howe on j.howe@forumevents.co.uk.

B2B marketers failing to drive multi-channel campaigns
By:
0

B2B marketers struggle to create and deliver multi-channel campaigns that successfully align with their marketing strategy.

This is despite an understanding that the ‘Integration Imperative’ is critical to achieving marketing goals, maximising exposure with target audiences and boosting return on investment.

That’s according to a survey by B2B agency Skout, which polled 100 senior UK marketing professionals and found that 63% feel they are not taking advantage of the different marketing channels available to them.

46% struggle to integrate channels, claiming that this is the biggest obstacle to successfully delivering their marketing activities.

Failure to create content that can actually be used across multiple channels was also identified as a challenge to successful integrated marketing.

40% of marketers don’t reuse content because they feel that it’s unsuitable for other formats, while 35% are concerned that content has lost its value after its initial use and don’t believe it can be used again.

32% blame ineffective campaign planning for not reusing content, suggesting that many marketers don’t fully consider their goals and objectives before developing content programmes.

Interestingly, 42% of marketers agree that using multiple marketing channels is the most important aspect of campaign integration. In comparison, 40% believe it’s the need for marketingand sales alignment and for 36% the imperative is good teamwork. Despite this, respondents admitted to not using content effectively.

For example, 85% of marketers think that case studies should be created for use across many channels for maximum impact. This could include video, podcast, website testimonials, long form PDFs and press stories all from one source. However, many felt these crucial content assets are significantly underutilised.

Reassuringly, 80% of marketing professionals agree that PR is a vital element of improving SEO and link building alongside building targeted brand awareness. 87% also agree that developing a PR programme can also improve social media performance.

However, 57% still struggle to integrate PR, social media, SEO and link building when planning and strategising. Over half of respondents understand the value of integrating channels – both online and offline – but many don’t know how to do it effectively, or feel that they can convey a consistent message across all outlets to achieve campaign goals.

97% of marketeers surveyed identified training, skills and budgets as the things holding them back from improved integrated marketing. Only 16% feel that they are equipped with sufficient training and skills, while just one in five believe that they have the adequate budget in place to support integrated marketing.

Claire Lamb, Director of Skout, said: “Clearly marketers realise the benefits of using multiple channels within their marketing programmes but many are struggling to integrate them effectively. If a business fails to communicate through all the correct channels to reach their audience they’re limiting the exposure of their content and brand. It’s also crucial to integrate Paid, Earned, Owned and Social media, so that they maximise their target audiences in more ways than one. If businesses don’t embrace and work across all channels together, their content won’t gain maximum reach, and they could miss out on new prospects.”

Image by rawpixel from Pixabay

3 brands that have gone the extra mile for inclusivity
By:
0

‘Don’t talk the talk if you’re not going to walk the walk’. This is the sentiment that consumers are expressing to their favourite brands. It’s all well and good talking about inclusivity, but if brand doesn’t make tangible steps towards an inclusive environment, then their customer base is likely to suffer.

It has been proven that millennials in particular tend to gravitate towards brands that can evidence their inclusivity efforts, rather than the companies that just make sweeping statements. So which brands are succeeding in this mission? Read on to find out… 

Morrisons  

In recent years, this supermarket chain has made some real changes, with a focus on its customers with autism. Morrisons introduced a new ‘Quieter Hour’ scheme across all of its stores in 2018, working alongside the National Autistic Society. The supermarket explained that it is aware that the experience of shopping can be a difficult one for those with autism, or parents with autistic children. At best, it can be an anxious endeavour; at worst, it can be overstimulating and terrifying. 

Morrisons have attempted to lessen this potential stress by introducing a ‘Quieter Hour’ between 9am and 10am on Saturday mornings. During this time, the lights are dimmed, the music is turned off and tannoy announcements are reduced to the bare minimum.

Staff also reduce the movement of stock trollies and the checkout sounds are turned down. This makes for a quieter and hopefully more enjoyable experience for customers who find an excess of noise and movements a struggle to get through. 

