strategy
Show Pony Fashion uses social media to make $1M in first year. Who says Australian retail doesn’t understand Facebook?
Founded little over a year ago on the back of a credit card ‘investment’ Show Pony Fashion has defied the industry trend of sliding sales to post it’s first million dollars in revenue. A combination of internationally-inspired, Australian-designed and affordable garments coupled with an intelligent approach to social media and ecommerce seems to have struck a chord with Australia’s fashion-conscious women.
Do events deliver customers or just good vibes? [Should events really be part of your marketing strategy?]
I am often asked to put together events for clients, and despite all my best efforts to suggest alternate activities, they insist I go ahead. When my concerns come to the fore, they then say, “The ROI on that wasn’t great,” or my favourite, “We didn’t get many people, what went wrong?” And one thing I have learnt is that clients really don’t like to hear, “I told you so.”
6 digital marketing tips that I learnt from the Driving Your Business seminar
My husband Robert and I started our business only six years ago. We have always used TV and print advertising to drive business, but it has taken a while to get our heads around online marketing. Last week, we attended the Yellow Pages Driving Your Business Series digital marketing seminar in Brisbane, and picked up some really important tips that we can now use in our own business. These are the top six hot tips that we took away from the event.
The Rise of the Social Economy, Part 3: How to begin a social media strategy [in six steps]
Many companies have been adopting an approach to social media based on an assumption that it is ‘free’. They have set up accounts and hoped it will work. It won’t. Hope is not a strategy, and social media takes time to get right – so it can’t be free. So let’s walk through the basic steps.
Should Anthill adopt the Groupon model?
Last week, I posted a story that asked Anthill readers to suggest new revenue streams. The post was triggered by a theft (and the loss of some expensive equipment). The surprising flood of responses to this post, received by phone, email, tweets, Facebook messages and, of course, your comments had me both thrilled and alarmed. It also got me thinking.
Is Telstra bribing its new customers? [Or just awarding 'Loyalty Bonuses'?]
Recently, I was in the market for a good business plan for my mobile account. I found Telstra the best in terms of network coverage, so I decided to give them a call to see if they could sweeten the deal. Happily, instead of the advertised three months of credit, I was offered six months. “Yes, sign me up!” Then, the salesperson said something very amusing…
If you don’t like ‘selling’, here are 5 rules to ease the burden
It’s time to ask that important question, ‘So, do we have a deal.’ But instead, your stomach starts to stir with anxiety, your hands get sweaty, you begin to question your sense of self-worth (or lack thereof) and, before you know it, not only have you failed to close the sale, you’ve inadvertently demonstrated your lack of belief in the offer (through your hesitation) and started to actually talk down the product in some misguided attempt to demonstrate that you are, indeed, not a salesperson! What are you thinking!
What your business can learn from computer games
I’ve been trying to work up a new equation. Could it be that business models that demand a certain (albeit tiny) amount of exertion from the customer, in return for a proportionate (or slightly greater) and guaranteed reward, are more likely to build brand loyalty than those which provide a solution that’s seemingly effortless to achieve?
Solving the puzzle of Google’s social networking strategy
Google’s acquisition of SocialDeck at the end of August made it the 11th social media-related company Google has snapped up so far this year – five of them in August alone. The buying spree raises questions as to where the company is heading with its much-anticipated play in social networking. What Google needs, and what is not yet evident, is a coherent strategy for social networking that pulls together the disjointed pieces of its growing social media portfolio.
What do balloons, purple cows and Dyson fans have in common?
When Godin uses the word ‘remarkable’, he’s applying the word’s most literal definition; things that are worth making ‘remarks’ about. In many ways, the following clip is a product demonstration. Yet, here am I, sharing it with tens of thousands of people, for free. Now that’s remarkable! (Quite literally.)









