These massive trends will change E-commerce marketing this year
We are now well into 2017. If you are to develop a winning e-commerce marketing strategy you'll need to start planning now. E-commerce continues to grow rapidly, but with the huge market acting as a magnet to brands large and small, competition will ramp up faster than the total growth of the market. This means customers will be harder to win, easier to lose and fussier on price and user experience.
To avoid falling behind the ever more fierce competition, you will need to both be aware of and benefit from the latest trends in e-commerce. These megatrends are global, have huge implications, and are not going to go away anytime soon. Ecommerce marketers will have to integrate them into their planning to be successful this year And if any of you think you can get away without creating a detailed plan - remember that…
Key Insights and implications for marketers from Mary Meeker's latest annual report for KPCB
Have you seen Mary Meeker's latest report of Internet trends? There's a fair chance you have. The Slideshare featured at the end of this post has been viewed by over one million since it was released on the 31st May. It's testament to the quality of insight in the report, with a reputation built up over 10 years. What we can add, other than alerting you to it, is a summary of implications for marketers since many of the charts in the 355(!) slide report are similar to previous years and not directly relevant to digital marketing.
Trend 1. Global Internet and Smartphone growth has slowed
Well, it had to happen, after banging the drum about the rate of mobile growth for many years, Mary Meeker leads with this summary of the main trends:
Global Internet Users =…
You may have noticed pandas ears, butterfly crowns and nerd glasses appearing in your Instagram stories. That's because last week Instagram launched it not too dissimilar to Snapchats filters - 'Selfie filters'. The Facebook-owned app has added 8 new filters meaning you can now add cartoon-style filters before sending them to your friends.
Facebook has slowly been copying Snapchats successful features and introducing them across Instagram and facebook such as disappearing video stories and comments. It was reported that when Instagram launched Stories in August 2016 it reached 150 million daily users. That’s the same number of users that Snapchat’s whole app reportedly hit around June 2016. Snapchats users are now migrating over to Instagram as it launches new formats and features. Instagrams VP of Product, Kevin Weil, gave his perspective on coping Snapchat:
'If we're being…
Facebook helps customers shop more seamlessly
The way we shop is changing, we are driven to buy online more than ever before. For brands, this means they need to ensure they are in front of the customer when they turn to their screens. Google describe these moments as 'micro-moments' - and stress the importance of being there at the moment the consumer needs you. Google says:
'These micro-moments are critical touchpoints within today’s consumer journey, and when added together, they ultimately determine how that journey ends.'
It is crucial brands are seen at every touch point to increase the likelihood of purchase. Facebook recognised this need and offer a number of options for marketers to choose from to effectively reach their audience.
One of their more recent launches was 'Facebook Collection'. A mobile-only ad format that allows advertisers to feature videos or photos of a product in a user's news feed with the objective…
The emerging trends you need to integrate into your 2018 plan
We are through Q1, and top companies have the habit of starting to plan for the next year right from Q2. If you have initiated planning your marketing strategy and budget for 2018, be prepared to face questions regarding tactics you are opting to use that would go best with most of your customers. And most importantly, which tactics can result in the most efficient conversion.
[Editor's note: For an update on the latest trends, see this in-depth article covering 2018 Digital marketing trends by Dr Dave Chaffey, co-founder of Smart Insights or download our free guide to 9 megatrends which are relevant to all businesses.]
[si_guide_block id="81859" title="Download free member resource – Digital Marketing Megatrends 2018" description="Learn how to get an edge in 2018 by deploying the latest marketing techniques that businesses of all types need to consider to stay competitive."/]
To plan…
What is headless CMS and how can it benefit marketers?
It’s a question that you may have either been asked or have asked yourself in the last few months—"what exactly is headless CMS and why should marketers care?" It's unproven. It's not ready to use. It's too technical. It's only for developers. All common concerns that I have heard to date. But that's not the whole story. The CMS marketplace is moving on and it’s important to understand how.
The Stuff of Nightmares
For many marketers technical advancements are a nightmare. Having to learn new technologies, keep up with the times, and figure out how to utilise them to their full potential—it's all very scary. But headless CMS doesn't need to invoke sleepless nights thinking of the four horsemen of the apocalypse approaching. The headless CMS architecture is still developing and as it evolves, it will become a useful tool for both developers and marketers…
Major 2017 SEO trends to get to grips with this year
Competition – it motivates all of us to become better at what we do. Marketers are no different, especially when they have to stay on top of the SEO game. They research the latest SEO trends; they use the best SEO tools out there. The problem is, unlike a sports competition, the goal posts for SEO are always changing. This, of course, makes the game more interesting, but also pretty frustrating for those trying to “keep up.” Looking ahead to 2017, these are some SEO trends that marketers might want to keep an eye on.
1. Dense Content Will Rise
Initially, content was provided in short little chunks – rather fluffy chunks, actually – and the same fluff was just repeated everywhere. When this ultimately proved ineffective for SEO purposes, marketers began to create volumes of lengthy content – the longer…
Our round-up of this year's best seaside SEO conference
My trip to BrightonSEO this year was my first (and long overdue) time attending the conference and I can say with 100% confidence that it was worth the time and expense. Not only was there an awful lot of great lessons and insight from the conference but I was lucky enough to be in Brighton during the warmest weekend of the year so far!
One of the main motivations for attending BrightonSEO was my determination to stay up to date with the latest trends and developments. Although I am no longer primarily responsible for SEO in my current role at PepsiCo, being aware of how search is evolving and where it’s likely to go is still an important consideration, as I believe it will be for all types of business and brands in the coming years as I’ll highlight in the sections that…
AI isn't going to take your job. It's going to make you better at it.
When Deep Blue beat Garry Kasparov in 1996, it was a testament to the incredible number crunching power of a computer. Deep Blue was capable of evaluating 200 million moves per second, and no one since built a more powerful chess computer. That's right - even though it was built in 1996, it's still the most powerful chess computer ever built. Can you think of any other type of computer for which processing power peaked in 1996? No, I didn't think so.
So why has no one ever built a more powerful chess computer? Because advances in AI mean you simply don't need that hardware anymore. Today it's possible to get your old laptop to beat the best chess player in the world by installing some chess software, and even though your rusty old machine is only…
The five biggest announcements from Facebook’s global developer conference
On the 18th and 19th April Facebook hosted F8, their annual global developer conference, where the technical community joined up for two days of workshops, product demos and 1:1 time with Facebook’s product experts.
Whilst the content and announcements at F8 are typically geared towards developers, there is always interesting and important news that digital marketers should be aware of, too. For this post I’ve selected five top announcements but you can watch the full keynote here.
Facebook Analytics
What is this:
During the F8, updates were announced for Facebook Analytics in order to help businesses better understand their customer behavior across devices and channels. This update is designed to enable businesses to measure and optimise their complete customer journey across mobile, web, bots on Messenger, and now Facebook Pages and Offline Conversions, too. Facebook will also be launching automated insights, custom dashboards, and additional…