Jeffree Star Cosmetics 

Jeffree Star cleverly utilised social media to achieve brand success. With 13 million YouTube subscribers, 3 million Twitter followers and 11.8 million Instagram followers, celebrity entrepreneur, make-up artist, and singer Jeffree Star has worked his way up to become one of the ‘original’ internet celebrities. 

As a key figure in the LGBTQ+ community, Star has made countless efforts to give back to his LGBTQ+ fans. One of the best examples of this came in the form of his cosmetics company, Jeffree Star Cosmetics, partnering with the Los Angeles LGBT Centre. Star launched a new product bundle specifically for this — the rainbow-coloured ‘Equality’ bundle, which contained a rainbow of liquid lip products. Proceeds up to $125,000 were donated to the centre in June 2018. 

Utilising the money he earned through discount code links with Jouer, Star donated towards the centre as well. Given his popularity among the digital generations, it’s clear that Star knows exactly what his customers want — for the brands and icons they follow to make meaningful gestures towards solving social problems. 

Gola Shoes

Veganism has taken the world by storm in 2019, and brands such as Gola have not been left behind. According to statistics from the Vegan Society, the number of British vegans had quadrupled from 2014–2018. But while most news headlines concerning veganism tend to be around the growing choice of food options available meat and dairy free, brands are also increasingly aware of their own products containing animal products. 

Gola has asserted itself as a trailblazer in terms of vegan trainers. With their new online ‘vegan’ badge and dedicated vegan section, customers can easily locate a range of footwear options that are free from animal materials and components.  The shoes have undergone intensive Ve-MAP chemical testing that identifies any trace of animal DNA from chemicals within Gola’s footwear and the manufacturing process, meaning customers can be assured of their purchase.

In addition, all Gola vegan styles are registered with the Vegan Society, the oldest vegan organisation in the world. Founded in 1944 the Vegan Society is a world leader in its field and Gola has partnered with them to give customers additional reassurances.

It’s a widely varied range too, with everything from celebrity-picked women’s classic tennis Mark Cox trainers, sported by actress Kristen Stewart’s stylist girlfriend, Sara Dinkin, to the timeless white and black contrast men’s classic trainers. 

Hopefully, the amount of brands making actionable changes towards inclusivity will only increase. While companies and brands can’t, and shouldn’t, present themselves to be resolving these societal problems entirely, their efforts to stand for something certainly don’t go unnoticed. 

Jeffree Star donates $125,000 to the LGBT Center of Los Angeles from BeautyGuruChatter

Sources: 

https://www.gola.co.uk/womens-gola-classics-c60/vegan-trainers-t189

https://my.morrisons.com/blog/community/quieter-hour/

https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/314156

https://winsomeandcanny.com/home/2017/6/6/jeffree-star-gives-back-to-the-lgbtq-community

How to target your direct mail campaign
By:
0

By KPM Group

Running a successful direct mail campaign requires a considered planning, creative and evaluation.  But targeting remains crucial – success will depend on getting your message in front of the right audience.

Direct mail remains a great way to achieve this – it continues to deliver in today’s digital, post-GDPR world. You can safely use mail as a lead generator and to direct people online. Direct mail is not subject to the same data restrictions as email, so it is easier to implement and stands out from crowded inboxes.

Define your strategy

The most successful campaigns span multiple channels, reaching customers across a variety of touchpoints.

Your campaign will achieve more if it has a clear goal. Perhaps you’d like to reactivate lapsed customers, or promote a retention or loyalty initiative?  Maybe you have a coupon or offer code? Talk to your print provider at the start about what you want to accomplish. They can help to define a strategy that best utilises mail at key points in your customer journey. 

Develop buyer personas

A key step in identifying your audience is to develop buyer personas. It is worth spending considerable time and thought on these to establish a few different potential buyers. 

They should be based on your own customer data, and include demographics such as age, income, occupation, location, gender etc. A good persona will go beyond demographics and also include behavioural insight:

  • What are the customer’s goals and challenges?
  • How can your business help them to achieve or overcome these?
  • What common objections or barriers there are to purchase?

