Set the right goals for digital marketing using the 5Ss
Do your set of goals for online marketing cover all the bases? A good set of digital marketing goals covers a range of different measures to help set, review, and control performance across all digital marketing activities. In this article, we cover the 5S framework which are a simple method to gain more focus on how digital marketing can support a business.
The 5Ss are a great simple framework, as the examples show. It's worth bearing in mind that goals are broader than objectives which we recommend as essential for setting targets and reviewing performance using digital marketing dashboards. If you need to use a more data-driven approach to digital marketing, see these primers or our free template for more examples:
Setting SMART objectives for…
Marketing plan integrating the RACE Framework alongside PR Smith's SOSTAC® planning model
Given the increasingly omnichannel nature of marketing today, applying an effective, data-driven approach to your marketing strategy is more important than ever. But it can be difficult finding a structure that works for your team and integrates your objectives across your customers' journeys. That's where SOSTAC® and the RACE Framework come in.
For marketers looking to rapidly grow their businesses through an insights-driven, efficient and streamlined marketing strategy, we recommend utilizing the Smart Insights RACE framework to get started. This popular structure enables marketing managers and teams to critically evaluate each stage of their marketing funnels across the customer lifecycle of Plan - Reach - Act - Convert - and Engage.
SOSTAC® is another widely used tool for marketing and business planning. The positioning of the SOSTAC® planning model divides up the close working that agile digital marketers seek to create…
Examples of using the BCG Matrix (Growth Market Share Matrix) to review your product portfolio
What is the BCG Matrix?
The Boston Consulting Group’s product portfolio matrix (BCG matrix) is designed to help with long-term strategic planning, to help a business consider growth opportunities by reviewing its portfolio of products to decide where to invest, to discontinue, or develop products. It's also known as the Growth/Share Matrix.
The Matrix is divided into 4 quadrants based on an analysis of market growth and relative market share, as shown in the diagram below.
1. Dogs: These are products with low growth or market share
2. Question marks or Problem Child: Products in high growth markets with low market share
3. Stars: Products in high-growth markets with high market share
4. Cash cows: Products in low growth markets with high market share
BCG Modelling is not a new phenomenon,…
Examples of applying the Pareto principle to marketing
The 80:20 rule, equally well known as the Pareto principle, is widely used and abused in business, but how does it apply to marketing and digital marketing? In this post I review some marketing applications.
Wikipedia tells us that the Pareto principle is named after Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, who noted in 1906 that 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the population. Apparently Pareto developed what would later be known as his principle by observing that 20% of the pea pods in his garden contained 80% of the peas! Although there is some doubt whether he mentioned the 80:20 principle as such, it is known formally known as a specific power-law distribution and named as a Pareto distribution based on an analysis in the 1940s of production quality / flaws by…
E-commerce businesses cannot stay on one platform if they want to get ahead of the competition. This is where e-commerce multichannel marketing comes in
Channel loyalty doesn’t exist; buyers check different channels before they make a purchase.
Even with promos, they still compare offerings. Take Amazon prime day for example. Some 76% of shoppers plan to visit other channels before making a purchase. Around 46% of them compare prices at Walmart, 40% use Target, 39% try brand websites.
E-commerce businesses cannot stay on one platform if they want to get ahead of the competition. This is where e-commerce multichannel marketing comes in. Multichannel marketing involves promoting and selling on every channel that your customers can interact with you on.
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Our dramatic instincts can affect our ability to make effective decisions
Hans Rosling is perhaps best known for his ground-breaking TED Talk "The best statistics you’ve ever seen'. Using innovative graphics, unique insights and humour, Hans brought to life little known facts about the developing world that no one had seen before.
In 2017, Hans decided to write a book called Factfulness. The primary objective of the book was to realize Hans’s lifelong mission of fighting devastating global ignorance and make an impact on the world: to change people’s ways of thinking, calm their irrational fears and redirect their energies into constructive activities.
In 2018, halfway through writing the book, Hans sadly passed away and Ola, his son, and daughter-in-law Anna,…
Flying Autonomous Vehicles, Biochips, and Blockchain for Data Security - how long do we have to wait until we start seeing these emerging technologies take shape?
Changes in technology are inevitable as we strive to create products and ways to improve our quality of life.
Gartner Hype Cycle 2018 - Emerging technologies
Newly released, the 2018 Hype Cycle is a perfect visual aid to understand the maturity and adoption of emerging technologies and their current state of development and expectations.
Phases in the hype cycle:
Innovation Trigger - This might signal a breakthrough in the technology development, an initial product launch or interest from the press. This technology is on the rise which sees early adopters investigate their potential benefits.
Peak of Inflated Expectations - After an influx of media and press attention this sparks a huge amount of interest and speculation. There is normally heightened expectations of what the technology will be able to…
Are you tapping into Customer Psychology for your marketing?
Kahneman popularised System 1 and System 2 decision-making in his book, "thinking fast and slow" - but how can marketers use this Scientific theory in their marketing?
Last year I was faced with a fairly every day dilemma, my partner and I were going through the process of buying an IKEA kitchen at home, I'd dropped and smashed my iPhone screen, rendering it unusable (I replaced it with a much cheaper android phone)and I wanted to go on holiday to Italy (Turin). The dilemma was: Did I need an iPhone? Could I hold off on the holiday to Italy? The kitchen was the biggest decision, it was over £4000 in cost - it took time to research what we wanted and plan the whole thing with IKEA. Arranging delivery, getting the whole thing installed. It's a major project and being without a kitchen…
Do you have a holistic testing strategy?
Testing is the best way to find out what makes your customers tick, but if you market across multiple digital channels, you must come up with a testing protocol for each channel: email, web, social media, retargeting, SMS etc.
Or do you?
And even though you already know that email is the hub of your digital marketing programme because you can use email addresses to identify and communicate with your customers across all your marketing channels, most email marketers are not performing the basics and testing their emails as stated in latest report from GetResponse “Email Marketing & Beyond: Global Industry Benchmarks 2017”.
What if I could show you that…
Testing via email can drive your multichannel testing programme and deliver insights across your entire customer database, thereby not only saving you time and money in driving traffic but…
A review of different frameworks covering the customer journey, brand and content
Today, consumers do not search, engage and consume information within individual channels while making purchase decisions. Their journeys are fluid and choices are influenced by multiple channels, devices and screens, and a vast array of content, both online and offline. Therefore the challenge for businesses today is to understand how their customers behave and to establish a multichannel marketing strategy to effectively communicate with prospects in the right channel, at the right time. The frameworks and digital marketing models I review in this post can help build communications around the consumer rather than a product.
With the advent of the internet and the ongoing evolution of the media landscape, businesses are having to continuously play catch-up whilst the gap between consumer behaviour and business-readiness has never been greater:
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