Marketers must break out of the ‘expertise trap’
Colin LewisExperience combined with expertise is seen as the holy grail, but could this expert perspective cause marketer’s outlook to narrow?
Colin Lewis
Beware ‘Hotel California’ brands – those you can never leave
Colin LewisSubscription businesses are taking off but companies need to ensure they are creating value, rather than just extracting it, if they don’t want to end up on a dark desert highway.
NPS is where customer insight starts, it’s not your ultimate goal
Colin LewisMarketers should be using NPS and other customer satisfaction scores as a starting point to prompt more insight but all too often they are seen as the end point.
Opportunity lies at the edge of acceptability, so get comfortable there
Colin LewisMarketers need to understand that the edge is where opportunity is and by learning to become more comfortable there they can find more opportunities.
Marketers need ‘hard’ skills if they want to be taken seriously
Colin Lewis‘Soft’ skills like communication and empathy are clearly important, but marketers need to brush up on core technical skills like strategy, data and measurement to be truly effective.
The right questions are more important than the right answers
Colin LewisWhen it comes to customer insight, all to often marketers go in knowing what they want the answer to be, but becoming a better questioner is a skill that can be learnt.
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Strategy is a luxury for small brands – focus on being better known
Colin LewisSmall brands may have many of the same challenges as big brands, but growing a startup is about entrepreneurship and sales, not marketing strategy.
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Ethics are central to consumers’ new definition of value
Colin LewisThe transformation of the economic and cultural landscape means the notion of value is changing and a very different era for marketers awaits.
99.99% of the smartest people don’t work for your brand
Colin LewisWhile the vast majority of top talent doesn’t work at your company, there are ways to tap into their knowledge and marketers are well-placed to help businesses see the benefits.
All marketing is data-driven marketing
Colin LewisData-driven marketing drives results, proves value and delivers insight, but don’t fall into the trap of thinking it can’t be used to enhance creativity too.
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Could a computer write a prize-winning ad campaign?
Colin LewisThere is potential for artificial intelligence to be used in advertising – particularly copywriting – as it has a very definite pattern and structure, but AI-created ads are unlikely to win any awards for creativity just yet.
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A marketer’s view of martech
Colin LewisBeware of letting the tail wag the dog: technology is integral to modern marketing but tools are no replacement for strategy.
China makes customer experience in the West feel outdated
Colin LewisScale, speed and convenience give Chinese brands a lead over their UK counterparts in customer experience – and they’re starting to leave us behind.
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It’s tempting to be cynical but ‘agile’ is the real deal
Colin LewisAgile might be a much derided buzzword but when marketers take their cues from software developers and begin to work in an ‘agile’ way it can offer big benefits to ways of working.
5G is about to usher in yet another new marketing era
Colin LewisThe move from 4G to 5G has been likened to the shift from typewriter to computer and it will have profound impacts on businesses, consumers and marketing.