Blog Posts – Page 2 – Mike Berry Associates

Email Marketing: still going strong in the 21st Century

I recently chaired the panel on “Mobile email” at TFM&A (Technology for Marketing and Advertising) in London. The assembled experts concurred that:

a) email marketing is alive and well

and:

b) everything digital is going mobile, especially email (Litmus estimates that around 42% of all email is now opened on a mobile device and this can only increase).

But why does email remain so resilient amidst the waves of change which continue to sweep through digital marketing and in the face of newer, ‘cooler’ technologies? To answer this, let’s go back to 1999 (younger readers, you may need to ask […]

Mike Berry2021-08-17T11:55:38+00:00March 2nd, 2013|Email marketing, Mobile, Trends|0 Comments

The Death Of Print: rumours much exaggerated?

“May you live in interesting times” is something of a cliché, often referred to as ‘The Chinese Curse’ and generally agreed to be apocryphal (whatever that means).

Whoever first said it, it would certainly appear to be true if you’re involved in print publishing right now.

Earlier this year Encyclopaedia Britannica ceased publication of its print edition which was first published in Edinburgh in 1768. Last month Bertelsmann and Pearson announced the merger of their respective subsidiaries, Random House and Penguin. Around the same time, Newsweek announced that it is to stop publishing its print edition at the […]

Mike Berry2012-11-15T21:47:00+00:00November 15th, 2012|General, Integration, Trends|2 Comments

Online display: clicks are nice but response is essential

Why is Online Display Advertising so named? After Offline Display Advertising of course. But why was that so named? To distinguish it from Classified. We’re talking about the full colour double-page-spread ad for the new Porsche vs. the densely packed page-full of ads for lonely-hearts and second-hand cars. And like offline, Online display is about finding the audience while they’re doing something else and attracting them to your brand; representing, at its best, a skilful combination of targeting, creative ideas and high-quality execution.

We’ve heard of ‘banner blindness’. Many people claim never to click on display ads and many regard them […]

Mike Berry2021-09-23T16:54:17+00:00September 7th, 2012|General, Trends|1 Comment

How the web changed business. Forever.

It has become fashionable in business/ technology circles to talk about ‘disruption’. As a ‘good’ thing. Not like a broken-down train on the London Underground which causes chaos in the evening ‘Rush Hour’, or the threatened strike by Immigration staff at Heathrow Airport the day before the London Olympic Games, nor even the biblical scale flooding that turned Silverstone Motor Racing circuit into a sea of mud before and during the British F1 Grand Prix.

No: we’re talking about ‘positive’ disruption which shakes up something that really needs it; e.g. an industry that has collected cobwebs, which has become inefficient, complacent, […]

Mike Berry2021-09-23T16:55:05+00:00July 20th, 2012|Integration, Trends|0 Comments

Making the business case for Digital Marketing

How does one ‘sell’ digital internally?

Those of us who would describe ourselves as ‘digital specialists’ have a vested interest in evangelizing digital; we love it, we believe in it and we want to do more. However: working in real-world organisations, we need to make the business case to convince those who control the budgets which we require to implement our digital plans. Otherwise nothing will change and the effectiveness of our marketing activity is likely to decline as consumers/ business customers switch to new platforms; as brand owners we risk ‘missing the boat’.

Let’s be clear: the reality is that ‘the internet revolution’ […]

Mike Berry2021-08-17T11:55:59+00:00June 17th, 2012|General, Integration|0 Comments

Digital Marketing In Sri Lanka

Mike Berry gave this interview ahead of his trip to Colombo, Sri Lanka to present a 1-Day Seminar, ‘Marketing In The Digital Age’.

Q. Your show is about the best, effective digital campaigns. Can you generalize – what are the key success factors of digital marketing campaigns?

A. Digital has made a massive difference to marketing, particularly as regards the technical skills needed to make the most of the new communications platforms, but deep down the fundamentals are pretty much unchanged. The role of the CMO is the same as in the days of ‘Mad Men’ (the US TV Show about a 1960s US ad agency). It follows that successful digital […]

Mike Berry2021-08-16T23:37:39+00:00May 29th, 2012|General|0 Comments

The Three Secrets Of Content Strategy

My insightful view of Content Strategy:

1. Publish Good* Content.

2. Refresh It Regularly.

3. That’s It.

Please can I be a Content Strategist now? I hear it’s well paid.

*interesting and well-written

Mike Berry2021-08-17T11:56:22+00:00May 4th, 2012|General, Trends|1 Comment

So is B2B just B2C without the budgets and the glamour?

I remember when they called it Trade Marketing. And Industrial Marketing. And then BTB. Now it’s B2B. Whatever we call it, it’s about marketing to buyers who are buying on behalf of companies. And they’re not the same as consumers. That is to say they are still human, but in this part of their lives, they’re at work and spending their company’s money. In many cases, they are professional buyers. This changes various things: mainly they need to be seen to be getting the best value for money for the organisation i.e. selecting, briefing and managing suppliers who will deliver […]

Mike Berry2021-08-16T23:21:13+00:00April 9th, 2012|Integration|5 Comments

Where next for the Digital Mad Men?

Two apparently contradictory stories from the UK marketing press caught my eye recently, each from an impeccable source. One set of figures came from the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA) and the other from the Advertising Agency Register (AAR).

Firstly, UK Digital ad spend is still increasing and senior marketers expect this to continue. Indeed according to the respected IPA Bellwether report, online display spend forecasts were revised up 13.4% and Paid Search budgets revised up 14.9% during the last quarter of 2011; this despite the fact that marketing chiefs are, overall, more pessimistic about the year ahead than they […]

Mike Berry2021-08-18T09:01:12+00:00February 27th, 2012|Agencies|2 Comments

More rash predictions

I hope you had a good year. Now thoughts naturally turn to the future. I used to think that being a futurist would be quite a good gig; you know: fly in to somewhere nice, speculate a little about what might happen, pocket the fee, then fly out and keep a low profile elsewhere while none of it came true…?

I’ve realised though, that to do this you’ve really got to keep running (see George Clooney’s character in the excellent Up In The Air). In reality, one is inevitably going to meet some of the same people again (if […]

Mike Berry2021-09-23T17:06:44+00:00December 31st, 2011|Trends|1 Comment