Tag Archives: Staffordshire University

New to Stoke on Trent and Staffordshire? Here’s a guide to the area

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Clearing at Staffordshire University
Places still available – Clearing open – 0800 590 830

Ema Talam, Lecturer, Staffordshire University

Some of you might be moving to a new city when starting university. I moved to Stoke-on-Trent several years ago, and since then, I have discovered that Stoke-on-Trent and its surrounding areas are home to some of the friendliest people I have met and have a lot to offer, whether you are up for a nice meal, shopping trip, an amazing hiking trip or day trip elsewhere:

  1. Our campus is a vibrant place and has several coffee shops, bars and restaurants. Head to SqueezeBox, Ember Lounge, Pavillion, or new Catalyst Bistro for some great coffee, tea or food. If you want to venture outside of campus:

a.Trentham Gardens and Shopping Village are home to beautiful gardens, the monkey forest (home to 140 monkeys), which is truly a unique experience, number of shops and restaurants and tree top adventure park.

b. Piccadilly in Hanley is a home to some fantastic restaurants and also theatres (Regent Theatre and Victoria Hall), Potteries Museum and Art Gallery, live music venues, escape rooms, etc. Hanley, as the city centre, is where number of events take place – for example, annual arts festival The Big Feast or Wizarding World Wand Installation was displayed early in 2022. – see what Events are coming for Autumn 2022 to the area.

Wizarding World Wand Installation in Hanley

c. The neighbouring town of Newcastle-under-Lyme (if you are not fan of walking, bus number 25 will take you directly from the campus to Newcastle), there are a number of nice coffee shops and restaurants, cinema, mini golf course, bowling alley and escape rooms. Newcastle-under-Lyme is also a home to New Vic theatre.

d. Festival Park is another great place to venture to – it has range of shops, restaurants, cinema, bowling alley, mini golf course, ski centre, and a waterpark.

e. Famous Alton Towers theme park is short journey away from Stoke-on-Trent. There are number of theme events on during the different times of the year at Alton Towers (such as Octoberfest or Scarefest, which takes place during Halloween). Besides the rides, Alton Towers have water park, mini golf course and a spa. Additionally, did you know that Staffordshire University runs a degree in partnership with Alton Towers Resort? If you decide to visit the Alton Towers, you are likely to meet a fellow Staffordshire University student!

Alton Towers attraction
Alton Towers attraction
  1. Stoke-on-Trent has a rich potteries heritage. Gladstone Potteries Museum or World of Wedgewood are the places to visit if you are interested in pottery. Even if you are not interested in pottery, I would highly recommend visiting Middleport Pottery, not least so because of its stunning location or fantastic view over the canal, or Emma Bridgewater factory in Hanley for an afternoon tea or giving a go at decorating pottery. Additionally, British Ceramics Biennial is fantastic event to visit (and to support your fellow Staffordshire University colleagues whose work is exhibited during the Biennial)!
  1. Stoke-on-Trent is a great place for those interested in running or hiking. Stoke-on-Trent hosts weekly parkruns at two locations: Trentham Gardens (and admissions to Gardens is free at the time of parkrun), and Hanley Park. In addition, there is also the Wammy park run in neighbouring Newcastle-under-Lyme. Additionally, University has its own running group (and range of other organised sport activities) – keep an eye on Sport at Staffs on Twitter for any announcements.

    For the keen runners, Stoke-on-Trent hosts annual Potters ‘Arf half-marathon. The challenging route (Stoke-on-Trent is a hilly place!) is open for walking or running and it takes you through various neighbourhoods of Stoke. The race finishes with the infamous Heartbreak Hill, which leads you back to the city centre. The atmosphere at the race is absolutely fantastic – lot of residents stand on the streets or in front of their houses to support walkers/runners!

    If you are interested in walking or hiking, Stoke-on-Trent is in a close proximity to several stunning walking or hiking location. Staffordshire University has its own nature reserve in case you want to stay on campus. Trentham Gardens or even Hanley Park in Stoke-on-Trent, or Knypersley Reservoir, Tittesworth Reservoir, and Rudyard Lake, in the close proximity of Stoke-on-Trent are all great locations for walking. Additionally, Stoke-on-Trent is in the close proximity to the Peak District for all interested in hiking, canoeing and other outdoor activities. If you are unsure of how to find great hiking trails, check out Walk the Moorlands group or keep an eye on Staffordshire Moorlands Walking Festival. If you like hiking, Staffordshire has its own Staffordshire 3 Peaks Challenge you can do!
Hanley Park
Hanley Park is right next to the campus – a regular park Run and other events are held there
  1. Stoke-on-Trent is well-linked to other cities in the UK. You are short train journey(s) away from Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool, Chester, beaches of Wales, or even London. Don’t forget to get your RailCard to get some discounts on your train journeys.

