The way retailers choose to position their brand often justifies different price points.
These three brands are proof of that.
Tuesday, 31 March 2015
Monday, 30 March 2015
Is native advertising "repurposed bovine waste"?
Last year, Last Week Tonight host John Oliver of Daily Show fame suggested that native advertising was "repurposed bovine waste."
But despite the fact that millions watched his 11 plus minute rant, spending on native ads continues to skyrocket.
30 Gifs To Inspire Any Social Media Community Manager
By NewsCred Contributor, Lauren B. Mangiaforte Given the ubiquitousness of social media, it’s easy to forget that just five years ago it was barely a niche marketing tactic, let alone a profession. Being a social media manager today means forging ahead where there isn’t always a clear path. It means applying old rules to new mediums and seeing what’s effective and what’s not. In other words, it’s a blast for people who are creative, strategic, and curious. Here are the 30 ways you know you’ve truly stepped into those tweeting, pinning, posting shoes of yours: 1. You feel an almost scary amount [...]
The post 30 Gifs To Inspire Any Social Media Community Manager appeared first on B2B Marketing Insider.
How digital is driving the 2015 development agenda
The movement to influence the UN Sustainable Development Goals to be agreed this autumn is now part of the global conversation, thanks to social.
Nine surprisingly lengthy tips for cutting and editing your copy
‘I’m sorry for writing such a long letter: I didn’t have time to write a short one,’ Blaise Pascal once said. Well, quite.
Probably the most common copywriting issue that people want to address on our courses is how to cut copy.
‘We have so much we want to say but our content’s way too long and clunky already.’
‘How we can say what we need to say in half as many words?’
The One Element Most Marketers Forget About Social Media
Want to build your social media community? 10 tactics based on social media marketing world 2015 lessons to grow a results-oriented social media community.
The post The One Element Most Marketers Forget About Social Media appeared first on Heidi Cohen.
Three takeaways on data-driven marketing from our Singapore roundtables
I had the pleasure of hosting two roundtables on data-driven marketing at the Econsultancy and IBM BusinessConnect 2015 event in Singapore.
Digital marketers got together and discussed their challenges around undertaking a true data-driven approach to marketing within their organisations.
Three clear concerns kept popping up and they are not unique to the attendees of the event. So it's worthwhile to explore these and look at how they can be overcome.
Saturday, 28 March 2015
Content Chemistry – Book Interview
The result of thousands of conversations about web marketing with hundreds of companies, this handbook is a compilation of the most important and effective lessons and advice about the power of search engine optimization, social media, and email marketing. The first and only comprehensive guide to content marketing, this book explains the social, analytical, and creative aspects of modern marketing that are necessary to succeed on the web. By first covering the theory behind web and content marketing and then detailing it in practice, it shows how it is not only critical to modern business but is also a lot of fun.
Read Heidi Cohen's interview with author Andy Crestodina.
The post Content Chemistry – Book Interview appeared first on Heidi Cohen.
Friday, 27 March 2015
The five most important announcements for brands and marketers from Facebook's F8 event
Every year, Facebook holds its F8 conference where it makes key announcements and launches new offerings.
This year was one of the biggest yet and dozens of announcements were made.
Here are the five most important for brands and marketers.
10 best things on the internet: the weird face of rock edition
I haven’t written an introduction to our weekly round-up for a few weeks now, mainly due to holiday and our departing Head of Social wrestling control off me to say goodbye last week, so I’ve forgotten the winning formula that normally makes these opening paragraphs so captivating.
Did I come out guns blazing with insightful marketing advice and game-changing stats?
Hmmm… that doesn’t sound quite right.
12 dumbfounding stats from around the digital world
Not just letting one stat out of the bag, but 12 of the little rascals.
Now gather round to see these brand new internet stats as they slowly open their eyes, yawn, stretch and encounter the great wide world for the very first time.
Will Twitter kill the Meerkat buzz with Periscope?
Thanks to Meerkat's rapid rise, live mobile video streaming could be the next big thing in social media.
But will Meerkat be able to fend off the competition?
3 Secrets To Get Employees Blogging For Your Business
Does your company blog suffer from the lack of company love? Here are 10 easy-to-implement ways to get employees blogging for your business.
The post 3 Secrets To Get Employees Blogging For Your Business appeared first on Heidi Cohen.
Why Use Media When We Have Content Marketing?
