Analyst group Merrill Lynch recently found that spending among women in the US is a staggering $5 trillion dollars a year.

Just as important, is that whilst women determine their own spending habits, they also influence men's spending habits.

I must confess, I am a slow adopter of Instagram. It's not because I didn't believe that it is a good marketing medium or any less of a social media must-have than Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook - but due to the fact that there is only so many applications a person can learn well before you have a major overload and start becoming ineffective.

My business does a little B2C but to be totally honest, we are more B2B marketers than B2C.

Instagram has more than 75 million daily users, and accounts for more than 13% of all internet users. So, why did it take so long to adopt this powerful marketing medium? The truth is that many marketers are slow and lazy for that matter, and have not adopted this medium as fast as they should have and are now failing to provide clients with the right marketing mix to powerfully promote their products and services.

I have been back in Australia for a week and it really has been an incredible experience in so many ways.

I feel more "entrepreneurial" than at any point in the past 12-months which is hard to believe given that Marketing Eye continues to grow, innovate, expand and further cement its position as a world-leading SMB marketing company and this journey is something that I live with every single day.

In July last year #24yrold asked me to buy her a bike as a bonus for her performance as a Marketing Manager with our firm.

I didn't hesitate, as I know that if someone who works hard does exercise, they perform better and more efficiently than those who do not. Once the dollars and cents worked out, I was completely onboard. 

The problem was that we were both in Atlanta, and if one chose to do something, the other usually followed suit. Afterall, there is no point in riding by yourself all the time, as it could be quite lonely and in some cases particularly in a city like Atlanta, dangerous.

Yesterday I had a meeting with a prospect that is about to list a company on the Australian Stock Exchange.

We discussed his plans, then I went through an overview of Marketing Eye and what we do. In my overview, I discuss four different areas of our business; outsourced marketing department, technology, media and education.

When I go through media, I always discuss our publication Marketing Eye Magazine and the company's significant social media presence. In particular, I talk about the number one reason people arrive at our website, our blog.

He said, "I know about your blog. I saved one of them to my iphone in 2013 that resonated with me". 

There is one question that is on every marketers lips. While traditional marketers who are focused on outbound marketing place their faith in creativity and understanding customers' wants and needs, the sneaky inbound marketers are finally having their day in the sunshine.

There is no doubt still a place for outbound marketing, but for any company that really cares about their customers and are open to ensuring that they have the ultimate customer experience, inbound marketing is really the only way forward.

There are many challenges running an international marketing agency. The first being the tyranny of distance, with travel being instrumental in providing real life face-time in front of staff and clients. The second, the fact that many marketers struggle to be abreast of the latest in marketing techniques and technologies.

We have built a business on education and the training of marketers through on-the-job experiences. When someone has worked for a year at Marketing Eye, they are equipped to do any marketing job. It's something we pride ourselves on and has set us apart from the rest of the pack of small to medium sized business marketers.

When a marketing manager starts at Marketing Eye, they often feel overwhelmed. They need to learn fast and efficiently, and face-time with clients is always within weeks of starting through meetings and online communications, which require them to know everything there is to know about the client and exactly what the clients marketing expectations are.

Companies put in place inside sales models to excelerate sales performance. The problem with this is that when it actually occurs, you need to be prepared. That means having all the systems and processes in place to take on new clients and onboard them in a manner that keeps them engaged long after signing the contract.

Marketing Eye has a well-documented strategy. We work with a flat organizational structure with no defined hierarchy, just a team of self starters and people capable of making a difference to the businesses in which they work.

We collaborate our efforts and always work using a team approach preferring to hire all fulltime employees rather than bring teams of people together that are not able to collaborate at the same level as an internal team may be able to do so.

Every now and again I have to take stock and start all over again. It's not necessarily because I have gotten something wrong. Instead, it's usually because I travel so much and am exposed to some of the most brilliant minds in business, who kindly share their thoughts and philosophies with me, that somewhere along the line, I become inspired or a thought makes more sense than the original plan.

A catalyst for change is the inate desire to be better. To do things in a way that transcends what may be normally expected, and sets in motion a purposeful action leading to an end goal.

The world is your oyster... yet so many of us still spend far too much time behind our desks.

It's hard to leave the comfort of your cushy office chair, surrounded by what has become our most familiar items; our desk, our computer, our coffee cup and an endless ream of notepads.

I challenged myself as the new year came around to be more effective in the office. While I will never have a 4 hour work week (who really does?), I certainly plan to utilise my time in the office on productive "on the business" not "in the business" tactical items.