Chart of the day: Research with almost 1,000 content marketers reveals how important content marketing is to marketing teams.
Most people say content marketing is at the core of the marketing team.
Please note that the research is split into visionaries and leaders, those who are experts in content marketing or leaders. Most marketers also use an editorial calendar.
If you're looking for an editorial calendar, Smart Insights have one right here.
Content marketing is a huge part of marketing, it works with SEO, email marketing, and social media. Quality content drives traffic and conversions.
The research also found that most content is produced by the marketing team or freelancers, marketing have control of the content that goes out and agencies are used by just 10% of respondents. This suggests that marketing as a whole are…
Chart of the day: Most user research is conducted to understand customers and their needs
Understanding customers needs and testing prototypes or wireframes are the primary reasons for customer research, according to a survey of over 2000 professionals by UserTesting.com
Interestingly, over half (53%) conduct user testing, or use user testing results to inform senior management or stakeholders. It's great to see research is being used to show management and stakeholders evidence for a particular cause and to influence change, based on customer needs.
The power of user research is profound
The study also found that UX research is influencing better quality products and services, as well as that the voice of the customer is considered hugely important.
User research is also having a positive effect on marketing campaigns too. It's great to see marketing teams are bought…
Chart of the day: A comparison ranking AB testing services used for structured experiments to boost conversion
In our Essential Digital Marketing Tools infographic and guide we recommended the top 5 tools for AB and Multivariate testing in category 19 of 30. Our recommendations focused on the best value tools for small and mid-size businesses, but the popularity of the services will vary by company size and there are many more options than the 5 we have recommended.
This analysis by Datanyze shows number of websites using one of the services for AB and multivariate testing divided by the total number of websites using any of the technologies. This is shown for the top 1 millions sites by traffic as ranked by Alexa.
We're fortunate to have a number of services like Datanyze which crawl sites categorising the Javascript tags of different tools (others include…
Chart of the day: Most user experience (UX) research is conducted during the design and prototyping phase
76% do UX research during the design and prototyping phase, whilst 72% do user research before design and development.
Just over half (52%) also do user research after launching. It isn't recommended to only do testing after launch, though doing user testing at all is better than not doing it at all. It just makes it harder to make changes after launch. It's certainly best to get the feedback early, to make changes early. It might take more time to test before launch and at various stages, but it certainly saves time in the long run. Those surveyed certainly seem to think the same as the vast majority test before launch. Some of those testing after launch will also be testing at other stages before launch…
Chart of the Day: The top reasons which stop consumers converting on smartphone
The m-commerce gap is a well-known and growing challenge for retailers. We all know the tremendous growth in the use of smartphones shown by the rise in % of mobile share of digital minutes which, as our mobile-smartphone stats summary shows stands at 71% in the US, 62% in Canada, 61% in the UK and higher in Latin (Mexico, 75%) and South America (Brazil, 72%) and higher still in Asia (China, 71% and Indonesia 91%).
The problem for retailers is that ecommerce conversion rates on smartphones are significantly lower than desktop. Smartphone conversion rates are at about half of conversion rates on desktop, as a rule of thumb. This is partly inevitable since some smartphone users will prefer to make the purchase on desktop for convenience when they may prefer to browse on smartphone. Yet, many retailers will still…
Chart of the day: According to research by Salesforce, over half of ad spend is allocated to Facebook (including Instagram) or search marketing (Including Google search)
In the previous year, 30% of ad budget was allocated to Facebook and Instagram and 28% was allocated to Google and Bing paid search ads. Facebook budget is expected to increase slightly by 1% to 31% and search budget allocation is expected to stay the same at 28%. Compared to other channels such as youTube, Display, and Linkedin, Pinterest and Snapchat etc. Facebook and Google are dominating the ad space with most ad budget allocated to them.
Next year, 66% of digital ad spend will go to Google, Facebook, Instagram and Youtube.
Over the last year, 65% of businesses have increased their video advertising budget, with more money going on video on Facebook, Instagram and Youtube.
…
Chart of the Day: Reasons why marketers are considering a change of job
As companies continue to grow and the competition increases, staff retention seems to be a recurrent issue for any employer hiring marketers. Especially as the new year unfolds, marketers might decide to pave their career paths differently to what their company allows.
Companies should seize the desire for learning and development express by their employees and find newer ways to fulfill marketers in their current working environment, be it through new opportunities for growth or make them feel valued for their contribution.
It is imperative for companies to critically understand when people are likely to move on and the motivations that have driven their decision. Andre Rickerby, CMO at Moonpig, asserts the vital need for a business to set their own working culture, referring to that as a “massive retention tool in itself”.
Marketing Week Career and Salary Survey shows that while…
Chart of the Day: Research from Nielsen shows the popularity of Consumer Packaged Goods categories via Ecommerce
Fast moving packaged consumer goods (FMCG) aren't the most obvious types of products to buy online. In the early days of Ecommerce categories such as books, videos, fashion and electronic retail dominated. Yet this has changed. This new research shows how, particularly in some categories, a high proportion of some FMCG.
The chart shows how over 40% of consumers in the US have ever purchased online in categories such as Health, Personal Care, Household products and Pet Care. Even in the last three months, the figure is more than 30% suggesting a significant number of consumers are regularly buying in this category.
Although such non-food FMCG are popular when you look at food products such as fresh and frozen the figures are a lot lower - at the…
Chart of the Day: What are the biggest barriers to GDPR compliance? Part 2 of 2
What happened last time?
Like mentioned in part one of this series, 'Death, Taxes and GDPR', we looked if companies are going to be compliant by 25th May 2018 when the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) comes into force in all 28 countries in Europe. We are now going to look into what is actually stopping companies from meeting the deadline.
The majority are struggling
We understand that most are struggling with meeting the deadline. But what is it that they are struggling with? The chart below displays the recent research by the IAPP and TrustArc, who surveyed nearly 500 privacy professionals in the US and EU. The first barrier hindering the US is the complexity of the law (38%), while a quarter (25%) of companies surveyed the EU have an inadequate budget. The second reason for…
Chart of the Day: What emerging behaviours are consumers showing as they interact with digital assistants and what are the implications for marketers?
At the moment the physical and virtual papers are full of reviews and consumer experiences of the different options for home smart speakers. It's no surprise, since this is one of the biggest trends in tech, with 50+ million voice assistants due to ship in 2018 as I showed in my last article on smart speaker forecasts.
We're also seeing emerging research on how consumers are interacting with these speakers which is useful for marketers and brands who are working out how they can potentially interact with audiences. In this article, I share some of the latest consumer research from Google. Here is their research summary. I found the figure that 70% of queries to the Google Assistant are natural language since this shows the increasing importance of optimising…