Did you realized that how you define media has an impact on your marketing and PR results? Here's 15 media definition checklist complete with charts.
The post Why Use Media When We Have Content Marketing? appeared first on Heidi Cohen.
Thursday, 26 March 2015
Note to brands: social media stars are (probably) not the new celebrity endorsers
From YouTube and Snapchat and Vine to Instagram, brands have been turning to popular social media personalities to connect with a new generation of consumers who are often difficult to reach via traditional channels.
But is it worth it?
ROI from video, mobile & content marketing is hardest to measure: report
Digital marketing is supposed to be entirely measurable, but we all know that in reality that’s not the case.
The proliferation of digital touchpoints has made the path to purchase incredibly complex, which means marketing attribution and measuring ROI has also become more difficult.
14 examples of evergreen content formats that work wonders
We're great believers in the importance of evergreen content, and this has been a major factor in this blog's growth.
Here, I've compiled some of the evergreen formats we regularly turn to...
Start me up! A profile of mobile payment app Tipit
Mobile payments are rapidly becoming a mature market, with several major banks and tech companies seeking to grab a share of the pie.
New startup Tipit is bravely taking on the finance giants, focusing specifically on a niche part of the payments market – tipping.
I spoke to founder Renate Kalnina to find out more...
Wednesday, 25 March 2015
How to use quizzes for lead generation
60% of content marketers say their number one goal is to generate new sales leads. This is not an easy thing to do.
I’m going to show you how to make a quiz that produces a steady stream of brand new qualified leads.
#063: Combining Business and Improv with Ron Tite
Subscribe on iTunes RSS Feed On this episode of the UnPodcast, for only the second time in the history of the UnPodcast, we had a guest. Ron Tite, of The Tite Group joined us to discuss the intersection of improv and business. Among other things we discussed why it’s better to bill yourself as a […]
Are banking websites in need of an update?
Many banking websites occupy a space on the web that seems resolutely stuck in the recent past.
Most of the popular high street banks don’t operate responsively designed desktop sites, instead choosing a separate mobile site.
Many have homepages that are text heavy, offering a huge array of navigation and product options, but little in the way of persuasive design.
What ecommerce managers can learn from AO.com
Often I find myself perusing the internet looking at how people are playing this game of ecommerce.
It’s an essential part of my role in trying to improve our own website, by learning how others are doing it.
For me there is one standout winner of ecommerce websites, and that is AO.com.
The Ultimate Media Definition
Did you realized that how you define media has an impact on your marketing and PR results? Here's 15 media definition checklist complete with charts.
The post The Ultimate Media Definition appeared first on Heidi Cohen.
How are organisations optimising their customer experiences?
If optimising your customer experience isn’t important to you, you are doing something wrong.
That much has been obvious to many a marketer, with organisations worldwide wanting to use the technologies that have shifted power to consumers in their relationship with brands.
Tuesday, 24 March 2015
Content Marketing ROI Starts With A Strong Business Case
Content Marketing ROI is probably the biggest question I get from marketers who are struggling to build their own business case internally. We know our customers are tuning out advertising. And we know that as consumers, we are all consuming more information online. We are looking to get informed and we are looking to be entertained. And we don’t care where the content comes from. But we aren’t sitting around waiting for it. And we won’t go too far to find it. But building the business case is often a tricky proposition. We can’t point to the advertising guy and [...]
The post Content Marketing ROI Starts With A Strong Business Case appeared first on B2B Marketing Insider.
Eight ways brands can add Meerkat into their marketing mix
Meerkat has an opportunity to change social media forever and make a big impact on digital marketing.
Here are just a few creative ways brands can add Meerkat into their marketing mix.
Mobile will be a driving force in the travel industry for 2015
By 2017 more than 30% of online travel bookings by value will be made on mobile devices, according to Euromonitor.
In part, this will be the result of online travel companies making their apps more appealing by adding location services that help travellers find the nearest rooms and restaurants.
According to new research from BuzzCity about today’s connected traveller, holiday booking habits have also changed noticeably.
There has been a 50% increase in mobile use across business and leisure travellers, with 30% relying purely on their mobiles to make last minute bookings.
Monday, 23 March 2015
Is Facebook about to open Messenger to content producers, brands?
According to reports, Facebook is set to announce at its F8 developer conference that it will be giving third parties the ability to integrate their content into the Messenger experience.
