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June 28, 2018
The introduction of GDPR may have temporarily isolated the EU customer base
Another day, another GDPR post. This is not to be taken as tongue in cheek, it is the result of a grand change in the laws that govern data privacy in the EU. These changes are having an effect not only on EU borders but around the globe. I’m going to be looking at a few examples of how GDPR has caused the global digital landscape to change.
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The fear factor
GDPR has struck fear into a lot of businesses that fall inside the EU borders with the idea of costly lawsuits being the main deterrents. It would be crippling to a lot of businesses in a PR sense and in turn, a…
9 Tools You Can Use to Spy on Your Competitors
Businesses that focus on their target audiences, ideal buyer personas and customer pain points are ahead of the marketing game. But they’re still missing a crucial step to success. Failing to thoroughly investigate what your competition is doing - and how they’re doing it - can leave you in the dark and in a permanent state of second place.
Fortunately, it’s not difficult to spy on your competitors. Simply studying their websites can give insights into what they’re doing right and wrong, and what you can do better.
Take it a step further, and go deep into your competitor analysis by searching for their backlinks, studying their email marketing funnels and researching what kind of paid and organic search keywords they’re focusing on. Need some resources to get started? Here are seven tools you can use to spy on your competitors.
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Examples of GDPR compliant privacy notices and email opt-in forms
We've now been covering the implications of the GDPR for marketers and their audiences since 2015 on Smart Insights with many articles contributed by guest experts specialising in privacy law for marketing.
Initially, there was a lot of speculation and it was difficult to provide practical examples since ultimately what businesses need to know is to how to update their forms for collecting email addresses and the copy explaining consent for communications in their privacy statement. As the Information Commissioners Office provided more guidance there were some simple sample examples provided in templates, but these didn't cover the range of situations where businesses in different sectors needed to implement them.
Today, as we fast approach the deadline, we can learn from the examples of larger companies who have implemented new forms and privacy notices. We don't know they are GDPR compliant in…
With more businesses using Facebook Messenger for marketing, brands are also starting to take advantage of Messenger for surveys and research too
I'm always on the lookout for new ways of conducting research with users and customers and one study which caught my eye was how Liberal Democrats are using Facebook Messenger to run a survey. Liberal Democrats are a political party in the UK, we don't support any particular political party, this just personally caught my attention. They paid for sponsored ads, creating a specific "Lib Dems Listen" messenger account and then ran an automated survey.
There are great advantages to conducting surveys in this way, firstly like any survey, it's automated but it's also much more conversational and it helps to engage with users who may be tired of taking traditional surveys, thus response rate technically should be higher. Customers always…
Reworking your acquisition plan, beginning with your subscribe forms, will help you do a better job of connecting with customers and launching email conversations
We've been hearing many conflicting stories about how well EU marketers are preparing to handle all the many changes that GDPR will bring to their acquisition. So, we decided to see for ourselves.
Now the verdict is in: Some retailers will be ready to go on May 25, when GDPR goes into full effect. Some need to do a little tweaking. The rest? They'd better read our report: Preparing for GDPR - The State of Retail Email Subscribe Forms, which is applicable to all sectors, to see what they must do now to update their practices.
But doing this work does have a major upside: Reworking your acquisition plan, beginning with your subscribe forms, will help you do a better job of connecting with customers and launching email…
Why we should all be excited about GDPR
Taking the digital world by storm, ‘GDPR’ is the buzzword on every reputable company’s lips – and as we approach the final quarter of 2017.
With circa 75% of all data predicted to be rendered obsolete, the ICO’s upcoming changes to current data protection regulations is the biggest news to hit our industry in over 20 years; and as a result, our generation of modern professionals are fighting to ensure they achieve compliance – or at least dodge monetary penalties.
But in the rush to avoid being hit by the significantly increased fines of up to £17 million, or 4% of our turnover for the previous year, are we forgetting about the bigger picture of GDPR?
The ICO’s UK Information Commissioner, Elizabeth Denham, stated that in attempting to safeguard ourselves from any negative repercussions, “we risk losing sight of what this new law is…
Chart of the day: In the latest market research industry GRIT report, 6 in 10 are using online research communities, and over 8 in 10 have an interest in them. All hail the true superhero of market research.
6 in 10 (60%) are using online communities, with over 8 in 10 (82%) showing interest in them and over 2 in 10 (22%) also considering using them. Online research panels are a fast, affordable way of collecting insights from customers and audiences.
The GRIT report produced by Greenbook, is a leading market research industry report. The survey also found that mobile first surveys are increasing in popularity and the shocker, text analytics are pretty popular too!
It's great to see mobile first surveys are becoming a major source of data collection, with so many people using mobile phones and tablets, survey experience has in previous…
Chart of the day: A third of British people will exercise their right to be forgotten after GDPR comes into force on May 25th, 2018.
The research, conducted by media agency The7stars, found that a third of British adults plan to exercise this right after the European Union General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) come into force.
The survey was conducted with over 1,000 UK residents and found that 34% want to use the regulations to stop companies from using their data for marketing purposes. Data protection and privacy are clearly quite big concerns for customers.
The right to erasure of data applies to marketing data where there is "no compelling reason" (according to the ICO) for the data to be held for longer and is not required for processing, or in other words, it is no longer needed based on the fact the individual may not be using that service anymore (for example).
Less…
How to gain visibility in China's digital marketplace
Everyone wants a piece of the emerging market's pie, and the biggest slice is still China. After a temporary retreat, overall economic growth in China is expected to continue its upward trend, and retail momentum is keeping pace.
While American companies focus most of their attention on first-tier Chinese cities, lower-tier cities in China are about to have their day in the sun. According to Jing Daily, cities such as Changsha, Foshan, and Wenzhou will be home to more high-income consumers than Beijing by 2030.
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If you’re looking to expand into China, you might just be able to achieve faster growth with less competition by focusing on lower-tier markets first.
Why Tier-One…
Chart of the Day: Research from Nielsen shows the popularity of Consumer Packaged Goods categories via Ecommerce
Fast moving packaged consumer goods (FMCG) aren't the most obvious types of products to buy online. In the early days of Ecommerce categories such as books, videos, fashion and electronic retail dominated. Yet this has changed. This new research shows how, particularly in some categories, a high proportion of some FMCG.
The chart shows how over 40% of consumers in the US have ever purchased online in categories such as Health, Personal Care, Household products and Pet Care. Even in the last three months, the figure is more than 30% suggesting a significant number of consumers are regularly buying in this category.
Although such non-food FMCG are popular when you look at food products such as fresh and frozen the figures are a lot lower - at the…
