While most of the focus these days is on social media, small businesses should not overlook the role email marketing can play as part of an integrated digital marketing strategy. The Effective email marketing for SMEs event, held on Friday 24 February from 12:30 will cover the do’s and don’ts of email marketing and some of the more advanced features of the medium.

You’ll hear from Rechenda Smith, Head of Email Marketing, little green plane. Rechenda heads up the email marketing function at little green plane, the email marketing division of Itineris, a multi-award winning digital marketing agency based in Suffolk and central London.

Prices start from just £10 and the event is worth 1 hour of CPD. Find out more and book today.

The Chartered Institute of Marketing is predicting the demise of separate marketing and sales departments within the next ten years in it latest paper, ‘Marketing and Sales fusion?’ The paper takes the Institute’s centenary year as a motivation to reflect on the history of marketing and sales, and to consider the future direction of both disciplines.  It argues that businesses who have integrated their sales and marketing functions have experienced significant benefits, while those companies retaining separate departments are hindering their own growth.

Launched in London, the paper proposes that marketing has reached an evolutionary cul-de-sac, and must return to its roots in sales to continue to develop in the next decade. 

Members can download the paper, at no additional charge, and find out why we believe it could be time for marketing and sales to fuse together and work as one. Non members can purchase the paper for just £15 from CIM Direct

Thanks to Green & Black’s Direct this month, one lucky member will win a Green & Black’s Chocolate Lovers Hamper.

Packed full of mouth-watering delights including their Chocolate Conversations varieties and the best selling Miniature Bar Collection, it’s the ultimate indulgence. Also included are four of Green & Black’s organic chocolate bars, White to Dark chocolate filled with peppermint fondant.

Enter prize draw
For the chance to this chocolate dream prize, simply answer a few quick questions. The deadline for entries is 31 December 2011.

In front of over 100 attendees, the London region launched its first East London event last week, the hugely successful Marketing and the 2012 Games Conference.

It was fantastic to see London members at the conference getting involved by tweeting throughout the event – take a look at #CIMgamesconf. And it was a great forum to gauge interest in forming an East London team of volunteers.

Shaun Whatling, Nick Johnson, Phil Preston, Alex Balfour and David Magliano

The conference was held at The University of East London and arranged by London volunteer Maria Cenalmor. The top line up of speakers included David Magliano MBE, Former Director of Marketing, London 2012 who presented the inspiring film which helped London win next year’s Games. David demonstrated how London’s bid was completely different from the other contenders. TeamGB focussed on inspiring youth around the world to take part in sport, whereas other countries just highlighted the benefits of the host city. This strategy gave us the edge. Plus, Alex Balfour, Nick Johnson and Shaun Whatling talked about social media, law and sponsorship for the Games.

If this has sparked your interest and you’d like more information about volunteering and forming an East London team, please email Maria.

John Lewis is using ‘Made in UK’ on over 4,000 products as part of their Corporate Social Responsibility programme. So I’d like to know if London members think that ‘Made In’ is relevant to today’s consumers.

My opinion is that it works for certain countries. Switzerland is synonymous with fine timepieces, Germany highly regarded for precision machinery, Italy is the ultimate for gold jewellery, and France is associated with perfumes and luxury accessories.

What does Made In mean?
It sounds obvious, but it needs defining. Currently, as long as imported goods are 51% produced in Europe, it can qualify as ‘Made In’. But we suspect that John Lewis has a more stringent category, because as a British retailer, their customers expect it to support other British firms when it can.

What does it mean for Britain?
What do you think ‘Made in Britain’ conveys? Is it design, creativity, quality, traditionalism? Let me know your thoughts on @CIMLondon Twitter. Certainly, ‘Made In’ triggers the emotions and branding is all about emotional connections.

So maybe its time to ride the wave of British Pride – keep calm and carry on style.

I recently had the pleasure of speaking to a meeting of the London region of the CIM, sharing the platform with Anthony Thomson, chairman of Metro Bank.

My theme for the evening was marketing’s readiness to lead change and develop powerful customer experiences. After 8 years as CMO of Hilton International, striving to transform that great brand’s customer experience on a global basis, I had a few ideas I was keen to share.

The challenge facing just about any business today is leading and managing change in order to improve competitive performance.  Managing change is a complex and costly field.  It’s fraught with pitfalls and success generally requires specialist knowledge and experience.

Yet despite this, how many businesses hire specialist managers or external support with a proven track record of delivering successful change programmes? In my experience very few, which is perhaps why so many change initiatives falter. The pattern of “launch it – neglect it – re-launch it” is a familiar one yet CEOs, COOs and CMOs continue to make the same mistakes.

When it comes to brand and customer experience, marketing should surely be the catalyst for major internal change…change that transforms what customers receive…change powerful enough to influence customer buying decisions. Marketing should be the glue that holds everything together, harnessing the energy and talent of all key functions to achieve the desired outcome.

The question is, are marketing departments and CMOs, sufficiently equipped and influential to lead the change that’s required….to secure the necessary investment…to persuade and unify senior colleagues and inspire people behind a shared vision?

A recent CIM survey suggests that in far too many cases the answer is NO, a conclusion reinforced by continuing debate about the lack of robust financial, operational and broad-based commercial skills that are essential for anyone wishing to influence business strategy and shape customer experience.

In my experience of leading and managing change across organisations like Hilton, Stakis Group and ScotRail and with clients at ABCG, the most common barriers to successful change continue to be:

• Failing to identify all costs and plan adequate investment  2-3 years ahead
• Failing  to anticipate & plan for the operational complexity of change and resources required
• Failure to deliver sustained programmes of engagement and communicate over time
• Failure to identify & remove the infrastructure that stifles change & rewards ‘old’ behaviour.