Google harmed 'innovation in online search and ad markets': FTC
In 2013, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ended its investigation into Google, but new documents reveal that FTC staffers believed the company engaged in behavior that hurt consumers and advertisers.
Five ways to make social media a positive recruiting tool
Companies commonly use social media as a channel for maintaining their brands and marketing their wares to potential customers, but social platforms can also be a potent tool for recruiting new employees.
Storytelling Lessons From Kevin Spacey And House Of Cards
One of my favorite shows is House Of Cards. And in my excitement for last year’s Content Marketing World, I answered WTF does Kevin Spacey Know About Content Marketing. Having just finished season 3, I thought I would share this post from NewsCred’s own Director of Sales Chase Neinken. 3 Crucial Principles Of Storytelling You Can Learn From Kevin Spacey + House of Cards It is no secret that storytelling has become the pinnacle practice of 2015. So what can content marketers learn from some of the best stories going right now? Looking ahead to Friday and a new “House of Cards“ release on [...]
The post Storytelling Lessons From Kevin Spacey And House Of Cards appeared first on B2B Marketing Insider.
Monetising Instagram for brands: take two
In a perfect storm of storytelling and somehow trying to make Instagram a monetisable platform, your 14 year-old niece’s favourite social network introduced a clickable carousel function last week.
Marketers have been clamouring for a way to turn Instagram into a source of measurable revenue instead of a mere engagement/brand awareness tool.
The Social Media Opportunity Most Businesses Miss (Do You?)
Want to know the secret to massively improve corporate social media engagement? Here are 10 tips to help you expand your social media interaction.
The post The Social Media Opportunity Most Businesses Miss (Do You?) appeared first on Heidi Cohen.
12 illuminating ecommerce stats from January-March 2015
Every week we publish a round-up of the best digital marketing stats, and every month we update our gigantic Internet Statistics Compendium. We basically love stats here at Econsultancy and we've got loads of them.
Which is why I I’ve decided to start collecting some of the most interesting stats from the last few months here in a handy digest.
So here are some interesting and hopefully useful stats taken from the world of ecommerce.
Sunday, 22 March 2015
Six personalisation and data-driven marketing trends from Malaysia
Earlier this month Econsultancy and IBM hosted a roundtable event in Kuala Lumpur where delegates were invited to discuss challenges and opportunities around marketing data.
I’ve already written up the main talking points from the marketing performance management table, and now here is a summary of the conversations that took place on the data-driven marketing and personalisation roundtables.
Saturday, 21 March 2015
Spin Sucks – Book Interview
Most PR books tell you how to “spin” your message. People are sick of that! Spin Sucks will teach you how to communicate honestly, responsibly, openly, and authentically…and truly earn the trust of your customers, stakeholders, investors, and communities.
Top PR thought leader and blogger Gini Dietrich runs the number one PR blog in the world, spinsucks.com, where she shares cutting-edge tips and tools for effective, ethical communications. Now, she’s integrated all she’s learned into a complete, actionable guide for every business leader who understands there are new rules to communications, but don’t know what to do.
The post Spin Sucks – Book Interview appeared first on Heidi Cohen.
Friday, 20 March 2015
Is Meerkat the next big thing in social media?
This year's SXSW star is Meerkat, an app that allows users to live stream video from their mobile phones.
The best things on the internet: "So long suckers" edition
Welcome Friday-feeling marketers everywhere! Hopefully today’s solar eclipse hasn’t darkened your spirits, because this is a very special round-up indeed. My last one.
Yes, I’ll be moving on from Econsultancy after five fun-filled* years, and so regular round-up wrangler Christopher Ratcliff has given me the chance to say goodbye right here on the blog.
Prominent news publishers band together to sell ads
Five prominent news publishers have formed the Pangaea Alliance to offer media buyers programmatic access to their ad inventory.
11 staggering stats from around the digital world
I’m qualified to statisfy you
I think that’s what Barry White sang. I have been known to mishear lyrics. Perhaps the Walrus of Love studied for a degree in Analytics and Data Science before devoting his career full-time to wooing ladies with his sonorous baritone.
It’s entirely likely. He loved a good round-up of the most interesting online marketing stats as much as the next person, and hopefully that next person is you.
How To Launch A Successful Business Blog
Want a successful business blog? Here are the 5 winning elements you need with detailed blogging tips to help you achieve your blogging goal.
The post How To Launch A Successful Business Blog appeared first on Heidi Cohen.