Staffordshire University has a range of unique business courses, both at undergraduate and postgraduate level. Whether you are interested in business management, innovation, entrepreneurship, finance, visitor attraction and resort management, or digital marketing, you will be taught by a team of friendly academics and practitioners, who will go an extra mile to support you in your academic journey and beyond.

All of our courses will provide you with a strong theoretical foundations, focus on application of the theory to real-life problems and discussion of contemporary issues, in order to prepare you for your future career. More information about our business courses is available on our website or you can visit one of our open days to find out more about what we have to offer.

Clearing at Staffordshire University

Clearing events available or call the Clearing team on 0800 590 830

Events for Autumn 2022 in Stoke on Trent and Staffordshire

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Here’s a pick of some of the great events available if you are joining us at Staffordshire University this Autumn, places still available. There’s also a list of venues and other information sources at the end for more events

September

1st to 4th Trentham Live including Steps, Craig David, McFly and Secret Symphony

9-11th Lunar Cinema under the stars at Trentham Gardens

16th Jah Wobble and the Invaders of the Heart at Foxlowe Centre, Leek

17th Lost in music – One Night at the Disco in the Victoria Hall

18th Dawn French at the Victoria Hall

23rd Comedy – Russell Kane at the Victoria Hall

26th Black Umfolosi – music and dance from southern Africa at the New Vic

29th Sept Tim Peake – my journey into space at the Victoria Hall

Trentham Live – four nights of music in September

October

3rd Music – The Daisy Chains at the New Vic

6th Simon Parker – Cycling 3,500 miles round pandemic Britain Stafford Gatehouse

7-9th, 14 – 31st Scarefest at Alton Towers

31st Henry Blofeld: My dear old things at New Vic

November

1st-2nd The Tiger who came to tea at the Regent Theatre, Hanley

3rd Comedy – Dom Joly’s Holiday snaps at the Mitchell Arts Centre

4th Music – Jools Holland and his Rhythm and Blues Orchestra at the Victoria Hall

10th The Psychology of Serial Killers at the Victoria Hall

11th Comedy – Kathryn Ryan Missus at the Victoria Hall

23rd Comedy – Mark Steel at the New Vic

Useful entertainment links

Clearing at Staffordshire University
Clearing open – 0800 590 830

Clearing events available or call the Clearing team on 0800 590 830

Second Report-ASAP meeting

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The second national meeting of the Report ASAP took place on the 11th and 12th of April in Milan, Italy, hosted by our partner EUROCREA Merchant. All project partners were represented.

The meeting atmosphere was very friendly and collaborative, and everyone was highly motivated.

In this second meeting, the results of the first intellectual output “the Knowledge Gap Framework” was wrapped up. The results of the surveys conducted in the six participating countries (UK, Spain, Italy, Croatia, Bulgaria, and Greece) were presented and discussed.

Also, the foundations for intellectual output 2 “the Training Course and Trainer’s Guide” were set including setting the timeframes for the project’s milestones.

 The next meeting of the consortium will be at the beginning of November in Spain.

All this hard work was complemented by the Italian nice food, culture and hospitality.

For further information about the Report-ASAP project go to https://report-asapproject.eu.Logo

Empowering SMEs through sustainability

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Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are key players in achieving sustainability. In the EU-27, 99% of companies are SMEs (with 250 or fewer employees) and they employ two thirds of European workers (EU, 2017). An individual SME may have small social, environmental and financial impact; collectively SMEs have a great impact. More than 70% of all pollution can be attributed to SMEs.

Graph showing the number of SMEs as a percentage of the total number of enterprises in EU countries

Graph showing the number of SMEs as a percentage of the total number of enterprises in EU countries

SMEs can benefit from sustainability by:

  • Strengthening relationships with stakeholders.
  • Demonstrating transparency.
  • Enhancing business value and
  • Securing their right from society to operate.
  • Achieving continuous improvement and innovation.
  • Attracting long term capital.
  • Strengthening risk awareness and management.
  • Improving regulatory compliance (e.g. greenhouse gas emission data).
  • Reducing the burden of environmental fines and taxation.