Your marketing message should address these points. Whether your company is targeting senior business executives, fitness enthusiasts or charity donors, the important point is to determine how the ideal customer feels, what they need, and how you can help.   

Ensure good data management

Direct mail offers a huge opportunity to reach your audience, providing that your campaign is well-targeted. Forbes reports that 82% of direct mail is read for a minute or more, so it’s important that your data is accurate.

Remember too that unlike email, you can send direct mail to customers without their explicit consent. Direct mail gives you more freedom to connect and engage with customers, and then to direct people to digital.

Of course, personal data is subject to the data protection terms of the GDPR, so you will need to prove a legitimate interest. 

Segment for improved results

You can target your mailing more accurately by segmenting your data, depending on the profiles and buying behaviour of your buyer personas. Messaging can then be tailored to very specific groups about their needs; helping you to achieve the goal of ‘right message, right audience, right time’.

Personalisation can also be utilised here. It is possible to tailor messages with dynamic content including images, offers and formats that will better resonate with them personally – increasing your chance of a higher response rate and return.

Segmentation will help you to send relevant, useful direct mail to each recipient, rather than wasting vital resources and money.

In summary

It is essential to target your message at the people most likely to respond to avoid wastage and increase response rates. These may be existing customers, but even then there are various profiles from repeat, regular purchasers to infrequent spenders that you may wish to target separately. For new business, you need to identify people who match the profile of your existing customers.

The most effective direct mail campaigns are created using considered planning, fuelled by data insight. We can help your message to reach the right people, and ensure an integrated approach across platforms – making the most of your marketing budget.

Read more
This article is abridged from KPM Group’s blog How to target your direct mail campaign. Read the full version here. 

Look what you’ll be missing at the Print & Digital Innovations Summit
By:
0

Don’t miss out on the opportunity to claim you complimentary guest pass to the Print & Digital Innovations Summit – we have just five places left for senior print and marketing professionals to attend for free.

This unique one-day event takes place on November 14th at the Hilton London Canary Wharf.

Register here for the opportunity to:-

  • Meet with innovative suppliers for a series of face-to-face, pre-arranged meetings based on your own requirements.
  • Network with like-minded peers.
  • Attend a series of insightful seminar sessions.
  • Receive complimentary lunch and refreshments.

Our seminar programme includes:

Unconventional Leadership – by Motivational Speaker Danny Bent
Grow Like A Badass Unicorn: How To Unleash Your Potential Like A Start-Up – by Alice ter Haar, Deliveroo

You will be joining representatives from the likes of:

  • Ariix
  • Avon Cosmetics 
  • Bankable
  • BizSpace
  • Bloom Brands Group 
  • Bourne Leisure
  • Bunzl Retail Suppliers 
  • Business Central 
  • CAFOD
  • Cancer Research UK
  • Championship Horse Racing 
  • Clarins
  • Costa Coffee
  • Diageo
  • Direct Line Group
  • Domus Group
  • Envision Pharma Group
  • European Tourism Association
  • Fairtrade Foundation
  • G-Touring
  • Hays Specialist Recruitment 
  • HelloFresh
  • Herbert Smith Freehills
  • Hotelplan 
  • Insulet
  • International Bar Association
  • Keystone Law 
  • Live Holidays 
  • London Borough of Camden 
  • London Borough of Hackney
  • LoopUp
  • M&G Investments 
  • McLaren Construction
  • NSAR LTD
  • O2 Telefonica
  • Ottobock Healthcare
  • Pizza Hut Delivery 
  • Premier Holidays 
  • Regatta Great Outdoors
  • Royal Mail 
  • Southern Housing Group
  • STA Travel 
  • Superunion 
  • The Landmark London 
  • Tokeny
  • Tottenham Hotspur
  • United Living 
  • Warner Bros
  • WorldFirst
  • Zurich

Would you like to join them? Register today!

Digital Marketing Solutions Summit – Registration Open!
By:
0

Registration is now open for the 2020 Digital Marketing Solutions Summit – claim your free place today!