Start Me Up! A profile of ParcelBright
ParcelBright is an ecommerce delivery startup which recently raised $1m in seed funding.
We've been asking Founder and CEO Daniel Lipinski about the business and its plans for growth...
Thursday, 19 March 2015
The #1 Media Lesson Content Marketers Must Learn
Improve your content marketing effectiveness. Understand the media secret behind how such an entity works as a business. Learn to think like a media entity.
The post The #1 Media Lesson Content Marketers Must Learn appeared first on Heidi Cohen.
How to make the most of Adwords labels
A little used Adwords features can be an invaluable aid to analysing performance.
The home insurance quote process: how to avoid annoying users
In previous posts on home insurance, I've looked at how customers search, and how landing pages perform.
Here I'll look at the user experience during the quote process and issues which may deter visitors.
Eight genuinely useful tools for domain name generation
Thinking of a name for your new website is difficult, and the longer you leave it the more difficult it gets.
Here’s the situation I’m in… Me, my wife and few of our friends have decided to pool together our various digital skills and resources to start a new website in our spare time.
We know what the content will be (stupid, rambling), we know roughly what our strategy is (hit and hope) and we know what our goals are (free beer).
The five types of content employees love to share on social media
To make the most of your employees' sharing habits, it is important to learn which type of content they love best.
Wednesday, 18 March 2015
Five things brands can learn from Starbucks' Race Together backlash
Starbucks is at the center of a social media firestorm as a result of its Race Together campaign.
Here are five things brands can learn from Starbucks' experience.
Prada’s online customer journey: luxury content, poor UX
I recently wrote a post looking at the customer journey on Louis Vuitton’s ecommerce site.
It was triggered by a sense that luxury brands struggle to find a balance between an online shopping experience that stands out from the crowd but that also delivers a slick UI.
#062: The Convergence of Kids, Parenting and Business
Subscribe on iTunes RSS Feed On this episode of the UnPodcast we talked about a mistake that Quaker Oats made that caused quite a stir, and insulted a number of people, including parents of children with allergies. We also discussed the importance of websites being mobile optimized, and what businesses often focus on instead, to […]
What Is Thought Leadership? And When You Should Use It?
Few terms raise the ire of the buzzword police more than thought leadership. But what is thought leadership? When should you consider using it, and how do you balance the talent and experience of your team with the humility and authenticity today’s audiences demand? Let’s start by getting on the same page. What Is Thought Leadership? I define thought leadership as a type of content marketing where you tap into the talent, experience, and passion inside your business, or from your community, to consistently answer the biggest questions on the minds of your target audience, on a particular topic. It’s not [...]
The post What Is Thought Leadership? And When You Should Use It? appeared first on B2B Marketing Insider.
Econsultancy's colossal digital marketing jargon-buster
We have a simple goal here at Econsultancy, to make the digital world a better place.
We do this is by helping every visitor, client and delegate sort through the clutter of digital marketing, and our role here on the blog however is to help on a more day-to-day basis.
We aim to provide useful tips, guidance and best practice advice in a manner that we hope is as jargon-free as possible, to make digital marketing easy to understand for everyone at any level.
Which is why I'm very proud to present The Great Econsultancy Jargon-Buster, a handy A-Z guide to the most useful and common terms that you'll come across in the digital marketing world.
What are internet consumers most concerned about online?
The latest update to our Internet Statistics Compendium contains another comprehensive collection of key data from across the digital landscape, including primary research from ourselves and partners, as well as freely-available third party trends from a wealth of sources.
In recent months, there have been some fascinating stats published concerning security and privacy online from analysts as diverse as Statista, Global Web Index and Center for the Digital Future.
Media Secret: Why Your Content Does Not Drive Sales
Improve your content marketing effectiveness. Understand the media secret behind how such an entity works as a business. Learn to think like a media entity.
The post Media Secret: Why Your Content Does Not Drive Sales appeared first on Heidi Cohen.
Tuesday, 17 March 2015
More reasons why marketers must move to a mobile-first ad strategy
Mobile is driving major changes in how consumers research and buy across a wide range of industries.
So for online marketers it is no longer enough to rely on responsive site design and a mobile app. You need to think mobile-first.
Six demons of creative blockage and how to exorcise them
Or, how to equip yourself with your very own content 'round tuit'...
How important are third party reviews for ecommerce sites?
Third party reviews have become a common feature on most ecommerce sites.