However, SMEs lack the knowledge regarding sustainability problems (i.e. what is sustainability, which process to follow, what are the potential benefits, etc.). Existing frameworks, standards and protocols to assist companies in adopting and implementing the sustainability practices are complex, especially for SMEs, since they are designed as “one size fits all” with large enterprises in mind. SMEs’ staff do not have the experience or tools to address sustainable issues and need to be educated and trained about sustainability principles if they are to take a proactive approach toward sustainability.

Report ASAP Project (Adoption of Sustainable Accounting Practices for Reporting), aims to help small and medium size business report on their sustainability by providing the necessary training and tools to adopt sustainable accounting and reporting practices in a cost-effective way. This project will provide the necessary training and tools for SMEs staff in six (6) countries: UK, Spain, Italy, Croatia, Bulgaria, and Greece.

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This project will develop a training course and an online tool, where SMEs can discover the most relevant sustainability reporting practices for them. Help us define the features and content of this tool by filling the online questionnaire available at https://report-asapproject.eu/.

If you would like to be invited to the training please remember to tick the relevant box at the end of the questionnaire. The outcome of this study will be available online as well. Feel free to send us any additional comment/question to the project leader Dr Souad Moufty at: souad.moufty@staffs.ac.uk.

Follow us on:

LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/company/18390375/

Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/reportasapproject/

Twitter: #reportasapproject

8 Trends To Keep Your Eyes On In 2018

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1. Instagram Stories Drive Upcoming Instagram Trends

Instagram Stories is a big deal and they’re not going away. Daily viewers of Instagram Stories surpassed daily SnapChat viewers just one year after launch, and the growth isn’t stopping.

Instagram Stories was likely the biggest single change in the Instagram UX, and its marketing implications are huge.

A huge deal with Instagram Stories is this: accounts with over 10,000 followers can now add a link within the feature. Considering the fact that the only other place you can put a link on Instagram is just the one buried on your profile page, this is a huge deal, as it multiplies buying or inquiry opportunities by orders of magnitude.

Instagram Stories in particular will be relevant from a marketing perspective because, compared to other transitory video platforms, Instagram metrics are eminently trackable.

A final note on Instagram Stories: Their foundation is social media engagement gold. Video drastically outperforms all other forms of content on every test.

2. Influencer Marketing Makes Major Contributions to Social Media Engagement

Influencer marketing is big business — a billion dollar industry by some counts. There is an exhaustive list of micro-celebrities who earn six figure incomes. And this isn’t a fluke. Influencer marketing is uniquely keyed to exploit certain facts about a growing number of buyers.
As Millennials advance their careers, and Generation Z starts theirs, an enormous population’s purchasing power is increasing swiftly. These two groups — who, combined, literally comprise most of the world’s population — are uniquely influenced by this marketing method.

3. Generation Z to Decide Social Media Trends

We’ve mentioned Generation Z in both of the previous topics for good reason.

RetailDive had this to say about Generation Z and their associated social media trends:

“Gen Z is two- to three times more likely to be influenced by social media than by sales or discounts — the only generation to value social media over price when it comes to making purchase decisions…”

Furthermore, 81% report watching at least one hour of online video per day, or more, according to a study by Fluent, covered by AdWeek. Combine these facts and realize that droves of Generation Z will graduate college and/or start careers next year, and you start to see the powder keg.

4. Messaging Platforms Make Companies Accessible

 

What do you know about WeChat? They’re a wee little Chinese messaging company . . . errr, one that’s looking to cross 1 billion users this quarter. WeChat and WhatsApp are absolutely ubiquitous across either ocean, reaching across many different functions to dominate social media, direct messaging, and even purchasing and commerce.

Every year more and more buyers are Millennials and Gen Z, and fewer and fewer are older. In case you’re not aware of these people’s overwhelming preferences when it comes to talking to a company, we’ll illustrate in their native language:

top-social-media-trends-20185. Live Streaming Explodes

Live streaming isn’t about live streaming. At least not in the way we’re going to be talking about it. You’re going to see a lot more of it in 2018, and the people who do it well will be fully with the times and accelerating. Its prevalence will increase because it works.

But there’s something more at work here.

It’s actually about technology. We get better phones every year. Does that mean that we’re running the same apps better? Sometimes. But once the technological baseline of the average user has clearly moved up a notch, it becomes about making more robust apps that do more and fully take advantage of that new technology.