Our Approach

Taking place on May 12th at the Hilton London Canary Wharf, the Digital Marketing Solutions Summit allows senior marketing professionals to share forward-thinking ideas, meet new partners and discover new ways to underpin their security strategies.

It’s entirely FREE for you to attend and your complimentary guest pass includes:

  • A bespoke itinerary of pre-arranged meetings with product and service providers who match your requirements and upcoming projects
  • Access to a series of seminars by industry thought-leaders
  • Networking with like-minded peers
  • Complimentary lunch and refreshments

How Do I Get Involved?

We have just 60 VIP tickets available, so register your free place today.

Hyper everything: How tech integration is changing customer communication
By:
0

By Michael Wright, CEO, Striata 

A raft of new technologies, many of which are easily integrated into existing channels, are changing the way organisations communicate with their customers. 

Chatbots, voice integration, and dynamic (hyper-personalised) content, amongst others are at the forefront of this evolution. But organisations cannot simply implement these technologies and expect dramatic improvements in their customer communication efforts. 

Instead, they have to ensure that any new technologies are utilised in line with the broader goals of customer communication; that is, making communication as valuable to the customer as possible.   

AI and meeting customer needs

With any form of customer communication, the aim should always be to move with the customer through their stages of life and offer the customer appropriate services at each stage. 

So, for example, in the insurance world, a customer may start with renter’s insurance as a single person and move to homeowner’s insurance, car insurance and life insurance as their personal circumstances change. 

Here, artificial intelligence (AI) has an important role to play. In the customer communication space especially, AI-based systems are useful for predicting user behaviour and providing content based on that prediction to prompt the user’s next action.

Organisations are already seeing the value AI provides in this regard, integrating it into email, billing, and mobile payments, all of which contain forms of customer communication. 

AI is also driving the use of chatbots, which appear on websites and instant messaging services, as automated virtual assistants.  

Not only are chatbots useful for customer service,  but also for invoicing and payment collections.  

The rise of voice 

But good customer communication isn’t just about baking new technologies into existing channels. It also means embracing the technologies your customers are actually using. 

One example of this is voice recognition.  

By 2020, Gartner predicts that 30% of web browsing will occur without a screen. And 55% of American teenagers will use speech recognition, daily. 

It’s only natural, therefore, that customers will want to interact with organisations via voice. Any organisation that invests in integrating voice technology into its customer communications now stands to give itself that extra edge over its competitors.    

Micro-segmentation and hyper-personalisation 

If an organisation is going to integrate these technologies successfully, it needs to ensure that it couples them with real-time data to deliver more relevant content, product and service information to each user. 

The more information an organisation has on each customer, the more meaningful and valuable its communication will be. 

Broadly referred to as hyper-personalisation and micro-segmentation, this use of data means being able to provide content that is relevant on the day / month / life stage of that customer. It allows the company to provide information that improves the customer experience due to the very personal nature of the content. 

Moreover, hyper-personalisation is proven to build loyalty and trust, that ultimately makes customers more profitable. 

A dual approach

Putting the customer back in the centre of customer communication requires more than technology alone. Like the human-centred design approach (putting the customer at the core of the product design process), communication design should be too.

Asking customers directly what content they want to receive, when and how, is invaluable to the design process. This dual approach enables the organisation to combine preference and engagement data (technology), with input obtained directly from the people best suited to design the process: customers and employees (humans). 

By taking this integrated approach, organisations can ensure that they provide customers with the kind of communication they need and want. 

About the author – Michael Wright launched Striata in 1999.  A Chartered Accountant by profession, he started his career at PwC where he was responsible for Internet Strategy & Services and Business Information Services. The technology bug having firmly bit, he moved to VWV Interactive as Managing Director before founding Striata. He was the founder of the South African chapter of First Tuesday, the “Global Thought Leadership Network”. As Striata’s CEO, Wright is responsible for the company’s vision, mission and the business’ global expansion

Hyper everything: how tech integration is changing customer communication 

By Michael Wright, CEO, Striata