This is mainly because they have been proven to drive sales, while many shoppers expect to be able to read reviews before they decide to buy.
How Mango can improve its otherwise excellent ecommerce site
Mango is a Spanish fashion retailer founded on 1984 that now has more than 2,000 stores in 103 countries, 150 of which are in the UK.
Mango has also been operating its ecommerce site for around 15 years and it makes for an interesting study in highly innovative retail site design, but with areas that could definitely use an improvement.
Here we’ll take a look at what works on the site from a customer experience and usability point of view first, before highlighting where it could be more effective.
Q&A: Droplet on the mobile payments market
Mobile payments startup Droplet has just begun a third round of funding as it seeks to expand into new UK cities.
It is operating in a very competitive market that has already seen some of the major players try and fail to attract an audience.
New Post Emails and RSS Feeds Modification Notice
Going forward, we will no longer be sending the full text of our articles via these communications channels.
The post New Post Emails and RSS Feeds Modification Notice appeared first on Heidi Cohen.
Monday, 16 March 2015
Are brands the saviours of long-form content?
Starbucks is the latest global brand to make a significant move into the world of brand storytelling, poaching a leading journalist at the Washington Post.
Are brands now the future of long-form content?
Get the Biggest SEO Bang for Your Content Marketing Buck
One of the biggest questions we get from our customers is how to get the most value from their content marketing budget. So like any decent and respectable content marketer, we do our best to answer our customers’ top questions. My biggest secrets for SEO and your content marketing budget? Content doesn’t have to be that expensive. You don’t have to create it all. You don’t have to use paid distribution to drive all your traffic. So how does a brand publish regularly and consistently to obtain the highest possible search-engine rankings at the lowest cost? We always recommend brands [...]
The post Get the Biggest SEO Bang for Your Content Marketing Buck appeared first on B2B Marketing Insider.
Can data really inspire creativity?
Looking to create interesting, popular content?
Use data to determine the questions your audience are asking, then add your expertise to provide engaging answers to hold your readers attention.
Three takeaways from the Voice of the Customer roundtable
Whether it's coming from contact centres or social media channels, marketers now have more data on their customers than ever before.
How are they making this data actionable to drive changes in their organisation and what’s driving this focus?
7 Guidelines For Visual Content Marketing With Free Images
Here's what you need to know to create visual content marketing with free images. 7 Guidelines to steer your use of free images in your content marketing.
The post 7 Guidelines For Visual Content Marketing With Free Images appeared first on Heidi Cohen.
Sunday, 15 March 2015
Five key points from our personalisation roundtables in Singapore
Personalisation is widely accepted as an effective method of making marketing messages more relevant, which then helps to improve the impact and ROI.
But how can we move beyond basic tactics such as personalised email greetings and ‘users who bought this also bought’ product recommendations?
Content Marketing Works – Book Interview
Content Marketing Works, by Arnie Kuenn, is a robust look at the process of creating, implementing and measuring a successful content marketing program. It covers the 8 Step Process of content marketing, created by the experts at content marketing agency, Vertical Measures, and how it can be used at any organization large or small to grow traffic, leads, and business.
The post Content Marketing Works – Book Interview appeared first on Heidi Cohen.
Friday, 13 March 2015
13 Content Curation #FAILS
Have content curation fails? To meet your need more content, you use other people's content but it doesn't make your content marketing strategy succeed?
The post 13 Content Curation #FAILS appeared first on Heidi Cohen.
14 astonishing stats from around the digital world
Putting the ‘stat’ in Jason Statham, here’s your ass-kicking round-up of all the very best internet marketing stats from around the online world this week, written by somebody who clearly doesn’t know how to pronounce Jason Statham properly.
Enjoy…
Thursday, 12 March 2015
Brand TLDs: five potential benefits
Recently introduced, brand top level domains (TLDs) offer a range of potential opportunites for brands.
Our latest report, A Marketer’s Guide to Brand Top-Level Domains, will help brands to understand these new TLDs and decide on a strategy.
It was authored by Martin Talks, Founder of Matomico.
Here are some of the potential benefits of brand TLDs...
11 useful tips for PRs approaching Econsultancy
We receive a lot of press releases and pitches from PRs on the content team. And, I'll be honest, 90% are ignored or deleted.
There is simply too much noise and the shame is that the sheer volume means that some useful approaches may be overlooked.
In this post, I want to explain what we look for and provide a few tips for PRs approaching us...
