Taking action with the collection and analysis of survey data to help improve the customer journey and strengthen company processes.
Data collected from online surveys can do so much more than tell you what your customers are thinking. Research is a vital addition to any B2B and B2C marketing toolkit. Successful companies are developing their business strategy - with the aid of data - to make marketing decisions that identify and resolve customer issues.
The team at SmartSurvey (the UK’s leading online survey provider) have put together a guide to demonstrate effective use of online questionnaires and how to utilise surveys to shape your marketing strategy.
Sections covered in this guide include:
The Benefits of Collecting Customer Data
How to Collect Reliable, Honest Feedback
Designing Effective Online Surveys
The Market Research Society (MRS) recently published an article demonstrating that the UK research market has increased by 62% to £4.8 billion. A recent comprehensive…
Tips for brands adapting to Digital from the author of Youtility
Many brands are struggling to adapt to a digital first culture and more seriously, struggling to remain relevant.
It’s clear that brands moving from the industrial revolution to the connected economy need to be doing a lot more than creating a digital marketing dept in their organisational chart. Rather, they need to be adjusting and adapting their culture.
I interviewed Jay Baer, author of the New York Times best seller, Youtility and one of my favourite business books. We discuss the challenges for brands that struggle to grasp “digital”, what brands can do to differentiate themselves in competitive markets and Jay’s latest book, Hug Your Haters.
Q. Many brands struggle to grasp how “digital” is structured within their organisation with many treating their digital activities within a silo -what words of wisdom could you provide brands to adapt a digital…
New research highlights different approaches to engaging retail customers
The DMA has identified four different types of consumers when it comes to brand loyalty. Some customers are always loyal, others only loyal for certain purchases. But whatever their natural propensity for brand loyalty, you need to engage them and build trust. The DMA's 2016 research presented below shows that over half of consumers will stick to a brand that provides good service when they know they could get a cheaper deal elsewhere. In addition in found customers don't particularly like being asked to provide reviews, yet brands are keen to do this. One the flip side, almost half of customers would like to receive free gifts from brands, but only one in ten companies do this. There is clearly currently a big mismatch between consumer desires and brand actions, and this needs to close. Find out more by checking out the infographic below.
…
The connected customer
On average, the British household owns over 7 internet devices and unsurprisingly, smartphones are the most common followed by laptops and tablets. More than 60% of all email opens are with a smartphone (Communicator Benchmarking Report 2016), with 50% of all mobile searches conducted in the hope of finding local results and 61% of those searches result in a purchase being made according to Search Engine Watch. The customer is more connected than ever and this is changing buyer behaviour.
A change in behaviour means a change in strategy
A change in behaviour means an impact on the customer journey. Journeys are no longer linear –now we must focus on the multiple touch points to create the ultimate customer experience. The change in customer journey has developed a change in consumer behaviour and expectations, meaning brands need to evolve their products to be one step ahead to stay competitive;…
Learn how to create interactive content and use it to boost your PR efforts
One of the biggest challenges that digital PR practitioners face today is getting their client noticed by customers. In addition, they work very hard at differentiating their clients from their competitors in the market with the help of social media, articles, and blogs.
Customers are bombarded with volumes of information every day through their laptops, smartphones and tablets. In order to grab and hold their attention, PR professionals need to stop selling and start engaging.
Herein lies the importance of interactive content.
The last thing modern customers want to do is sieve through a pile of data for a small piece of pertinent information. It is, therefore, necessary for marketers and PR practitioners to whip up creative ways to not only gain audiences’ attention, but also keep them engaged.
Enter interactive content
Speaking of interactive content, here are a few interesting facts:
…
Leverage the power of emotions to enhance your marketing
Every decision your customer makes consists of many conscious and subconscious emotions. The key to success in any business is an understanding of psychology and human behaviour.
We all have the same basic mental triggers and needs that drive action. If we understand these psychological triggers, we can craft more effective marketing messages and increase sales.
Below is an introduction to 7 important psychological and emotional triggers that can increase your sales, backed up with examples and further reading.
1. Belonging
Human nature gives most people a strong desire to belong to something; a group, a clan, a gang, a family, or a social network. Call it what you will, but very often customers purchase goods and services to show and feel a sense of belonging to their chosen ‘thing’…be it real, or fabricated.
They even carry out some highly illogical activities just…
Innovative techniques and examples of engaging web and mobile designs
Gone are the days of promoting your brand face-to-face or through those mailbox flyers and ads in the local newspaper that no one reads anymore. And unless you have a marketing budget equal to the "big boys" you won't be buying commercial time at the next Super Bowl. Today, you will have to be "lean and mean" with your marketing dollars and get very smart and creative about the design of your content, so that you achieve continued customer and potential customer engagement.
Engagement is an Emotional Phenomenon
People "Engage" when their emotions are triggered, either positive or negative. Thus, the goal of content design must be to stimulate emotions that will influence behaviours and motivate customers/potential customers to act. As important as it is to define your target market, then, it is just as important to stimulate emotional engagement, happiness, excitement, surprise, and satisfaction. When these…
6 tactics to get started with Customer Activation
As a marketing leader you know that each customer experiences numerous touch points with your company throughout their lifecycle. With Lifecycle marketing it’s the job of marketing to ensure that each interaction has a positive impact and moves the customer on to the next stage. But how can you measure the success of your combined efforts and their impact on your customer’s lifecycle? It's time to think about Customer Activation...
Customer Activation means motivating customers to move to the next stage of their lifecycle faster than they would on their own.
But, how do you activate your customers when you’re interacting with millions?
You need to think about your customers' lifecycle from potential customer to eventual advocacy. Cultivating relationships with your customers throughout their lifecycle is key to extracting maximum value from them.
Unfortunately many marketers fail in activation through not delivering effective, relevant emails. The problem…
5 areas to invest in, to improve your online audience engagement
Never in the history of marketing have methods changed so rapidly; the fluid nature of the Internet requires constant innovation and flexibility. While 2015 will bring plenty of changes in the coming months, there are a number of things you can do now to maximize your success using some available tools.
Tip 1: Invest in 'Contextual Marketing'
OutMarket CEO, You Mon Tsang, believes 'contextual marketing' is the key to Internet marketing success this year. In other words, you should be pursuing data-driven marketing that leverages the information you’re able to gather from your customers. He claims this will allow you to 'deliver personalized and relevant content at the right place, at the right time.'
The question is, how do you accurately gather that information? Depending on the tools you have available, it might be as simple as tracking social…
A summary of new research giving the CMO viewpoint
In our Managing Digital Marketing 2015 report we summarised our recent research into the changes to processes, structure and teams needed for managing digital marketing. A broader viewpoint is available in this new research, The Next Era of Marketing (free download, registration needed) from The Economist sponsored by Marketo. This new report included responses from senior marketers in larger organisations worldwide. 478 CMOs and senior marketing executives worldwide were survey. More than 50% of respondents hold the CMO title or top marketing position. Respondents wee located in North America (33%), Europe (30%), Asia-Pacific (29%) and Rest of World—which encompasses Africa and Latin America (9%). More than 50% of survey respondents (52%) hail from companies with more than US$500m in revenue; 20% have revenue of over US $5bn.
Here's my brief summary to the implications of the report.
Changes to the structure of the marketing organisation
A…
