News

Marketing is about to undergo some fundamental changes as capitalism under self-regulation is on the way out.  Marketers have thrived since the 1970s in the laissez-faire, neo-liberal ideology built on easy access to credit.

In the coming world, this credit will be harder to come by. It will no longer be enough for marketers to stimulate demand and expect people to somehow find the cash to satisfy their desires.

Problem customers can cost your business lots of money, but quickly ejecting them may not be the best way to relieve the burden.  Authors of a recent Harvard Business Review Vol 86 (4) explore the ins and outs of customer divestment.  Using real-world examples the authors show how deciding to end the relationship with a customer segment or individual can increase profitability, increase employee morale, address capacity constraints and bolster a business strategy.  However, divestment also comes with potential downsides for various constituencies, including employees and remaining custom

Luxury brands are missing out on the chance to develop substantial e-commerce businesses, concludes a new report from Forrester Research. Only one-third of the luxury sector sells online, says the report, but eight out of ten global affluent and high-net-worth consumers use the internet daily and they also actively research and buy luxury goods and services online on a regular basis.

There are general guidelines to organise your site structure and there are fundamental differences in choosing which principles to use in optimising the home page versus landing pages.  We'll address both with the following basic principles:

Recession, slowdown, credit crunch.  Even seasoned economists can't agree what the economy is going to throw at us in the next year.  Whatever label you choose to place on the current climate, it's already clear that there are macroeconomic forces at work that are placing new pressures on marketing budgets and forcing marketers to prove their worth.

The new findings from the (IAB), the UK online advertising trade body, carried out in partnership with PricewaterhouseCoopers reveal a continued healthy growth as online looks to overtake spending on TV by the end of 2009.

Online advertising has grown from being the smallest market sector in 2003 to the third largest in 2007, with a new high of £2.8 billion.  This represents a 38% year-on-year increase, taking internet advertising to a market share of 15.3%.

The database marketing agency Merkle has released its free e mail marketing study 'View from the Inbox 2008'.  The study measures and tracks attitudes and behaviors toward permission-based e-mail among U.S. consumers and points to several trends in consumers' attitudes and use of permission-based e-mail marketing:

Consumers feel in control: Most consumers (88%) feel mostly or completely in control of their inboxes - up nine points from 2004.