Wednesday, 11 March 2015
10 Creative Types You Need To Build A Killer Content Marketing Team
By NewsCred Contributor, Lauren B. Mangiaforte Creating content, especially in a lean marketing team, is an all-hands-on-deck endeavor. Having a dream team in place to create not only the social posts, blog pieces, and video snippets, but the strategy, big picture campaigns and creative long-term vision should be a top priority for marketers in 2015. After all, we’re well past the infancy of content as a marketing maybe. It’s a marketing must: 78% of CMOs now believe content is the future of marketing. But where do you find the smart, creative, hard-working people to make your content strategy a success? In this [...]
The post 10 Creative Types You Need To Build A Killer Content Marketing Team appeared first on B2B Marketing Insider.
What is tag management and why do you need it?
Tags on your website help measure traffic and can assist in optimising your online marketing.
Tags are integral to most modern marketing tools, from web analytics to retargeting to ad serving to CRM.
Here we’ll be taking a beginner’s look at what tags are, what they do and how you can use tag management to make online marketing less arduous.
061: What’s Old in Social Media is New Again, and What’s New is Terribly Old
Subscribe on iTunes RSS Feed On this episode of the UnPodcast, we talked about tactics and promises that were used in the past by social media platforms being used again. We also discussed the issue of the expectation that creatives, such as writers, speakers, and graphic designers should be willing to work for free just […]
Social CRM: realising the full value of social media
Gone are the days when social media was seen as the magic bullet, the free media for broadcast marketing.
Now firmly embedded in major organisations worldwide as a means for building an online fan base, our understanding and use of social media is evolving.
How effective is Zara’s unique on-site search tool?
Zara is a Spanish fashion retailer with more than 2,000 stores worldwide, 66 of which are based in the UK.
Zara’s website also has one of the most idiosyncratic search tools I’ve ever come across on an ecommerce site.
Post-Purchase Content: How To Keep Your Customers Happy And Buying
Post purchase content supports your buyer and makes her feel good about her decision. It's key to lifetime customer sales. 17 content marketing tips help you.
The post Post-Purchase Content: How To Keep Your Customers Happy And Buying appeared first on Heidi Cohen.
Five key marketing performance management trends in Asia
Earlier this week Econsultancy and IBM hosted six roundtables in Kuala Lumpur as part of the BusinessConnect 2015 series of events.
The discussion centred around three important topics in digital marketing – data-driven marketing, personalisation, and marketing performance management.
Tuesday, 10 March 2015
Why I love the new Geico ‘Unskippable’ ad campaign
We don’t talk an awful lot about ad campaigns on the blog. We’re more about the delivery of them. Where they work? What formats work best?
What the heck does programmatic mean? It’s mostly ‘measurable ROI’ rather than the actual content of the ad itself.
However, just like when the excellent BLAH Airlines campaign from Virgin came along, every so often you have to take advantage of your blogging power, sit back and share something you love purely because it’s really clever.
So here’s the new campaign from Geico, which gloriously subverts everything you thought you knew about YouTube pre-roll ads.
One of the more sarcastic Apple Watch articles you’ll read today
I’m stuck in a mild quandary about whether to bother writing about yesterday’s announcement from Apple…
If you care enough about Apple’s entry into the world of wearable technology then you would’ve surely been glued to your MacBook or iPad Mini last night. Poring over the details delivered via keynote speech and already fully sated with every possible specification of the Apple Watch (emphatically no longer referred to as the ‘iWatch’).
Or, if you’re everyone else in the world, your reaction is probably more along the lines of…
Ecommerce trends in 2015: video presentation
B2C Ecommerce continues to take a growing share of retail sales, but what’s driving this growth and what are the emerging trends that marketers can take advantage of in 2015?
Here I’ll be taking you through a few key stats before presenting my latest talk, which will help to shed some light on the above questions.
35 examples of ecommerce best practice from Hobbycraft
Hobbycraft is not a website we’ve covered on the blog before. It’s not the showiest website, it doesn’t feature the most technically dazzling array of tools and features, nor is it currently in the news for any particular reason.
So why cover it now? Because Hobbycraft gets the basics of ecommerce just right.
Out of all the sites I’ve researched so far, this one manages to include almost every ecommerce best practice feature that we’re constantly banging on about on the blog.
Three key takeaways from our new ROI of Tag Management report
It’s extraordinary how much of an important role website tags play in the efficiency and success of digital marketing.