These prickly issues are at the heart of managing change and shaping competitive strategy.  In my view, these are issues with which CMOs and aspiring marketing leaders must be conversant if we’re to play the leadership role our chosen discipline demands.  So may I humbly suggest that it’s time to dig into the nuts & bolts of what really makes out businesses run, to build our experience and with it our credibility and demand to be heard at the most senior levels.  We owe it to our customers.

Mike Ashton’s website is http://www.abcg.co.uk/

Here’s something to get your teeth into! The chocolatiers at luxury brand Hotel Chocolat are offering London members the chance to win the ultimate pamper package for the chocolate lover in your life. Worth £75, this luxury hamper is brimming with chocolate goodies including milks, darks, truffles, nuts and caramel canapés.

All you need to do is answer a few questions to be entered into the prize draw. The deadline is 25 November 2011.

If you haven’t been to one of Hotel Chocolat’s stylish shops, it really is a must. Immerse yourself in the atmosphere and discover their devotion to making exciting, adventurous chocolate by unearthing exceptional ingredients and using plenty of passion. Hotel Chocolat continues to be a British-owned phenomenon brazenly committed to real, authentic chocolate.

To find out more, drop in and bliss out with their free in store chocolate tasting or go to www.hotelchocolat.co.uk

Events are a big part of the London region. Your team works hard to deliver relevant events and conferences to give you the very latest industry developments and to support your Continued Professional Development.

There are many events on the horizon in London, and take a look at one that’s coming up in October.

Mobile marketing

27 October, 18:00
CPD hours: 2
BBP Business School, St Mary’s Axe

This event includes the latest research from the Institute and will offer you an insight into how mobile marketing is developing and how it can be used effectively as part of an integrated digital marketing campaign. Find out more and book today.

Achieving Chartered Marketer status is the mark of an up to date, experienced and qualified marketing professional. As more and more members register for Continuous Professional Development every year on the course to achieve this status, we take a look and congratulate the Greater London members who have become chartered this year.
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The list is valid up to 11 October 2011.

Redemption

Of course there’s only one thing to write about this month … my summer holiday. I have just returned from two weeks bobbing about in the Mediterranean on a big boat. The big boat in question was the Celebrity Eclipse, a 122,000 gross tons floating luxury hotel cum resort catering for nearly 3,000 demanding passengers.

This wasn’t the first cruise ship my wife and I have been on – over the past 8 years we have been happy to spend as much of our children’s inheritance as we can on cruise holidays, alternating between P&O and Princess Cruises, but this year we fancied a change.

We chose the Celebrity Eclipse not necessarily for the itinerary, the service, entertainment, bars, restaurants, gym, casino, pools, cabins or the cost. The other cruise ships we have been on all offer similar facilities and services. What did it for us was the attraction of the Celebrity brand – and in particular the contemporary, genuinely exciting and unique design of the ship itself.

From the fully grown tree suspended in mid-air in one of two 12 deck atriums, the modern art and sculptures that adorned the stairwells and The Lawn Club (it really was grass) on deck 15 where we played boules each evening before getting ready for dinner, the only way to describe the on-board experience was “cool”.

I think it was Tom Peters who once said, “Design, as I see it, is arguably the #1 determinant of whether a product-service-experience stands out … or doesn’t”, so making something “cool” seems like a pretty good marketing strategy to me.

But if you are really going to win hearts and minds you have also got to deliver exceptional customer service as part of the whole package. This is where Celebrity Cruises also excelled – or to be more precise, redeemed themselves.

The second part of our cruise experience story relates to the Pool Butler “service”. On the basis that there were not enough sun beds for every passenger Pool Butlers would remove towels from any beds that were unoccupied for more than 30 minutes – freeing them up for other passengers to use.

Not a problem if you are taking a quick 10 minute dip in the pool, but what if you want to take more than 30 minutes for lunch and don’t want to have to search for another premium spot on the sundeck when you get back? You are on holiday – you don’t need this stress! Why should you have to leave a note on your bed saying “Gone to lunch, back soon” (yes, I actually tried this).

To cut a long story short, on two occasions my wife fell victim to over-zealous Pool Butlers removing her towel from her sun bed even though she had not exceeded the 30 minute limit, and when she complained to the officer in charge of the sundeck she got little sympathy.

Fortunately, guest relations were more understanding and not only apologised but also instantly provided us with two large, extra-soft gold coloured bath towels, normally reserved for passengers occupying suites, to use on our sun beds for the rest of the cruise. We were assured that the Pool Butlers, or “Pool Bullies” as we nicknamed them, wouldn’t dare remove them, even after 30 minutes. That evening they also sent a note of apology to our cabin accompanied by a bottle of champagne.

So next year we will be cruising on the Celebrity Silhouette, the newest ship in the fleet – essentially the result of a luxury brand living up to and exceeding its promise. We just need to buy a couple of large, extra-soft gold coloured bath towels and we will have another stress-free holiday.

If you are interested in the subjects of Customer Experience Management and Design keep your eyes peeled for two CIM events taking place in London. The first is on 29 September when leading customer experience consultant Mike Ashton, former Senior Vice President, Marketing & Brand Management of Hilton International and Anthony Thomson, Chairman of Metro Bank take to the podium. And early next year the CIM Creative Communications market interest group hope to run a session on Design in partnership with the Design Business Association.