The B2B Marketing Expo Excel; Wednesday, 23 November 2022

These Marketing Expos are well worth attending for meeting new people and attending free seminars, with great content and ideas. Also, you get to meet the suppliers and producers of new techniques and ideas.

We had some really good reflections from the students as well as Marketing Club Leader, Giles Robertson, who attended the Excel Future of Marketing conference at Excel London on 23 November 2022.


Students attending marketing Club visit

Qeiser Nazir – first year student (BSc Marketing)
“The marketing expo was a great place to explore the latest technology and marketing trends. I heard a talk about change and how data insights are ever more important in the digital landscape. As a marketing student the expo was very insightful I got to network with people within the industry and had the opportunity to ask questions regarding careers in the future. Overall a great experience to enhance my marketing knowledge and meet industry insiders. Thank you to the Marketing Club for the opportunity. A day well spent”.

Gosia Jablonska – first year student (BSc Media, Marketing and PR)
“Marketing expo was an interesting experience, showing interesting changes in promoting a product or brand, but not only how variable is the target audience and the place of promotion of the product or brand.

Thank you for amazing experience and met a few lovely people ☺️”

Alan Nawanga - third year (BSC Communications and Reputation Management)
“Last week at the marketing expo I was more impressed with the business whatspp marketing team. Here is some of the most important information I received from the customer service about the what's app marketing. Well, *75%* of adults surveyed in 2020 said they want to communicate with a business the same way they do with friends and family through messaging.

That means that if you're not using messaging to communicate with your customers, you could be losing out on a valuable channel for building your business”.

What next for digital marketing?

We really enjoyed hearing about how brands are integrating their digital.

Integration

No longer a passive pushing content out but integrated with the social media at the heart eco system with CRM, Helpdesk and part of marketing automation.

Brands are conciliating their data and using this intelligently to understand the brand’s health and competitive insights. It’s no longer the preserve of the 22 year old graduate.

Authenticity

A Sprout social index showed that 90% say authenticity is a key driver of their choice of brand. And 81% say it is important to for brands to raise awareness of issues and take a stand on them.

We looked at John Lewis Beginners ad with skate boarding dad to be, which had 217 million impressions 6 hours after launch – with John Lewis focusing on children in care and fostering.

Brand equity is such a driver and we saw from our speaker that images of Halifax bank and infamous Howard Brown (staff member featured in the ads) he saw as a child, influenced his decisions of which bank to trust years later. People buy from People, but not from all these big celebs used as influencers. We need to be selective with influence.

Prioritise right platforms and Gen Z

We need to think about meet customers where they are…, which sounds obvious and not be led by fads but what is right for your brand and your people.

Social is the main shop window for most people but particularly Gen Zs, with 78% using social to learn about new brands. We need to use a Social first lens with our engagement and ensure a speedy response with Ecommerce. We need to always be on Social in app and a click through to the website (maximum In 3 clicks to sale).

Under cooked social

With cost per thousand for reach increasing for Meta (Facebook), why not take a risk with newer channels like TikTok? Experiment with 10% of your budget?

Pinterest works so well for homes, as we have seen with Argos but it is little utilised by mainstream brands.

And LinkedIn is often neglected by marketing people who are often the worst on LinkedIn; not treating people like real people! And we forget that SEO works just as well on LinkedIn.