The smartphones of today are better than what we used to have by orders of magnitude. Furthermore, our data speeds are better, and are poised to make yet another insane leap in the next few years when 5G becomes the standard.

Live streaming is a medium or implementation of social technology that’s uniquely positioned to take advantage of hardware improvements for the next several years. The resolution of an image the size of a phone screen can only get so good before you have to zoom in to see a difference.

But better video processing across the board means all devices involved can handle more streaming at a better quality across more channels at the same time. This is such a huge change that it’s possibly unclear that anyone is even capable of fully understanding the ramifications.

6. Twitter is Going to Change

And they themselves might not even know how just yet.

Twitter has been slowly circling the drain, in some respects, for a long time now. 2017 pulled no punches with the social network, either. Twitter needs to make some big changes to stay relevant, as its growth is the slowest of all the major social media platforms.

7. Online Hangouts Become the Norm

Online hangouts go hand-in-hand with the live streaming trend, and with Generation Z. Consider Houseparty — an app for multiple friends to essentially FaceTime with each other in a group setting.

Houseparty made quite a wave in 2017 with rapid growth, and hit its stride well enough to inspire copycats, including perhaps an effort on the way coming from (no surprise here) Facebook.

The online hangouts trend is also going to intersect with VR. Sure, everyone promised everything this year with VR and AR, and all that ultimately came of it was two weeks of Pokemon GO.

But this year actually has the potential to be different. Many promising programs have another year of beta testing still left under their belts, but the technologies are improving in exciting ways. Once again, Facebook is at the epicentre, with Facebook Spaces.

8. Social Platforms See More Hardcore Moderation

The last year or so has forced the hand of several tech and social media titans to intervene and play a more active role in content moderation. Those manoeuvres, in retrospect, felt more like damage control than any sort of final solution.

We’re likely going to see companies revisit this in a more significant or longer-lasting way, and definitely more proactive than reactive.

As leveraging social media outlets for marketing first took flight, some were dubious of their staying power. The years since have changed sceptic’s into believers, and what’s on the forefront will clearly and easily amplify the channels’ relevance even further.

2018 is here… but were you prepared?

2018 social media trends predict that time on social media platforms will increase. This means you will need to improve your online presence in the year to come.

 

By Richard Holland – MSc Digital Marketing Student

 

Contact –

Linkedin- Richard Holland

Instagram – Ricardo J

Brand –

Instagram – Ricco London

Twitter – Ricco London

Facebook – Ricco London

How Influencer Marketing Could Benefit Your Business

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Influencer marketing focuses on using key leaders to drive your brand’s message to the market. Rather than marketing directly to this large group, you instead hire or pay these influencers to inspire and get the word out for you.

According to McKinsey, Influencer Marketing generates double the sales of paid advertising, as well as three times the amount of “word of mouth” messages. Furthermore, it results in recommendations – where people are up to fifty times more likely to purchase.

Influencer marketing could benefit your business in a number of ways, and you should consider using it because:

  • It’s more authentic than an advert.
  • It’s more cost effective than many other marketing channels.
  • It provides shareable content, which could amplify results exponentially.
  • You can effectively target a new audience.
  • It’s a way to create real-time engagement.
  • It’s an easy way to build trust with your customers and future customers.

Two cases come to mind where Influencer marketing benefited the business and the influencer, such as Youtube star PewDiePie teaming up with the makers of horror film ‘As Above, So Below’ – creating a number of videos in which he completed challenges and tasks set in the catacombs in which the film was set. This resonated with his then 27 Million subscribers, and received nearly double the views that the trailer for the film did.

The other, according to Neoreach, is American retail giant Walmart teaming up with former Vine star Meghan McCarthy. Meghan posted on Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter and Youtube, putting her stamp of approval on the promotion that she was promoting. Her posts gathered hundreds of follow up posts and tweets, an impact that no television ad campaign could make.

The Big Influencers for 2018

According to Forbes, some of the top influencers of 2017 are going to be even bigger in 2018. 

If the budget is there, then these are the kind of people that you want influencing customers to buy into your product or brand.

These include gaming maestro Markiplier, Keynote speaker and entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk, cooking whiz Rosanna Pansino, six-year-old Ryan ToysReview and powerful lady Lilly Singh.

Whilst all of these people have the majority of their following on YouTube, they are also influencers on the likes of Instagram and Facebook and could cost a hefty sum.

