The blog

Big news came out last week: new research done in the Belgian retail sector claims sustainability is not a decision driver when choosing a supermarket brand. Especially for younger consumers (18-29). Does this mean you should shift your sustainable marketing spending? We think you shouldn’t. Read on if you dare. 😉

Implementing Growth Marketing in a highly regulated environment like pharma sounds like a crazy idea, right? How could you, if you’re dealing with many limitations and barriers such as the overload of policies and restrictions, the high involvement of different stakeholders, the long validation and approval processes and the lack of a structured approach when starting a new project? Moreover, physicians and patients often show a lack of digital engagement through digital channels. So why would you even consider it, as the world of Growth Marketing seems just too different from the world of pharma?

I struggled, but I had fun while doing it. This is what sums up my Immersion Camp experience.

Let’s start with a question. What do you think is the most polluting: a paper advertisement brochure or a marketing email? Let me guess, you said the paper brochure. Actually, the answer is not that simple.   In this article, we discuss a more sustainable alternative for paper brochures that will at the same time increase your conversion rate. I will start by telling you this much - the solution lays in the combination of emails and paper folders. It’s all about the right content, on the right time in the right shape. But first let’s look at some data. Are you more interested in the solution, in that case you can directly go to the second part.

Healthcare companies arrived rather late at the digital party, but the good news is that they are catching up as we speak, which makes this an extremely exciting time! As many of our customers active in the healthcare industry, we are witnessing an interesting shift. Not only are companies setting up partnerships and ecosystems with tech providers or start-ups, but they are also taking steps within their organizations by, for example, creating new job roles with a focus on digital and/or customer experience.  

When a company starts, their focus generally lies on attracting new customers. Their marketing efforts are therefore almost 100% focused on customer acquistion. It is at this moment that the value of a real marketing generalist shines through, and they get praised (yes, you should praise your marketing team from time to time, we like that) for being able to create an overall story and strategy which makes sense and brings in new business. However, where this approach makes complete sense in the beginning, chances are that once your company has reached a certain level of maturity, there is less and less value to be won with new customers. Instead, more efforts need to shift towards the existing customer base, and so should your marketing team's competencies.

Today we see that companies taking sustainability into account are more likely to outperform less sustainable competitors. This is very good news. It shows that sustainability is not just a buzzword, on the contrary, sustainability can create a competitive advantage if done right. In this article we look at how those companies outperform their competitors and give you the tools to do the same.

Ghosts may seem to be at work in your e-mail statistics, with some strange goings-on in. Understand what is really happening and learn how to correct the open rate errors and be smarter than your fellow-marketers.

Last week, I attended the UBA Trends Day 2021. For the second consecutive year, UBA organized this annual marketing conference virtually. In addition to a very promising line-up composed of Seth Godin, Katrina Dodd and Martin Lindstrom, two innovation and customer experience evangelists (that I love to follow), Peter Hinssen and Steven Van Belleghem, were co-hosting the event.

Let’s start with the story of the plastic bag. Go back 10 years to the days when it was normal to use a new plastic bag every time you went to get groceries. Your behavior has probably changed by now. And although this change in behavior can be put down to a number of drivers, your retailer is certainly an important one. By charging a small fee for plastic bags and making sure reusable ones were easily accessible at the check-out, retailers helped change their consumers’ behavior.