I'm always surprised by th
e popularity of tactical predictions for digital marketing at the start of the year. But I shouldn't be, one of the most common questions I get asked through the year 'is Dave, what's the next big thing, what's new in digital, what should I be thinking about?'
As always, I've been keeping an eye on what the specialists are saying and I have written a roundup of most useful predictions on digital marketing tactics that are close to my heart like SEO, Social marketing, Email marketing and analytics.
My own predictions aren't the run-of-the-mill predictions of innovations, rather they're about what the most savvy digital marketers get already, but others maybe don't because they're stuck in trad media thinking or it's so difficult to change the way their marketing is managed and resourced.
So here are my recommendations for 2010 structured in the key areas of digital strategy I cover in my Managing Digital Channels report for Econsultancy. If you haven't completed a review to benchmark your strategy performance, then that's a good start to the year. Try a benchmark with my Internet marketing review spreadsheet which you can download for free. It's useful to identify gaps and explain to colleagues where the focus needs to lie - it's obvious in this example.
Managers at all levels in most companies have now bought into digital media and are resourcing it at the levels it warrants, or are at least moving in the right decision.
Recommendation 1. Develop strategic agility
Trying to build in flexibility and innovation to your digital marketing across all aspects of digital strategy is what I think needs to happen more.
If tactics like your Adwords setup, homepage or enewsletter proposition are similar month on month then this is a symptom of lack of innovation. But these are only tactics, the leaders in each sector have an adaptive approach to strategy.
One financial services company I have worked with devotes resource and emphasis to this with an Innovation Manager within many of the areas below. I realise not everyone has this much resource and investment in and changes to process are needed to enable this. Often it's easier in smaller organizations.
If you're looking to become more agile, read Don Sull of the LBS for approaches to build strategic agility.
I think many companies have a one-dimensional view of how they drive traffic to generate sales or leads via their site - it's a simple funnel of drive visitors to site and hopefully convert to generate a lead or sale.
To a big extent, this is because of limitations in the tracking tools (Google Analytics is not so strong on this) and because it's complicated.
But many visitors will not act on their first purchase, so you need to ask questions of your agency or analytics person like:
To find out the options register for this 2009 paper on appropriate attribution of digital media channels. http://measure.coremetrics.com/corem/getform/reg/wp-appropriate-attribution
I think everyone agrees that tracking your returns from social media will be a challenge for most in 2010.
To help here, the Omniture workbook on measuring social media also provides a good plan template for tracking social media, even if you're not using Omniture.
The Omniture workbook on measuring social media also provides a good plan template for tracking social media, even if you're not using Omniture.
Following on from my last point, think about different ways to engage different types of customer persona with different profiles, different intent and different visits. Use analytics to determine what appeals to these different customer types.
Many adopters have seen that video is fantastic for engaging all types of audiences - read this advice for retailers - applies for other sectors too - - find out how video compares to other collateral for B2B buyers.
Since September '09 , there's no excuse for not tracking different goals now that Google Analytics enables up to 20 goals - see Ran Nir's 2009 post on 10 Must Track Conversion Goals to get you thinking - you can add engagement goals now too.
Don't forget to understand offline conversion also - there are now many call tracking software tools and plug-ins for Adwords that enable you to determine which media sources generate sales and leads over phone line - so they are particularly important for businesses where many leads are generated via phone which means higher value consumers and business-to-business services.
It still seems as if many companies favour acquisition+conversion in comparison to retention when resourcing digital channels.
I think this may be for structural / goal-setting reasons with the digital team tasked to focus on acquisition and traditional marketing teams picking up email marketing.
For me, the 5 big areas for retention and growth in 2010 and posts I have written giving advice on them are:
1. Understanding what drives customer satisfaction and loyalty.
2. Setting up customer communities, panels and using crowdsourcing to answer this question - the link gives my list of crowdsourcing tools - in particular Ideascale works for this purpose
3. Using email in a more intelligent way - targeting according to individual's place on the loyalty ladder in the context of their
I'm also surprised how few are using Google Analytics to track email 'after the click'.
4. Integrating email marketing and social media.
There is covered in depth in my new Econsultancy best practice guide, but for detailed coverage I recommend the social email marketing blog if you follow the link above.
5. Using web personalisation in a more intelligent way - this is how Amazon do it - but many other SaaS options / plug-in options are available
On brand development, as always, Internet marketing success will go to those who develop compelling online customer value propositions that blends the most entertaining, useful, shareable content - so content is still king and it always warrants investment.
On my training courses, I always like to ask 'how many publishers are on the course today' and of course few are, but my point is that everyone is a publisher online - it's just that few realise it's importance. So that means investment in:
If you've read this far, you may well be thinking - strange - Dave hasn't mentioned mobile yet. Well I've left it until last because it's not critical for most companies - unless you're a publishing or telecomms company or the mobile is the primary web or messaging platform for your audience.
This year is proclaimed again as the year of mobile - and this time it is - indeed it was last year - mobile apps - not mobile advertising that is - Apples app store reached the 1 billion download mark in April '09 2 billion mark in November and 3 billion in January 2010. Phenomenal if you consider the low overall penetration of the iPhone. With the new iPad also offering apps and Nokia, Sony Ericsson and rivals developing similar proposition this year will mobile applications and branded utilities will be a great way to engage the right audience with the right experience.
By Dave Chaffey
Digital strategist Dr Dave Chaffey is co-founder and Content Director of online marketing training platform and publisher Smart Insights. 'Dr Dave' is known for his strategic, but practical, data-driven advice. He has trained and consulted with many business of all sizes in most sectors. These include large international B2B and B2C brands including 3M, BP, Barclaycard, Dell, Confused.com, HSBC, Mercedes-Benz, Microsoft, M&G Investment, Rentokil Initial, O2, Royal Canin (Mars Group) plus many smaller businesses. Dave is editor of the templates, guides and courses in our digital marketing resource library used by our Business members to plan, manage and optimize their marketing. Free members can access our free sample templates here. Dave is also keynote speaker, trainer and consultant who is author of 5 bestselling books on digital marketing including Digital Marketing Excellence and Digital Marketing: Strategy, Implementation and Practice. In 2004 he was recognised by the Chartered Institute of Marketing as one of 50 marketing ‘gurus’ worldwide who have helped shape the future of marketing. My personal site, DaveChaffey.com, lists my latest Digital marketing and E-commerce books and support materials including a digital marketing glossary. Please connect on LinkedIn to receive updates or ask me a question.
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