Community Blogs

Print media channels such as Direct Mail have shown continued growth in the last few years, even in a digitally dominant landscape. With a tangible print channel brands and businesses can create memorable moments with their target audience and with known delivery locations, Direct Mail can be...

Consumers are displaying higher confidence levels than anticipated, probably because of a feeling we are entering the final stages of post-Covid in this country. Whether the confidence is misplaced is open to argument. What is clear is that we should be taking advantage of the situation. We...

My English literature teacher did not like Ernest Hemingway. Even in those days, when he was all but eulogised, she found his machismo repellent and, as a hater of cruelty to animals, his love of bullfighting placed him, as far as she was concerned, beyond the pale. Yet she constantly praised...

Pick a number, any number as long as it is not higher than 100. Now put this number in front of the search criteria, Reasons People Buy. This rather unsubtle suggestion is to show that there are any number of triggers for people to buy a product or service you are selling. But you knew this...

Three of my favourite magazines have ceased publication in the last nine months, with the problems of Covid-19 and lockdowns identified as the cause. It brings the total over the last 14 months to four. Casual purchases, it would appear, by people browsing in newsagents was a significant...

If you are introduced to a stranger, you will probably have made some basic decisions about them before they talk with you. People give off messages even when they are silent. It’s called non-verbal communication and, given that a marketing email is not verbal, it is what we do every day, or at...

This is an adoption of an article from HKQCC website No factory in the world produces perfect products all the time. It does not happen in heavy industry such as the aerospace industry or light industry such as the consumer products industry. In the manufacturing industry, product defects are...

It might seem a bit of a stretch to suggest body language can be useful in our craft, but read on. I used to teach communication methods to sceptical students. I would walk into the class, put up a flipchart onto the board and reveal the lesson’s title to expected moans and sounds of...

A couple of years ago I was going to buy a new car. Following my normal exhaustive procedure before spending out on big ticket objects, I checked the reviews from various sources, such as motoring magazines, eventually coming up with a shortlist of three vehicles from two manufacturers. It was...

For many of us, one the most upsetting aspects of the Covid-19 pandemic is missing all those life milestones: from weddings and graduations to birthday parties and anniversaries. It’s similar when growing a business. You’re often so busy surviving day-to-day – winning new customers, fulfilling...

It was rag week at a London teaching hospital and the behaviour of the student doctors encouraged you to avoid entering hospital unless absolutely necessary. One particular jape consisted of a skeleton tied to an automatic traffic signal, thumbing for a lift with a piece of cardboard reading...

Email marketing lists are the key to success in our business, but with them comes responsibilities which must be complied with under threat of legal penalty. But even strict compliance doesn’t mean there’ll be no problems. Some companies have experienced difficulties with regards to nuisance...

Having downtime due to lockdown, I did my annual clear-out of emails and documents I had saved over the past three years. In normal circumstances, I check each individually to see which is still relevant, but this time it was over quickly. Anything before December 2020 was deleted as it was of...

You are, no doubt, wondering how marketing strategies will change due to Covid-19 and which direction you should take in planning email marketing campaigns. Histories will be written on the subject and, as they will all disagree, how can we hope to be definitive? The one thing you might...

The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) is a government wage support measure. It is a temporary scheme designed to protect jobs in the wake of the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s there to support employers who are facing difficulties to continue paying employee wages rather...