How to calculate return on marketing investment (ROMI)

June 22, 2018By Simon FosterMarketing Training

The basic formula for calculating return on marketing investment (ROMI) is: [[sales-costs]/marketing costs] Where: Sales is the revenue generated from marketing activity recorded as sales to customers Costs are the costs of generating those sales (cost of goods sold or COGS) and the costs of marketing. Some notes: How carefully you define sales and costs … Read More

How is brand advertising different to direct response advertising?

June 19, 2018By Simon FosterAdvertising Evaluation, Direct Marketing Training, DRTV Training, Media Evaluation, Media Planning, TV Media Planning Training No Comments

Brand advertising techniques are very different to direct response advertising techniques.  Even when you are running an integrated multi-channel campaign it is important to understand the key differences between the two approaches so that you can orchestrate your overall campaign plan and budget to deliver maximum ROI. To illustrate some of the key differences here … Read More

How to write a better Marketing Plan

June 17, 2018By Simon FosterMarketing Training

Your marketing plan is an important document, it will help convince others that your business is viable, it will show that you have a plan to grow your business and it will give you a framework in which to build your business. Writing a better marketing plan Most people can write a basic marketing plan. … Read More

A simple definition of marketing

June 6, 2018By Simon FosterMarketing Training No Comments

A quick thought for those who want a simple definition of marketing. There are a number of definitions of marketing. Here are a few of the better ones: Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.  … Read More

TV Media Planning Terms – calculating media reach and frequency using TVRs

April 22, 2018By Simon FosterMedia Buying, Media Planning, TV Media Planning Training No Comments

When media planners develop TV campaign plans they are often optimising the relationship between three sets of numbers: TVRs (or GRPs, or TRPs) – TVRs or TV rating points are a way of sizing target audiences across both demographics and geography. 1 TVR is 1% of a target audience universe as defined by both demographic and … Read More

Understanding brand awareness, consideration and preference

February 13, 2018By Simon FosterAdvertising Evaluation, Marketing Training, Media Planning No Comments

Brand awareness is vitally important in the marketing process. As consumers need to be aware of a product and brand to purchase it, then the more consumers who are aware, the more purchases take place. This hierarchical approach, begins with awareness and moves through consideration and preference to purchase. This hierarchical path is sometimes called … Read More

Advertising Response Rates by Channel

February 15, 2017By Simon FosterAdvertising Evaluation, Direct Mail, Direct Marketing Training, Media Planning No Comments

Understanding response rates by media channel is a vital component of marketing and media planning. If you know the response rates, media costs and likely conversion rates of each channel you are using, you can forecast the ROI of your planned activity – before you spend any budget. This helps to de-risk your marketing activity … Read More

What will Brexit mean for Marketers?

January 29, 2017By Simon FosterGeneral No Comments

Whilst there may be a lot of general uncertainty around Brexit, particularly in the medium term there are some effects that can be forecast with considerable accuracy right now. By far away the biggest short term effects of Brexit will be those caused by currency changes. Since June 2016 we have seen the pound fall … Read More

2017 UK Marketing Predictions

December 21, 2016By Simon FosterGeneral No Comments

Always fun to gaze into the year ahead.  Here are my predictions for 2017: Mobile web use will be an increasing problem for Google: Mobile is now the dominant web use platform. In 2010 over 95% of web activity was delivered via PC, now it’s half that. As of this October, mobile had the edge … Read More

Examples of brilliant Direct Mail

December 2, 2016By Simon FosterDirect Mail

Been digging around for examples of outstanding direct mail. If you’re tired of running emails and banners ads, and you’re looking to make a real creative and intelligent impact, you might want to consider something like this, especially if you have a discrete high value segment and want to get seriously noticed. The Australian Defence … Read More

How to get the best from DRTV

November 30, 2014By Simon FosterDRTV Training, TV Media Planning Training

Many advertisers are returning to Direct Response Television (DRTV). Whilst the goal today is to maximise web response as opposed to phone response, many of the rules of traditional DRTV remain constant. Here’s a summary of how to get the best from Direct Response TV: Remember all DRTV begins with the offer. Whilst issues around … Read More

I’ll second that B2B emotion

September 12, 2014By Simon FosterB2B Marketing, Marketing Training

For some critics, B2B advertising is too rational and doesn’t contain enough emotion. If that’s the case in 2014, then something’s changed since McGraw Hill ran this, perhaps one of the most famous B2B ads in the 1960’s.  This ad is 100% B2B and yet it is stuffed with emotion.  It plays on fears of … Read More