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Call for participants – Digital nomads
Call for Participants Do you self-identify as a digital nomad? Are you active on Instagram? We are looking for participants for an academic study that investigates the following research questions: (1) How do digital nomads manage the representation of their identity...
How to find a good marketing dissertation topic (2021-2022 Edition)
Once again that time of the year when students across the world need to find a marketing dissertation topic is looming. I recently delivered a guest lecture at Henley Business School about the future of marketing, and many of the questions were related to finding good...
What does a sales intelligence analyst do?
Interview with Gianluca Di Chiara - Sales Intelligence Analyst @ Vodafone Italy. Transcript Rodrigo PEREZ VEGA Thank you, Gianluca for agreeing to take part in the series of interviews where I'm interviewing marketers and digital marketers around the globe that I met...
What does an SEO specialist do?
I interviewed Swapna Anandikar-Mulye about her role as an SEO specialist at The Guide Dogs for the Blind Association. I met Swapna a couple of years ago when she was studying Digital Marketing at Henley Business School. Below a transcript of the interview: Rodrigo...
Go Digital initiative launches in Norfolk
The COVID-19 pandemic has forced many businesses to rethink the role of digital activities within their industries. The restrictions on face-to-face interaction that continues in most parts of the UK and that has lasted several months now has pushed for a rethink of...
How to increase online customer engagement with the use of Artificial Intelligence?
I consider myself to be a techtopian when it comes to AI, which basically means that I see a lot of potential with the use of this technology to improve whatever we humans are trying to do with it. You have probably seen a lot of articles, news, and research about how...
What do brand managers do?
As part of my activities as the Program Director for the MSc in Marketing at Henley Business School was to reconnect with some of our Alumni that have graduated from the Program and that now work in different areas of Marketing. The idea was to give current students...
What is a theory?
You are being asked to make a theoretical contribution and to find theoretical research gaps. This can be a daunting task, especially when you don’t know what can be considered as a theory and what is not. This guide will point you in the right direction. What is a...
How to find a good marketing dissertation topic
t’s that time of the year when MSc students around the world start thinking about their marketing dissertation topics. A few years ago I wrote a post on “How to choose a dissertation topic in marketing” for INYIYD. I decided to create an updated version of that post...
Digital Disruption Conference at the University of Reading
I'm excited to be taking part in the first Digital Marketing Conference at the University of Reading. The theme: Digital Disruption Where? The University of Reading - Palmer Building When? 11th March, from 5 pm Overview of the conference: Digital Disruption is...
Attracting Website Visitors with SEO
Attracting a visitor to a website might mean using push media such as advertisements to attract website visitors the website or pull media in the form of high rank in search engine listing when the potential visitor will visit the website as part of their search...
How to Create a Customer Journey Map
According to Salesforce, 80% of senior-ranking marketers state that a cohesive customer journey is absolutely critical for success. These marketers understand how a customer or user journey map can streamline processes and provide customers with a consistent...
Extending the value of your freemium pricing strategy: why highly engaged premium customers could be the solution to higher conversions of free users
Freemium is a pricing model where users can access a product or service for free, usually with fewer features or advertising, and then users can pay to get access to a more premium product. The term was coined by venture capitalist Fred Wilson and then it entered into...
The Social Intelligence World conference 2018
Last year Dr Jillian Ney co-founder of the Social Intelligence lab invited me to attend the first Social Intelligence World conference, at the Crystal in London. This was the first time a conference solely focusing on Social Intelligence gathered not only the main...
AI and Marketing: a few thoughts after the 51st Academy of Marketing conference.
This week I went to Stirling to attend the Academy of Marketing conference. I took part in a workshop that looked at the intersection between AI and Marketing. My interest in AI derives from my innate interest in technology. Almost 8 years ago, when I decided I wanted...
#HenleyDigital is now over – reflections and future directions for my digital marketing modules
For the second year, I had the opportunity to teach the Digital Marketing modules at Henley Business School at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. I called the module #HenleyDigital, and some students have engaged with the hashtag on Twitter and...
How to make money online?
If you’re looking to make money online, you need to understand the different revenue models that are available. A revenue model describes the process by which money can be earned. Choosing a revenue model for your online business will help with decisions regarding how many resources to invest in your business. There are four main revenue models: selling content, selling information, selling advertisement space and selling services
Increasing Facebook fan page engagement: on being attractive, social, and visually appealing to your customers
Communication through social media is becoming increasingly sophisticated, with an accompanied growth in research on the strategies to increase online brand engagement behaviours. A bulk of this research focusses on consumer reviews as a determinant of hotel...
