First Step Media

“90% even say they’d try a company’s products for the first time in exchange for it taking a stand on social matters”

In today’s ever changing world, lack of innovation and creativity is business suicide. Ideate, test, gather data, adapt and repeat. Standing still won’t win you the race

‘Clarity and planning can give you an extra edge in anything you wish to accomplish. What will you accomplish this year?’

Coffee credit @dulcineamx - Social proof is one of the most important psychological triggers for people when buying online. Humans are social creatures - if we see that other people have purchased and liked a product. We’re far more likely to make a purchase ourselves.

During the age of social media and digital disruption the social issues that plague our world have been brought to the forefront allowing for the frank discussions to take place on how they can be best tackled. This has to led to a new form of capitalism, one of social enterprise. A business which sells a product or service of which a proportion of their profits go to fighting for or helping a cause. One example recently which caught my attention was on the US version of the ...dragons den (Shark Tank). The company is called BOMBAS. For every pair of socks you buy they give one back to the homeless as they found it was the number one requested item at shelters. In the new age of consumerism where they really care about what is happening in this world and love to feel apart of the solution. This could be a perfect way to help grow your business whilst helping society. Find an issue either correlated to your business or one close to your heart, you can then make a collab/partnership or simply donate some of your profit to the charity/cause of your choice. Can you adjust to this evolution in capitalism and shifting consumer demand?
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“More than 10% of the global population will use an over the top video service, such as Netflix or Amazon Prime, at least once a month in 2018”

“Despite the fact economic confidence has fallen, the UK’s affluent households (earning £100,000 or more per year) have increased their purchasing of luxury items. This poses an opportunity for marketers and business alike. Is there an opportunity to take a piece of this lucrative section of the market.

One of the greatest scientists of our time and arguably in history gives a simple strategy when it comes to getting the work done. Sit down and you work until you physically can’t work anymore, then work some more. The get rich quick schemes of this generation combined with the reduced attention span due to our mobile devices have taken away from the raw ability to simply sit down and get work done. As famous motivational speaker Erik Thomas says “Some of you will end up a failure because of this little device in your pocket”. Find clarity, find what you want to do. Test, fail and then learn. Game on 🤜

Instagram say that brands shouldn’t be worried about Instagram extending its shopping function to Stories last month. It believes it will democratise brand building and shift consumer behaviour from window shopping to purchase. This allows the friction of purchase to be reduced to such minimal amounts, it allows the smaller brands to gain traction based off their merits instead of being pushed out by the bigger brands expensive retail locations or fancy websites.

Data is so fundamentally important to improving your business performance. For any company having a deep understanding of its market, audience and customer is crucial to its success and its efficiency in marketing and prospecting leads. Building data capabilities and competencies into the core of your business operations has to be a priority!

Data is so fundamentally important to improving your business performance. For any company having a deep understanding of its market, audience and customer is crucial to its success and its efficiency in marketing. Building data capabilities into the core of your business operations has to be a priority as its those who fundamentally understand the data and correctly apply it in conjunction with the right creative who will come out on top.

Social media is not only a great tool for reaching your audience, delivering valuable contact and interacting with your customers. But it is a place to offer customer service, one way of doing this is designing a chat bot and using it deliver answers to your FAQ’s as this will help a customer understand your business further and move them along the funnel.

Content is still king, remember that content is something that gives value to your consumer. As Mark Cuban famously preaches “know your audience”. Once you know that, it’s possible to produce specifically content that will give value to your audience!

Half the battle is just showing up everyday for an extended period of time. Keep focus ;)

“The amount of data available means there is a risk it will drive marketers decision-making at the expense of creativity, according to Diesel’s chief marketing officer”. Gary Vaynerhuck opinion on this is that marketing is about the marriage of creativity and science. The data is only half the equation!

If you look at high performers they have a goal, focus or passion which their energy is funnelled into. In order to succeed at the highest levels you need clarity, firing from the hip and hoping you’ll succeed doesn’t work. Want to know Tony Robbins secret for success? 1. Know what you want 2. Know why you want it 3. Take massive action 4. Put in enormous work 5. Constantly adapt your approach until you succeed
... Have a plan A and burn the bridges to plan B
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Apples stores as Apples “biggest product”, the senior VP for retail
“Experts say digital is going to grow at three times the rate of physical. In the next five years McKinsey says that 75% of people will shop online, but 75% of the business will still be done in physical stores and so retail is not going away,” Ahrendts explained.
She sees physical stores as space for human experience, a reason why typically a third of square footage in all new Apple stores is dedicated to th...e delivery of the brand’s year-old education programme, Today at Apple.
Seventeen years ago, late Apple founder Steve Jobs instructed his first retail employees simply to enrich people’s lives, which is why staff are hired for empathy and not to sell. They have no sales quotas and, unusually for retail, do not receive commission. Ahrendts is clear that she never regards the retail teams as a cost. “They’re our ambassadors, they’re our greatest differentiator. This is something that Apple has that Amazon and Alibaba and nobody else has – people on the front line. And remember they’re hired to this day to enrich lives,” she explained. “I’ve told them that my job is to enrich their lives as much as they do the customers they serve and so I want to unlock their creative thinking.”
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