Digital marketing wars between Apple, MS and Google

The Digital Marketing War between Apple, Microsoft and Google

Brilliantly analysed report. Digital marketing's importance put in a very vendor focused way which should make brands stand up and take notice.

Jesus HTML Christ!

I met up with a friend yesterday who leads a youth ministry at the largest Church in the world - one that caters to approx. 300,000 regular Churchgoers.

Yes, 300,000. More than the entire population of a suburb of Dubai.

We started speaking about not just local but regional issues with regards to dwindling numbers of youth at the major offerings this Church has for that age group. After an hour of breaking it down to its core issue, we came up with a single line which is the foundation of all marketing today:

The game has changed, because the players have changed.

Pepsi realised that its core target audience is not watching the Superbowl on TV anymore but is actually following it on social media sites like Youtube, Facebook and Twitter. So they switched the millions of dollars it would have spent on ad costs to social media marketing instead. And now they're reaping the benefits of being 'in' with the youth.

So too, do Church ministries need to take spreading their Good News online. Completely. Its no longer a matter of having a cliched Facebook page with a nice 'hook' slogan, or a smart stock photo. Its not about making a teenager in charge of 'handling that online marketing stuff for the group'.

Its about finally realising and taking the soul-plane online.

God bless your keyboard.

Tired of emails

This afternoon, like countless afternoons earlier, I received a marketing email from a company I'd never heard of, selling me something I've never had an interest in and can much less afford, from a marketing firm that's starting to annoy alot of people.

Eyeofdubai.com is a firm that sends out marketing emails either by partnering on events where they barter their email service, or where companies pay them to send out their email campaign.

That's all well and good, until they send the same email 3 times in 10 minutes.

There was definitely a noted difference when I complained: they reduced it to 2 emails instead!

This is something to be wary and careful of as a marketer trying to get the word out through different media channels: remember to sign on to these vendors' newsletters, lists etc, get copies of everything they send out so that you are in your customers' shoes when they receive your campaigns.

If you're getting annoyed, chances are they're not just getting annoyed, they've already blocked you. Is it any wonder, then, that leading email tracking softwares register a minimum of 10% unsubscribes on every single e-marketing campaign?

And as for Eyeofdubai.com, I believe Click 4.0 - The Digital Marketing Event for the Middle East should do a case study on them titled how NOT to digitally market.