Some of these people may be out of your price range, but if you can find a local influencer to promote your product, then that may be worthwhile to your business.

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Regan Foy (Twitter / LinkedIn)

Staffordshire University Students’ Union

MSc Digital Marketing Management Student (Full Time)

E-mail marketing or Messenger marketing?

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What Email Marketers are saying

When it comes to email marketing software, marketers are spoilt for choice. But how do they feel about the emails they send?

It turns out that relevance is a huge concern for them. DMA reports that 42% of marketers say only some of the emails they send are relevant, and a whopping 10% say their emails aren’t relevant at all. That’s an issue, with consumers trashing irrelevant email.

Another issue people wonder about is the ROI of email marketing. In other words, is it really worth it? Various comparison’s of email marketing vs social media shows that email outperforms social by miles. And Chief Marketer says the ROI of email marketing is 28.5% better than for direct mail.

So what does Messenger do better?

Well, the big problem with email marketing is that you’re talking at your users and potential customers, not with them.

It’s kind of like being on the receiving end of a sales pitch, one where you have no say until the salesman is finished leaving you with only one response, yes or no.

Messenger though, creates a conversation.

It’s the only channel that solicits real time feedback from your users, the only channel where they have a say and shape the conversation which builds interest and engagement.

Check out the below example from 1800-flowers.

What Does the Future Hold?

Email is a mature channel, one which has been extensively developed and includes various advanced features to help you better market to your customers.

Messenger on the other hand is the new kid on the block.

It’s showing great promise and is getting far higher engagement in the areas where they’re going head to head, but it’s not yet at the level of sophistication email has developed.

Messenger is quickly gaining ground on email in terms of features and is already outpacing the platform in the areas where there’s overlap.

So what should a smart store owner like you do?

Well, what you shouldn’t do is abandon email marketing in favour of Messenger. Right now Messenger simply doesn’t have the advanced functionality and tracking of email.

However, if you already haven’t you should be looking at implementing Messenger on your site ASAP.

Right now, Messenger is the perfect complement to your email marketing. And if the last year is any indication, in the near future Messenger will continue to outperform email in other key marketing and communication areas for ecommerce as the platform progresses.

Right now, if I had to advise some specific campaigns your store needs to be running I’d recommend focusing on:

Messenger isn’t just a nice thing to have on your store or a new fad that will die out. The success rate of stores across the globe and the growing user base points to a new channel that might one day overtake email as the chief ROI channel.

In conclusion:

Email marketing and social media are like parallel universes that communicate with each other.

We suggest using email marketing when you’re looking more for reach, traffic and direct conversions. Social media, on the other hand, is a great tool that can help you engage your audience and assist you with making more sales.

There is no reason why you shouldn’t use both. Just be sure to allocate your resources the right way. Thank you for reading this blog and please leave your comments below.

 

By Richard Holland – MSc Digital Marketing Student

 

Contact –

Linkedin- Richard Holland

Instagram – Ricardo J

Brand –

Instagram – Ricco London

Twitter – Ricco London

Facebook – Ricco London

If You’re Marketing to Millennials, Get on Instagram

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There were over 600 million Instagrammers in 2017, and 400 million of those users were active every day according to Softpedia.

Those numbers alone should be reason enough to get your business on the social media platform – but if you’re marketing to Millennials, otherwise referred to as Generation Y, or in simple terms anyone born between the early 1980s and late 1990s – then you should already be on there.

In March of 2017, over 120 million Instagram users visited a website, found directions or contacted an Instagram account or business based on an Instagram ad says Wordstream.

Not only this, but according to the Instagram Blog over 50% of users on the app follow a business and 60% say they learn about a product or service through the app.

Why not make one of those businesses yours? We’ve produced the definitive guide to getting your business set up on Instagram below.

Getting Started

The first thing you’ve got to do is establish your presence on the platform with three main tasks, adding a profile picture, writing a bio and connecting your website. For an example of doing this the correct way, take a look at fashion retailer JD’s Instagram Feed.

Your profile picture should be something memorable and representative of your business – usually your logo.

Over time, people remember your profile picture when scanning through their Instagram news feed – especially if your logo is eye catching.

Your bio gives you under 200 characters to tell the world why you’re worth following and what your service or product is. Enhancing your bio by encouraging users to share content relevant to your business or brand using a hashtag can always be worthwhile.

It’s also important that your followers follow the path to purchase or learn as much as possible – and your website is generally the avenue where this takes place.