A digital marketer’s first responsibility is to understand their customers’ experience so that they can improve upon it. Therefore it’s vital that detailed information on behaviours, platforms, channels and technologies are captured.
Monday, 9 March 2015
The lowest price doesn’t mean the price is right
Many retailers make the mistake of making their prices the biggest point of differentiation.
Here's how they can change that.
Five more examples of interesting content from ‘boring’ businesses
The response to my previous six examples of interesting content from ‘boring’ businesses suggested that we’d touched on a real challenge for many businesses, especially those in niche markets and in B2B.
So here are some more examples of apparently unsexy businesses that have come up with interesting ideas and executions to turn the story of what they do into content that users can get engaged by…
CMO Disruption: Marketing Is More Than Just Promotion!!!
I recently did this Google Hangout with Jon Reed on CMO Disruption. He didn’t want to use the term “disruption,” but I think that is exactly what we’re facing in the marketing industry. Whether it’s a dilemma or really disruption for the CMO, across the industry, I think we can all agree that marketing is changing. CMOs are struggling with how to deal with the massive changes happening in the media landscape. The large majority of CMOs and Marketing leaders know they need to change, but don’t have a good sense for how to tackle the challenges. You can’t buy [...]
The post CMO Disruption: Marketing Is More Than Just Promotion!!! appeared first on B2B Marketing Insider.
Six useful mobile marketing case studies
Case studies are always hugely popular on the Econsultancy blog because they act as a valuable source of inspiration for marketers.
In this post I’ll roundup six interesting mobile case studies, some of which perhaps lean more towards being about multichannel marketing.
These have mostly been borrowed from the Econsultancy Case Studies Database, which is packed full of useful examples from a range of brand and industries.
How insurance companies handle social customer service
The most successful brands utilising social customer service are the ones that are not only quick to respond, but also genuinely helpful and clearly written by a human.
This is relatively easy in retail, where it’s more acceptable to adopt a relaxed, fun tone of voice, but how difficult is it for a financial services brand to not only maintain an efficient customer service channel that fully complies with banking regulations but is also human?
Four factors that define a successful web optimisation test
When seeking to optimise a website, what is it that defines whether or not a test has been successful?
It would be easy to fall into the trap of thinking that a test is only successful if it results in a positive uplift of some sort (e.g. higher conversion rate), but in fact the truth is far more complex.
2015 Small Business Social Media Trends [Research]
Based on UMass Darthouth's Inc 500 and social media, here are the 2015 small business social media trends. Includes 29 small business social media tips.
The post 2015 Small Business Social Media Trends [Research] appeared first on Heidi Cohen.
Sunday, 8 March 2015
Visual Content Promotions: 5 Lessons To Succeed (Examples)
Want to extend your visual content promotion? This article provides 5 lessons to attract greater reach and 9 types of photos to use.
The post Visual Content Promotions: 5 Lessons To Succeed (Examples) appeared first on Heidi Cohen.
Friday, 6 March 2015
14 astounding stats from around the digital world
Stats and deliver!
Your money or your life! Yes it’s the weekly stats round-up that spends its cash on looking flash and grabbing your attention with all the finest digital marketing stats the online world has to offer. “Fa diddly qua qua!"
14 best things on the internet: business high-five edition
Okay good hustle this week guys. Some real blue-sky thinking.
Now it’s the close of play we can get all our ducks in a row and drill down to why this paradigm shift is so integral to leveraging the core competency of each vertical, whilst actioning key learnings.
Just circling back on this with a heads-up, have we run this all the way up the flag-pole yet? Going forward it would be to wise to pivot towards eating the elephant one bite at a time.
It’s a game-changer, I feel it in my very marrow. Great. As I said before, pre-revenue is looking baked-in so let’s not marinate too long, so why don't we take a break by looking at some stupid crap on the internet for 10 minutes? Great.
B2B marketing's Holy Grail? Targeted conversations via digital industry networks
If designed and executed correctly, this agile approach to target market engagement could easily be regarded as the Holy Grail of digital marketing.
Bypass indirect prospecting and establish direct and compelling conversation with B2B prospects and customers via the creation of a Digital Industry Network (D.I.N.).
A D.I.N. is a peer group of professionals engaged around a compelling topic of interest.
This network is created from scratch, comprises a conversation zone (e.g. LinkedIn Group) and other communication feeds, and is designed to build mindshare and stimulate conversation with a highly targeted audience.