Celebrity bloggers: the implications of a blurred personal and professional life on social media
Should high profile bloggers give credit or pay special fees to take pictures in private locations? This is the question that a small boutique hotel called The Reading Rooms was trying to answer last week. The situation Estée Lalonde (@EsteeLalonde) a...
Dark Social: what is it and what it means for your business?
Dark Social has become a major topic among marketing practitioners in the past years. The reason behind this is that marketers are realising that dark social behaviours are increasingly popular among consumers. In this article, we will look at what dark social is, and we’ll share some recommendations on how to leverage on this online behaviour.
The UK General Election: can social media covfefe influence the elections?
Social media was, without a doubt, at the centre of all candidates’ campaign strategy in this General Election. However, this was not always the case. The Obama campaign popularised the use of social media for political reasons in 2008. Before that, ‘respectable’ politicians tended to shy away from this channel. The reasons are similar to the one’s brands experienced in the early stages of social media adoption: it is hard to control what happens once a tweet or Facebook post is out, and politicians (as well as brands) were not very keen on criticism on these public platforms. However, the attitudes towards social media by politicians worldwide is more welcoming today than ten years ago, and many of the most prominent personalities in the global political sphere have a prolific social media presence and covfefe. However, is it a positive thing?
Top hints to consider before developing a mobile app for your business
With a significantly higher penetration of smartphones than other countries, added to reduced organic reach in social media channels, revamping your mobile marketing strategy with a mobile app can be the way forward for many SMEs in the UAE. Isabella Leland and Dr Rodrigo Perez-Vega discuss key elements you should consider before investing on a mobile application.
Blue Monday, fact, fiction or purely a marketing opportunity?
Today is supposed to be the gloomiest day of the year, according to Dr Cliff Arnall, a former academic specialised in the field of psychology that devised a formula that is supposed to determine the gloomiest day of the year based on some rather grim factors. Beyond the validity of Dr Arnall’s depression score formula, some opportunities arise from events like this from a marketing perspective, and businesses have embraced rather happily Blue Monday to their calendar of marketing communication activities and promotional events.
Uncovering online brand communities
Online brand communities (OBCs) have increasingly gathered the attention of marketers as they can generate several positive outcomes for brands. An online brand community is a specialised group of people that gathers in online environments with a shared interest (usually a brand, a brand category, or a particular web page). These online communities become a space where consumers share ideas, feelings and opinions about a product or a brand. In this article, we will examine this phenomenon from an SME perspective as we believe that understanding how these communities work can also be beneficial for small businesses.
Europe’s largest technology market place is around the corner: 7000+ UK tech and business leaders to descend on Lisbon
Web Summit is a global technology conference hosted annually in Lisbon. In 2016, more than 50,000 attendees from over 165 countries will fly to Lisbon for Web Summit, including over 20,000 companies, 7,000 CEOs and 2,000 international journalists. Speakers will include the founders and CEOs of the world’s largest tech companies as well as political leaders and major sports, fashion and music personalities.
Performance marketing: is your agency ticking the right boxes?
Performance marketing in the UAE is like the latest Lamborghini: everybody wants it, many people talk about it, but at the end, it is very rare to see it in action. No matter if we are speaking about Google AdWords or Facebook Advertising, most advertisers are using soft or no metrics when it comes to analysing their campaigns. They are satisfied with “something is happening” but they do not really care whether they are getting some returns on their investment or not.
Analysing the effects on reputation, credibility and trust of three PR strategies to manage a crisis on Facebook
Social media platforms are now a common tool for PR practitioners to manage a crisis. When used correctly, social media allow organisations to monitor the sentiment of people towards a specific situation and to correct rumours rapidly before they become facts. However, what is the tone and best strategy that PR departments should adopt when a crisis happens?
Social influence marketing: why do we let others influence our purchase decisions and how to leverage this in your business
In the current hyper-connected environment where companies and consumers interact, learning how to leverage social influence marketing techniques can be a source of competitive advantage for your business.
Mobile advertising in the MENA region: factors influencing users’ atttitudes
Mobile advertising is in an experimental phase in MENA region, where marketers are simply just “trying it out” and hold the attitude that the mobile “doesn’t work yet”
Social Media Summit 2016: social influence marketing on the rise
I was invited to give a talk on Facebook fan page engagement at the Social Media Summit in Dubai. This was based on part of the research that I have done for my PhD and some other new research avenues that I am currently investigating. What was interesting from this event, was how much relevance social influence marketing is having among marketing practitioners.