Here’s a quick round up of some of the biggest stories in marketing recently…
Apple Smash Their Own Record
You can’t fail to have noticed that Apple launched their latest iPhone model, the iPhone 6 last week. The launch was further publicised by the inclusion of free music giveaway of U2’s album, a topic of discussion on our LinkedIn group. What makes the launch even more newsworthy is the sheer volume of sales Apple clocked up over the weekend of the launch. In just 3 days, over ten million phones have flown off the shelves – smashing Apple’s previous record of nine million, which the iPhone 5S/C set. This includes the pre-order numbers, of which there were also a record amount for the tech giant.
One of the ten million new owners in particular found himself the centre of a little extra attention though, and not in a good way! The hapless customer was proudly unboxing his new purchase to show a news reporter, only to drop it live on television. See it here.
Losing Customers To Amazon? It Could Be Down To Your Website
Research from Digital River, reported on by The Drum, has shown how quickly online shoppers will change their allegiance when it comes to parting with their cash. One of the biggest statistics was that 78% of consumers would turn to Amazon if they could not buy a product from the brand’s own website. Of course, Amazon have a slick e-commerce site, and the big budget to make it so, but that doesn’t mean you can’t compete. For starters, make sure that customers can buy your products online – offering in-store purchases only certainly isn’t the way to win direct sales. Digital River survey respondents cited sites being difficult to navigate and cluttered as major turn-offs, to take a lead from that and take the simple-but-effective approach to your web design.
Adverts Are Coming To Pinterest
Pinterest has been slowly sharing details of its advertising product recently, and it certainly sounds like an interesting development for the platform. It will enable advertisers to target specific contacts using their email addresses. So, you could upload a list of emails, and Pinterest will match those details with their Pinterest users, showing your ‘Promoted Pin’ only to those people. This is a great way to be extremely targeted and personalised with messages, something which is so important in the crowded marketplace of online advertising.
Pinterest has also recognised the importance of tracking results, so have come up with a system to measure purchases made as a result of a customer viewing or clicking a Promoted Pin. The changes are due to take place next month, so if you’re planning to use the system, we’d love to hear how successful you find it!
Is early retirement being replaced by part-time work?
The idea of early retirement will appeal to many marketing professionals heading into their mid or late 50s. But how easy is it these days? You need to be financially secure and confident that departing the marketing job market for ever won’t leave you regretting the move two or three years down the line.
Will hobbies on your marketing CV help or hinder?
Opinions are divided on whether there is any purpose to the ‘interests’ section of a CV. The traditional view is that your hobbies and pastimes show something of you as a person and demonstrate how rounded you are which could help in your marketing job application.
Are luxury brand marketers missing the social media boat?
Some marketing experts are critical of the progress brand owners and marketing professionals are making when it comes to using social channels to connect with customers.
