Chart of the day: How data give opportunities to grow a business
I think it's fair to say that improving the quality of marketing data isn't a fashionable or sexy topic. Indeed in a recent article by Keith Weed, Chief Marketing and Communications Officer at Unilever reviewing discussions at AdWeek US he says as much:
"The very unsexy topic of measurement has become a hot conversation
Sorting out the digital ecosystem should be a priority for everyone in our industry. It has been heartening to see this become an increasing focus of conversation over recent months and certainly this past week.
As an advertiser, I want to be able to see one consumer, paid for from one budget, not separated out for online and offline".
In this quote, he is specifically talking about measurement of paid media, but he goes on to look at the importance of customer data more generally across the customer journey.
In…
Chart of the Day: Why subscribers flag email as spam
If consumers mark your email as spam, then this is clearly unwelcome since not only has your brand been tarnished in their eyes, but even worse your delivery rates to existing subscribers could be harmed. So what triggers a 'mark as spam' click? Technology Advice Research asked 472 U.S. adults, "for what reasons have you marked a business' emails as spam?"
The results show that nearly half of customers mark emails as spam because of the frequency of emails. There isn't a one rule fits all in regards to email marketing frequency because each list, segment or country is different and your frequency should match this.
Almost a third of people claimed they hadn't purposefully subscribed to receive to the emails. This does not mean that they have been necessarily "spammed", it could be as simple as 'forced subscribe', which is the implicit…
Chart of the Day: Image and Link post contribute to a 20% decrease in engagement
Analysis of 880 million Facebook posts by brands in the last 12 months conducted by Buzzsumo has revealed that the average engagement was relatively steady in 2016. Come January, engagement started falling and didn't stop until June where we see a small increase. The post types that have seen the biggest decline are image and links post, whereas video has been able to remain consistent.
There could be many reasons why this decline has been so substantial:
The organic reach on Facebook has been falling for years with Facebook pushing brands down the route of paid promotions. The issue with this strategy is that you get lower engagement due to people seeing them as ads rather than interesting content for their favourite pages.
So much content. With an average of over 1,000 stories…
Chart of the Day: CMO survey of investment in alternative strategies for growth
A key part of marketing strategy development is to review the strategic options for growing a business. Here we're sharing a breakdown of actual investment by companies using this classic marketing model that has stood the test of time since it originally dates from the 1960s...
You may recognize Ansoff’s growth model, which is a matrix that can be used to identify alternative growth strategies by looking at present and potential products in current and future markets. The four growth strategies are market penetration, market development, product development, and diversification.
It's no surprise that investment in existing markets is the main focus, followed by new product development. But it's surprising to me that market development and diversification are as high as they are. This breakdown showing the balance between…
Chart of the Day: Inactivity Managment
What is inactivity in email data management?
Your email marketing platform tracks all activity relating to your email marketing, including opens and clicks. It also tracks clients who have not interacted with your emails. Different platforms also rate inactivity differently, for instance, some may class opens still as non-activity because recipients haven't clicked on any links. So, before planning your campaigns it's best to check first.
Win-back campaigns
Win-back campaigns are aimed to re-engage your subscribers. They usually focus on an offer or Unique Selling Point (USP) depending on what you think will entice your subscriber. Your win-back campaigns can be either automated or manual, however, automation does take the hassle from creating one-off manual emails. While planning your campaign, you need to decide on three things:
What does inactive mean for you?
What are you going to do to entice your clients back?
What are you going to…
Chart of the day: Creating the right content is one of the biggest challenges facing marketers when it comes to mobile marketing
Research by Incite Group and Open mobile media, has revealed in their latest State of Mobile report, that content is marketers biggest challenge. Even with advancement in technology, creating the right content and relevant content is still as important as ever, as that's essentially what mobile marketing (in terms of mobile applications and mobile websites) comes down too, the right content.
The research also found that context (and relevance) as well as marketing feeling quite separate from other parts of the business, were big challenges for marketers too.
The research also found:
Understand the customer was the biggest challenge facing mobile product management teams, followed by monetization strategy and fragmented OS environment
Increasing brand awareness and engagement are the biggest objectives for…
Chart of the day: How is the future of search being affected by voice command?
Implementing voice search in your mobile UX is one way that brands can look to engage with their audience - including the use of 'conversational keywords'.
With the rise in voice command software (Siri, Cortana, the production of Amazon Echo Personal assistants), it is slowly becoming more important to rethink voice command SEO.
The text a user types in search may not be the way they speak it if they were using voice search - for example: 'Best tea UK', may be spoken as 'what is the best tea available in the uk?'
Voice search is more conversational, users will more than likely ask questions which is why your keywords need to be tailored to this demand.
In a recent report, Millennials and Gen Z differ in…
Chart of the day: 41% of millennials have followed a brand in the last month
Nike is one of the most engaged with brands on Instagram. A recent study by Global Web Index demonstrates how the company’s latest partnership with Instagram is likely to be a success.
The survey revealed that three-quarters of Nike-Buying Millennials are using Instagram every month, making it the most popular social platform for this audience. This audience is also 41% more likely to have followed a brand in the last month, and 52% are more likely to have commented on brand content.
What does this mean for marketers?
If you are targeting millennials bar in mind their willingness for brand-interaction and brand loyalty on social media. Look at integrating Instagram into your strategy if you are not already using it.
…
Chart of the Day: The popularity of different martech stack components
You will know that our options for using online services to manage marketing and get insight have increased dramatically over the past few years. Scott Brinker's martech landscape now covers over 5000 martech options.
Our own Essential Digital marketing tools wheel covers what we see as 30 categories that are essential to a medium or large transactional e-commerce business that is serious about growth. Smaller businesses with less budget and less need for information sharing can benefit from lower cost or even free tools, but are not likely to have as many tools, but can still benefit.
Given this opportunity, it's become essential to audit your martech stack as part of digital strategy development. So when we completed our joint research about Managing Marketing with the Technology for Marketing event, we were interested to see the popularity of using…
Chart of the Day: Do you do any structured testing for your email marketing?
Why is testing important?
Yes, yes I know I drone on about testing, my little Email Geeks, but like the nagging mother I am, I will repeat myself again.
Testing your marketing campaigns is as important as creating them. The fun thing about testing email campaigns is that what you think your client wants, is completely different to the results.
If we sent a marketing email from two years ago today, do you think it will do well? Like all digital trends, email marketing, and automation changes. Especially in marketing automation. Clients aren't impressed by a welcome sequence - they expect it. But is it doing what you want it to? If you don't have a welcome sequence, do you know that your clients will notice? (Take our Quick Win, "…
