Category: Insight

Pull vs. Push: How Consumer Marketing Communications Make a Difference

We often refer to the concepts of pull and push marketing. For those unfamiliar, these concepts deal with the overall strategy of a marketing professional and how they approach and engage with customers. On one hand, the pull approach encourages consumers to come to the brand. Examples of this approach include promoting sales or deals to consumers, capitalizing on loyalty by offering rewards, and using influencers to create more of a demand and following for the product or service being promoted.

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A Guide to Drop-Shipping with AliExpress

Thinking of starting an e-commerce business, but worried about how you’ll handle the less-than-minor hurdles of inventory or shipping? As simple as listing a product for sale on your website and then requesting your supplier to ship on your behalf, dropshipping with AliExpress is likely to be your new best friend. AliExpress is a massive online marketplace with a wide selection of products. Given most AliExpress sellers are overseas manufacturers, their prices are typically very competitive.

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Why User Behavior Should Lie at the Center of Each Marketing Decision

At its core, marketing is the study of consumer behavior. This behavior can range from the shopping habits of a customer, their preferences, or their concerns. All of this information serves to create a big picture that brands can then use to create marketing campaigns that will reach and resonate with consumers. But not every business prioritizes the study of user behavior when formulating their marketing strategy. Why not?

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Avoiding Gimmicks in Marketing: Why It Matters

Surely, every marketing professional has at some point in their career overheard the phrase, “seems like a gimmick to me.” Heavily used both by skeptical consumers as well as marketers themselves, the idea of the “gimmick” describes a cheap or tacky attempt at marketing a product or service. And there are times when the gimmick has worked.

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Kardashians: Queens of Social Media

If you cast your mind out and try to think of a group of people who seem to have mastered every aspect of social media and the creation of a brand online, you surely don’t have to think too long until you land on a single, era-defining clan: the Kardashians. While the family did not get their initial shot at fame through social media, they have undoubtedly managed to stay relevant through their social media presence. Each sister has grabbed hold of their individual success and translated it into a means of commerce, whether it be a range of products, lifestyle apps, brand deals or models.

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Leading Through Crisis: How The Right Person Can Right the Ship

A recent expose published by undercover investigators with the Animal Recovery Mission unleashed the wrath of the public on prominent dairy producer Fair Oaks Farms. The video, which shows animal abuse in its most extreme form, prompted many stores to pull Fairlife products from their shelves and many consumers to promise never to make a purchase from the brand again.

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Police Change Optics Amid Hong Kong Protests

Just four days after Hong Kong saw some of its most tumultuous civic unrest on record, an estimated two million demonstrators returned to the streets on June 16th to protest controversial government plans to reform the city’s extradition law. A clear undercurrent of their anger, however, was directed at the police, accused of using disproportionate force to disperse protesters the week before, the Hong Kong Police Force had a major PR problem on its hands. Their response was an interesting one, to say the least.

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When it Comes to Africa’s Streaming Market, Spotify and Apple Have Been Beat

When Chinese music streaming company Transsnet decided it planned to break into the lucrative African market, they partnered with the parent company, Transsion Holdings, the makers of popular phone brands such as Infinix and TECNO to pre-install their Boomplay app on their handsets. The promotion of these handsets then directly contributed to the delivery of Boomplay direct to the consumer after it was officially released in 2015 with the launch of TECNO’s first music phone Boom J7.

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These Free or Low-Cost Marketing Tools Will Boost Any Business

Marketing can be an expenditure that some businesses have trouble justifying. However, a strategic approach to marketing is necessary in order to reach as many potential customers as possible. So what is there to be done in the case of a little-to-no budget, no marketing experts on staff, and precious little time? Luckily, there are plenty of free or low-cost marketing tools designed to help even the smallest or newest businesses boost their strategy.

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Are Podcasts a Worthwhile Marketing Tool?

In 2018, nearly a quarter of the U.S. population was projected to have listened to podcasts. Translated into numbers, that comes out to about 73 million users. Translate that again into advertising terms, and marketers quickly perk up their ears. Podcasts have enjoyed a steady increase in both subscriber and listener numbers as well as varietals offered by media outlets and producers in recent years. As these listener numbers increase, so does the appeal of using these new, trendy platforms as marketing tools.

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