How Digital Marketing Strategy Creates Consumer Engagement
As social media and Amazon searches continue to consume more market share, consumer shopping and buying habits are shifting right along with this trend. This is leading to a more fragmented marketplace, with people breaking into – and increasingly looking for – specific niches, rather than mass marketing products. Because of this, brand managers need to reconsider what they’re doing about digital marketing in order to better engage with today’s consumer. Developing a new and dedicated digital marketing campaign is a must for any marketer interested in maintaining or building their customer base as consumer habits continue to shift. Here are a few reasons why this is important: Digital Marketing Reveals Customers Getting to know a customer really is and…
Read MoreA Dummies Guide to Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing has quickly become a major buzzword in the digital sphere, but the concept has been around for much longer than many pundits may assume. So what exactly is influencer marketing, and how does it work? When individuals meet an “expert” in their field, the person in question is often immediately viewed as a knowledgeable and trustworthy source of information. An expert, then, can have significant sway over an audience’s views – and wallet. This is, in essence, influencer marketing: the development of advertising via influential people and thought leaders, rather than directly through the brand itself. Marketing strategies that utilize the reach of a social media influencer have grown in recent years, especially as marketing teams realise that…
Read MoreFedEx CFO Responds to “Horrific” Income Drop
As more companies enter the shipping business, and more consumers demand faster shipping times, longstanding brands face greater logistical and financial challenges. For the past year, stalwart industry leader FedEx has been struggling. Recently, the company posted a net income that’s 40% lower than the same period the prior year. Revenue is down as well, leading to a significant drop in operating income. FedEx CFO Alan Graf didn’t mince words, though he did promise the downturn was temporary, saying in an analyst call reported by business media, “We are at the bottom… Our adjusted operating profit decline is horrific… it’s going to improve. We’re going to come off the mat and improve into next year…” Analysts point to several different…
Read MoreRussia Pushing Back Hard Against Olympic Ban
The Olympic Games are coming in 2020, and the soccer World Cup follows two years later. If a World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) sanction holds up, Russian athletes will not be allowed to compete under their country’s flag or wear their nation’s colors, a penalty Russian President Vladimir Putin has called “unfair.” Russia has announced plans to file an appeal challenging the four-year ban that came as a result of sanctions, stemming from a WADA decision finding that representatives “manipulated doping laboratory data” in an effort to hide previous infractions. Putin said the sanctions defied common sense and law, calling out the agency for the wholesale ban and suggesting WADA should impose individual sanctions, rather than blanket bans. Russian advisors called…
Read MoreHallmark Reverses Course on “Inclusion”
The voice of the public can get loud in a hurry these days, especially on social media. A handful of influencers, or a few key people on Twitter or Instagram, and suddenly it feels like the world is against your brand. Just ask The Hallmark Channel. Last week, a story started trending on social media with people reacting to an announcement that Hallmark Channel would not be running ads for a wedding planning website,which featured a same-sex couple kissing at the altar. The decision to pull the ads were, reportedly, in response to complaints from the American Family Association, via One Million Moms. When it was announced that the ad would be pulled, the AFA celebrated on social media, with…
Read MoreStarbucks Agrees to Pay Restitution
Starbucks has an up and down relationship with the media and consumers on social media. From positive interactions to overstepping baristas to Christmas cups, the brand seems to find a way into the headlines, good or bad, with some frequency. Occasionally, though, the news is more serious than a red cup or a hapless employee. This is one of those crisis cases. Various media reports announced recently that Starbucks Corp has agreed to “pay restitution and accept greater oversight” as part of a settlement in response to allegations that the company “illegally required New York City employees to find substitutes when they needed to use sick leave.” Starbucks has since changed its sick leave policy, but that doesn’t mean the…
Read MoreNFL Taking Hits Over Officiating
Since the disastrous Saints-Rams NFC Championship no-call last year, NFL officiating has been under intense scrutiny. With new technology allowing fans at home and in the stands to clearly and easily see where refs make mistakes, the pressure was on. And the officials are not making it any better on themselves with more than a few high-profile blown calls throughout this season. Some legitimately could be said to have changed the outcomes of games. The league says it may look into a “rules adjustment,” but they already did that. After the NFC Championship debacle, the league gave coaches the chance to challenge pass interference calls, or the lack thereof. This change hasn’t had much effect on the perceived issues that…
Read MoreCan GameStop Survive a Shifting Market?
Streaming media has slowly transformed multiple different industries. It began with music. As the iPod sliced away at market share, retailers and production companies tried to ignore the interloper. Apple didn’t stop, and, in the space of a decade, the entire industry was transformed. The example was plain to see, as were the trends, but many booksellers did not pay much attention. When the Kindle came out, they scoffed. Then, stores started closing, as Amazon book sales and digital book sales exploded. People still buy and love “real” books, there are still big box booksellers and independent bookshops, but the market potential shrank considerably. It was only a matter of time before the video game market followed suit. Like movies,…
Read MoreGM Hoping to Make a Big Splash with First Electric Pickup
When Tesla announced it was working on a fully-electric pickup, many people laughed. Too soon, they said. Unfeasible, others agreed. Tesla, of course, soldiered on in their efforts, which do not have a scheduled release date. One company, though, has jumped ahead of the competition, announcing plans to release the first American fully electric truck by the fall of 2021. That company is General Motors. The announcement was met with some skepticism among the auto crowd. Could a fully electric pickup really meet the demands of the tough truck market? GM’s CEO Mary Barra tried to quell fears and misgivings by banking on GM’s reputation for making strong, capable pickups: “General Motors understands truck buyers and … people who are…
Read MorePeloton Ad Lampooned and Criticized
Is it sexist, fat-shaming, dystopian, a miscue, or just a missed opportunity? That’s the question marketers at Peloton are being confronted with after reaction to their now-infamous Christmas-themed commercial went off the rails. The concept is simple: guy buys girl an exercise bike for Christmas. She’s initially uncertain, but comes to love the bike, as well as the culture around it, which is a huge selling point for the high-priced luxury interactive stationary bike. So far, so good, right? Not so much. Depending on who you ask, the reasons for the barrage of negative feedback about the ad are legion. Is it the expression on the woman’s face? The audacity of the guy to insinuate she needed to exercise? The…
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