Digital Marketing to recruit University Students in the UK

Source: Royal Holloway, University of London

Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) rely on an integrated marketing mix to promote their services, be they undergraduate, PG or CPD programmes. The scale of the investment – financial (especially considering the significant increase of tuition fees, from £3000 to £9,000 for UG courses), emotional (potential relocation away from friends and family) and social (their decision impact upon career progression and social standing in years to come) – means prospects are unlikely to make an impulse decision.

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Writing journalist content for mobiles

Reynolds Journalism Institute

People who read news on mobile devices has increased in recent years. Therefore, it is essential to think about how to write and adapt the content to attract users and create a positive online experience.

In this post, I will show how five Liverpool Echo stories could have been told better on mobile.

Using social media in your job search

LinkedIn profile

Last saturday 22nd November, I attended the event “Employability Day” for students and recent graduates in the Marketing, Creative, Digital and PR Sectors in Manchester organized by companies Creative Resource and Havas Lynx. Among the various topics presented, which caught my attention was the following: Using social media in your job search, presented by Phil Cookson of Creative Resource.

Before, I had not thought about the importance of having an updated and relevant profile on social networks in order to get a new job, also taking advantage of the great potential they offer to approach employers and companies of our interest. However, potential employers can view your photos and posts on social networks, so you have to be very careful with these ones.

Social media monitoring: learning to listen and respond to customer

Social media monitoring. Picture: isentia.com

Social media monitoring is about listening to your customers, prospects and others, knowing where and what they are saying about your brand, products and services through blogs, forums, social networks, websites, review sites, videos and online media. (Ryan and Jones, 2012).

This implies a change of mind among marketers, as they have not control anymore over their audience. But instead of being afraid, the best choice is participate actively where is our audience. The worst decision: no answer, silence can be fatal. To participate successfully in online conversations with our audience is essential first to learn to listen to them carefully and then respond them in a proactive and positive way (Ryan and Jones, 2012).

SMS marketing campaigns

SMS marketing. Picture: tatango.com

Currently, mobile phones have a huge popularity all over the world and this can be used to benefit your business by developing a good SMS marketing campaign that allows you to engage and attract your customers. Currently, SMS is part of our daily life and people always need to be connected, nobody leaves home without keys and mobile phone.

This is like an ideal dream for marketers, being able to access directly to customers at any time and place through SMS. (Derrick, 2004). However it is important to highlight that first the client must give their permission to contact them and we can not abuse this permission, otherwise, the result will be disastrous for your company.

Do you know that “98% of text messages are read, with the average response time a mere 90 seconds (compared to 2.5 days for an email)” (Davey, 2013). This figure is amazing and we should take advantage of this one, as the short message service (SMS) could be included in our digital marketing strategy in order to reach our customers quickly and safely, because even if the customer wants to delete the message, necessarily they have to read it before deleting.

Email Marketing: a powerful tool in the digital age

Email marketing. Picture: everblue.es

Currently, email marketing is a very powerful and effective tool in any digital marketing campaign. Though many people thought that this would decline with the advent of social networks, this has not happened and instead email marketing has proven to be stronger than ever.

Do you know that 92% of internet users prefer email over offline media to get information about specific products? (Econsultancy, 2013). For businesses, email marketing is an easy and inexpensive way to communicate with your customers and prospects on a personal level, but always remember that it is necessary to get permission from them before you approach them.

KLM “Trace the place”, good example of viral marketing

KLM “Trace the place”. Picture: KLM’s website.

Last month, KLM has developed one of the best online viral marketing campaigns, which is characterized by its ability to engage with audience, share the message and be simple, original and creative.

What did KLM do? The airline created a micro website called “Trace the place”, where users of different countries can access to play an online contest-game that allows them to win two return tickets to their favourite destination.

You can check this game here: “Trace the place”. The dynamic of this original game is as follows:

Starbucks Coffee shows its human face in social networks with a global campaign

New global campaign of Starbucks Coffee. Picture: Starbucks’ website.

Leaving away the typical Starbucks Coffee’s advertising campaigns that only showed pictures of their products (coffee latte, cappuccino, etc), now the american retailer surprises us with an interactive video “Meet me at Starbucks” on YouTube, where consumers (around the world) are the protagonists of this new campaign.

This was a huge and challenging project because the video mini-documentary was filmed in 59 different stores in 28 countries (for example cities such as London, New York, Buenos Aires, Mexico, Taipei, Mumbai, Vienna, Madrid) during one day.

Also, 39 local film-makers and 10 photographers were involved in the project that recorded 220 hours of footage. The creative agency 72andSunny was responsible for this campaign. You can watch this video here: Meet me at Starbucks.