Ensuring your website URL on Instagram directs to a mobile friendly site is incredibly important.

How can I Market Effectively?

 Once your profile has been created, you’ve got to identify what kind of content your target audience will be interested in.

Brand storytelling, or Brand Centered Content whether through photos of products or photos of the results of products effectively showcases what the business or brand has to offer.

Skate and footwear brand Vans do this quite well.

Reactive Storytelling uses timely events or unique insights to generate immediate feedback from their audience – and these tend to be based upon pop culture or memes.

This usually includes an interesting story that is on consumer’s minds, combined with a brand relevant marketing message.

With Behind the Scenes content, people are looking for an inside look at how things are built or done inside your business and brand.

Brands are now looking at how they can be more authentic as it is what consumers are looking for in the modern market.

Overclockers UK are a wonderful, British example of this.

Inspirational or Motivational posts are used to spark emotions in your customers or target audience – and it is also the most effective way to drive engagement with your brand.

The key is to recognise what will resonate with your audience.

From this point onward, you should have a basic idea of how to use Instagram as a powerful marketing tool for your Millennial target audience.

——————–

Regan Foy (Twitter / LinkedIn)

Staffordshire University Students’ Union

MSc Digital Marketing Managament Student (Full Time)

Why Email Marketing Should Be a Focus for Your Business

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When consumers thought the internet was shiny and new, email was the top dog in connecting with friends. Nowadays, email is used for much more – it’s used to share content from companies, and allow the consumers to connect with brands, be it through purchasing products or simply feeling part of the brand’s story.

There are issues with email of course, and for years it has been used to scam unwise users for their hard earned money and fill inboxes with unsolicited spam.

In this day and age, people beg the question of is it still worthwhile for business owners and marketers to connect with consumers via email?

The answer is yes, and there are an abundance of reasons why:

Reaching Mobile Customers

Email marketing shows it’s value for business owners in it’s ease-of-access in connecting with and reaching mobile customers without the investment in new technology. A study by Forrester Research in 2014 showed that 42% of email opens from retailers happen on smartphones – a number which is likely to have improved since then.

It’s also a better way to connect with mobile users than something like SMS for example, as it works on mobile devices other than phones, and there is far more space for content. According to Litmus, around 51% of email opens now happen on mobile, so it’s always important to ensure your content is mobile friendly so you can connect with mobile-users better.

It’s Better Than Social Media for Customer Acquisition

Whilst social media is an important part of any business’s marketing, and it is a great way of interacting with your audience, it’s not a sound way of converting these people into customers or members.

Social Media is important as a first step towards customer acquisition, but email marketing is the way forward in terms of conversion. A study by Custora in 2013 showed that customer acquisition via email had quadrupled over the four years from 2009, and reinforced that it was a growing trend in e-commerce.

Cost Effective

Email marketing is great for allowing business owners to reach a large amount of consumers, or potential customers for next to nothing in costs. This makes it a high choice for smaller businesses instead of channels like TV or Radio.

As well as this, with the correct maintenance of an email list, the return on investment increased through the close relationship that is established with the recipients. Emails generally get a high response, be that opens, clicks or more – so your company or brand is receiving better responses at a lower cost and at a quicker rate.

Easy A/B Testing

 A/B testing is the idea of sending one variation of your campaign to one set of your subscribers, or email list, and a different variation to another set.

The ultimate goal of this is to work out which variation of the campaign generates the best results.

This can vary in complexity and can include different subject lines to see which has more opens, whilst more complex testing could include completely different results. This is available through email clients such as Campaign Monitor and MailChimp.

Application & Examples

To start in the world of email marketing, you’re going to need to do some research. Firstly, you’re going to want to pick the email client that’s going to let you apply your ideas in the manner you want. Then you’re going to need to find contacts to send the email to – by lead generation through your website. Finally – you’ll need to produce content and send this out to the contacts, sometimes segmenting specific content to specific recipients.

An example of email marketing at work comes from InternetRetailing, who reported that leading online chemist ChemistDirect had a 30% increase in revenue in 2013 from email campaigns after changing to an email client.

 

So, there you have it. There are many, many more reasons for businesses to get involved in email marketing that haven’t been mentioned, such as the ability to personalise.

According to Pure360, it’s time you should be taking email seriously.

