Issue 7

E-marketing Insights - Dr Dave Chaffey - CIM
In this month's article Dr Dave Chaffey outlines eight key decisions that marketers face when developing an e-marketing strategy. It will be evident that many of these decisions are similar to those for marketing strategy. However, we will highlight 'e-specific' issues.

CRM debunked - Professor Merlin Stone - IBM
The real benefits of customer management are all too often obscured by woolly thinking and sales pitches. Professor Merlin Stone cuts through the consultant speak and wonders if a single vision of CRM is as unrealistic for large businesses as the single customer view.

The Subtle Knife: Channels which cut through to different customer worlds
In the second book of Philip Pullman's trilogy His Dark Materials, Will - one of the main protagonists - discovers a 'subtle' knife that is so sharp it can enable him to cut through to other worlds. Sales and distribution channels are a major entry point into the different 'worlds' of the customer - an opportunity to engage with them on their terms, at the right time and the right place.

The Do's and Don'ts of manning an exhibition stand
Here is some very practical advice that should be heeded by anyone who will manning your exhibition stand. Peter Middleton of Proactive Productions covers the things that should never, ever be done on your stand and some of the effective ways to approach the exhibition visitors.

Search engines - developing an effective strategy (Part 2)
Following on from the first part of this article, published in last month's edition of WNIM, this second and concluding part will look at how to complete your search engine strategy by establishing which search engines should be submitted to, what options and models are available and how a strategy should be prepared around various budgetary constraints.

The Benefits of Website Analysis - Rand Schulman - Webtrends
In the online world only one in five companies even bothers to track where customers go on a Web site. This can easily lead to abandoned shopping carts, lost sales and frustrated customers who quickly click over to competitor sites. Web analysis is really just basic marketing with a fancier name. You track where people go, what they like and what they don't like - then plan campaigns or make adjustments accordingly.

Advertising, buddhism and motorcycles - Peter Wells - Nilewide
What can marketing learn from riding motorcycles very fast? If you try to control a motorcycle through force you will crash. Similarly, if you try to control your marketing tools by force they will fail. Or to take the example of advertising, if you try to force someone to do something it will inevitably fail. You have to let the other person do something with your communication, not force them to do what you want with it.