Digital marketing systems, CRM roll-out and Big Data project failure rates exceed 50%
Long ago, before the World Wide Web (yes such a time does exist, it was in the late 1980s, early 1990s), I worked as an IT project manager managing teams building marketing systems for clients and packaged solutions used worldwide. So IT project failure is still 'close to my heart', particularly since now with my focus on digital marketing we hear that many project failures occur raising questions about the Return on Marketing Technology (RoMT). For example, you hear shocking statistics like these bandied about:
63% of CRM initiatives fail
70% of Marketing Automation projects fail (actually a bogus statistic)
84% of digital transformation projects end in failure
They're certainly shocking and raise HUGE questions about the way marketing technology is procured and implemented today. Yet we need to be careful about their validity. As Venture Beat…
How to save time and reduce waste through better operational planning
As the digital marketing environment continues to evolve, introducing efficient marketing practices is more important than ever. Coordinating multiple channels, running integrated campaigns and relying on external partners make modern marketing processes complex and difficult to manage. Teams are often reluctant to update their day-to-day management tools and processes as change isn't always easy though always needed! This challenge is faced by every marketing team and can be tackled by making important changes to the way things are planned and managed. By thinking through and then implementing some of these following six steps, you can save time, reduce waste and improve operational marketing management.
Get everyone pulling in the same direction. Defining business and marketing objectives first is crucial, your most powerful leadership tool is clear and specific objectives. Define your battleground, understand where your efforts are likely to…
Case study: How Formstack integrate their sales and marketing
In most companies, departments stay pretty close to their area of expertise. You each have your own superpowers and know your strengths. It’s difficult to get out of the comfort zone and not collaborate enough with other departments, but not doing so could be hurting your business. Without collaboration, you are missing out on vital perspectives that come from other aspects of your company.
In marketing, you’re constantly searching for ways to improve communication and see into the minds of your customers. You can send out customer surveys and take the chance that you’ll get a decent, honest response. However, most of the time it’s difficult to get good qualitative insight from a survey.
If you want to uncover hidden gems or issues your customers are facing, try collaborating with the secret agents of your business: your sales team.
What is Smarketing?
Our marketing and sales…
Using the Agile process to achieve results faster and reduce development time
While the concept of Agile (Yes, with a capital 'A'), may have started out as a software development technique, the concept has now spread across other areas of business and product development.
Businesses are also successfully using the Agile process in marketing, product development and even creative projects.
One of the best simple examples of a company using the Agile process successfully is Oreo. Their 'You can still dunk in the dark' Tweet during the Super Bowl outage has become the stuff of legend.
It could only have happened with a team put together using the Agile approach.
What is the Agile approach, anyway?
The overall aim of the Agile approach is to produce a functional product in a short time. Traditionally, the client sees the product only when it’s ready. In the Agile approach, the client is…
Recommendations on managing today's media in a new report from the Altimeter Group
Altimeter's new report, "The Converged Media Imperative: How Brands Must Combine Paid, Owned and Earned Media" by Rebecca Lieb and Jeremiah Owyang is very good read. I'll summarise it with this quote highlighting three obvious and simple words that will not do the report justice:
"Ensure that you break down silos between traditional (paid), digital and earned media."
Don't let that summary put you off, since being comfortable with it doesn't mean you're doing it or even motivated to do it, nor that your marketing partners or agencies are ready to help you do it either...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/altimetergroup/7585322178/
Organise around the customer experience
The report speaks to marketers and their agency partners - urging that they must converge their media efforts by combining social, corporate content, and advertising reach – or risk a lack of connection with the fleeting customer. It's true since whilst consumers don't distinguish…
Setting the right goals and KPIs for using internal company networks to support social business
Social networking has altered the way companies engage with their customers, changing their approach to areas such as customer service and brand management. Leading organisations have been taking the concepts of social networking and using them to transform the way they engage with their employees and partners, in areas as diverse as Sales, R&D, Communications and Marketing. Organisations are now adopting company or enterprise social networks on a much larger scale and company-wide initiatives are increasingly common. This results in a corresponding demand for provable success and measurable benefits. In line with this, the approach for measurement of business value of company social networks has also matured, comparable to how measures related to the web channel evolved from simply tracking the number of visitors to showing how those visits were turning into revenue. …
"From the trenches" advice from web managers
Managing a website relaunch is not straightforward, there are so many issues to consider from marketing strategy, customer experience to content strategy to the technical challenges of selecting and integrating different technology platforms and web services.
We recently saw just how many challenges there are when Larry Peterson asked this question on the Web Managers Group on LinkedIn:
“What are the top five things a web manager should take into consideration when redesigning and launching a new website?”
There was such a great response from the group that we thought it would be a good idea to summarise the common advice from the discussion here. Altogether, there were 20 key points, so let's get straight to them.
1. Define Vision, strategy, goals
This is “the concrete vision of where you want the site to go,” according to website transformation consultant David…
A 5 step process using 90-day time-boxes to help implement your plans
The start of a new year always brings a period of reflection and forward planning. New strategies are created and exciting initiatives are launched. It's often the case though, that plans and strategies end up in drawers, little changes and businesses continue on doing the same old things.
I am lucky in that between working for both Smart Insights and First 10 I get to bridge both the creation of strategies as well as the implementation of them. At the moment I'm more involved at the implementation stage which is why I have decided to share our process for making the most of a strategy and delivering on your big ideas.
Running marketing services at First 10 often sees us managing multiple clients as well as multiple freelancers in different markets, positions etc but essentially we help clients run and manage…