 

——–

Regan Foy (Twitter / LinkedIn)

Staffordshire University Students’ Union

MSc Digital Marketing Managament Student (Full Time)

How to Set ‘SMART’ Digital Marketing Objectives

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Setting an objective is listed as the first step to a powerful digital campaign by the Digital Marketing Institute. It sounds simple, you know what your marketing campaign goals are right? In reality, the process can challenging, and without proper consideration, businesses often end up with a campaign that lacks direction and doesn’t link together   HiveDigitalStrategy go as far as claiming that goal-setting is one of the most difficult tasks digital marketers must complete. Despite this difficulty, the benefits are significant and justify the effort require to define clear objectives that are the foundation of a successful campaign. I have listed some of these benefits below:-

 

 

Given the importance of objectives, it should become clear that to effectively analyse your strategy, your objectives should be effective, or ‘SMART’. by creating objectives using the framework, you are keeping up with many of the best businesses in the world, as they all are driven by focussed objectives. MindTools defines the individual letters of the ‘SMART’ acronym as; Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-bound. Below is a breakdown of the five letters involved.

At the forefront of business knowledge:

The ‘SMART’ framework is widely accepted to have been introduced in 1981, by George T. Duran. However, it is still at the very forefront of business knowledge, with the only development coming recently in the form of ‘SMARTER’ goals (The E and R stand for evaluated and revisited). The last two letters of this acronym are letters that usually come at the end of the campaign and so they are not actually necessary when first setting the objectives.

Now lets examine each letter of ‘SMART’ and how it can be used to create an objective.

Specific

To make your objective specific, you need to avoid ambiguous terms and ensure that there is an outcome that you desire from your digital marketing strategy. Your objective should answer the following question: What do I want to achieve?

Example: I want to increase traffic to my website.

By giving a specific outcome, you are able to centre your strategy around achieving your goal.

Measurable

To make your objective measurable you must be able to answer the following two questions:

  • How many/how much?
  • How will I know I have achieved my objective?

Example: I want to increase traffic to my website by 20%.

By giving a tangible number, you can determine when your goal is reached and track it along the way.

Achievable

Making your goal achievable means identifying the overarching method you will use to achieve your goal. Can you answer the following questions?

  • Is it possible to achieve my goal?
  • How will I achieve my goal?

Example: I want to increase traffic to my website by 20% using Search engine Optimisation (SEO).

By giving the method of SEO, you are ensuring that you have a path to follow, and can plan a strategy based around this.

Realistic

Determining whether your goal is realistic often involves a combination of research and estimation. You should answer the following questions.

  • What resources am I able to allocate to this plan?
  • Are the resources available enough to achieve this plan?

Example: I want to increase traffic to my website by 20% using Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), with an allocated budget of £2,500.

The number of resources you will need to allocate is highly individual and depends on a lot of variables such as your level of competition, market saturation, and your financial situation.

Time-bound

It isn’t enough to say you want a certain outcome. Give yourself a deadline. if your objective is to increase visits to your blogging site by 1000, then set a time-frame. Within a month, within a year?

Example: I want to increase traffic to my website by 20% using Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) within 6 months of campaign implementation, with an allocated budget of £2,500.

Using your SMART Objectives:

If your objective fits in with all five of criteria, then you have a ‘SMART’ objective and are ready to plan and implement a clear, defined digital marketing strategy, something that over half of businesses are failing to do. Get Ahead of them!

A REAL WORLD EXAMPLE:

TOMS, in the spirit of social entrepreneurship, launched a campaign that successfully implemented SMART objectives. ‘One day without shoes’ is a campaign that was launched by the company, with them encouraging the public to go barefoot for a day, and a donation of shoes being made by the organisation for each person that participates. Heres how their campaign followed the ‘SMART’ framework.

  • Specific – Persuade people to go barefoot for a day.
  • Measurable – Receive proof via Instagram of people participating.
  • Achievable – Post persuasive content (Stories) on social media.
  • Realistic – Ensuring they have the resources to manufacture and deliver the donated shoes.
  • Time-bound – Host the ‘One day without shoes’ on one day in May (May 10th in 2017) annually.

TOMS ‘One Day Without Shoes’ Campaign – Source: http://www.toms.co.uk/one-day-without-shoes

SMART objectives will have a positive effect on any digital marketing campaign. Why not have a go at creating your own examples and posting them below?

Thanks for reading!

Learn how to make your ‘SMART’ objectives ‘SMARTER’.

 

by Rory Tarplee

LinkedIn

MSc Digital Marketing Student (Full-time)