The result is branding, awareness, thought leadership, reputation, demand generation and lead nurturing.
Is Your Visual Content Promotion A Social Media Snore?
Want to extend your visual content promotion? This article provides 5 lessons to attract greater reach and 9 types of photos to use.
The post Is Your Visual Content Promotion A Social Media Snore? appeared first on Heidi Cohen.
Thursday, 5 March 2015
Three brand case studies on creating a single customer view
Even in the UK where online shopping is at its highest (compared to offline), the percentage of transactions that happen online is around 13%.
Which basically means that 87% of purchases happen offline and therefore 87% of purchase data potentially goes uncaptured.
Grocery mobile apps: Are retailers catering to repeat customers?
In recent weeks I’ve been investigating how grocery retailers handle the online customer experience.
Ecommerce is a small but growing channel for the grocery industry so it’s important to offer a decent UX.
Social Media Secrets To Build Your Personal Brand
Brands used to be just for businesses. Companies hired consultants and agencies and spent millions of dollars to determine what color their logo was, what fonts really set them apart, what messages covered the key value of their products. But then the internet happened. All kinds of information started moving around the world. Companies and governments and institutions became less important. Social media allowed us to connect with anyone with an internet connection, and later anyone with a smart phone. And now we’re all publishers. And while we have all always had a personal brand, now, this brand is evident [...]
The post Social Media Secrets To Build Your Personal Brand appeared first on B2B Marketing Insider.
What a brand learned from becoming a blogger
Find out what a brand learnt from becoming a blogger, and some ideas on what the future might hold for blogger outreach.
How Boots can improve its customer journey from search to checkout
In which we take a look at the experience of searching for a product, clicking-through to an ecommerce store and purchasing the item, all from a customer’s point of view.
Much like previous investigations on UK retailers John Lewis and Halfords this explores the customer journey in a nutshell, looking at visibility, relevancy, ease-of-use and speed of experience.
Here we'll be taking a look at Boots, and making suggestions on how it can improve the customer experience and perhaps increase conversion.
Wednesday, 4 March 2015
11 examples of marketing campaigns starring YouTubers
To people of my age, the idea of someone being famous for having a YouTube channel is faintly ridiculous.
And the fact that some of them have gained millions of fans and earned millions of dollars just by posting videos of themselves playing computer games... well, it makes me very sad.
How to use LinkedIn’s publishing tool to increase your social reach
LinkedIn has made a lot of improvements and changes to its functionality recently, not least to the ‘Publish’ function.
For those who missed it, last year LinkedIn rolled out the ability to publish blog posts directly on the platform.
Ecommerce delivery: how fast are UK retailers?
Delivery is a key part of the ecommerce proposition, so who is performing well in this area?
New data from StellaService investigates the performance of 10 of the biggest UK retailers across delivery and speed and ease of returns.
12 insanely beautiful travel and leisure websites
I don’t know about you but I’m getting sick of the bitter wind that’s barreling its way down the streets of my adopted city with all the lip-chafing might of a hard-skinned rhino.
It’s definitely time to escape, even if it’s just a psychological one rather than a physical one. After all, temperature’s just a state of mind, right? Right?
#060: Just Because it’s Legal Doesn’t Make it Right
Subscribe on iTunes RSS Feed On this episode of the UnPodcast, we talked about the UnSelling audio book give away, Nationwide insurance, and lactating men. We also discussed heartbreaking commercials where children die, and whether or not that’s the right thing to do in marketing. Other topics include: [00:00:42.01] The struggle is real [00:03:24.25] The […]
Tuesday, 3 March 2015
How mouth-watering is Krispy Kreme’s social media strategy?
I asked the same question of Dunkin' Donuts last year, and frankly it was an easy one to answer.
Dunkin’ Donuts has been doing excellent work since it landed on social six years ago, with great personal interaction on Twitter, mouth-watering video content on Vine and dangerously tempting images posted on Instagram.
Wearables: Three factors that provide a compelling use case
In spite of all the excitement around wearable technology, the truth of the matter is that we’re still at the very early stages of development and adoption.
The ecosystem is still quite restricted and the wearables that have achieved a decent level of uptake offer limited functionality.
Thorntons vs. Hotel Chocolat: user experience comparison
“Come with me, and you'll be, in a world of pure imagination...”
I have to stop there as I don’t want Paramount Pictures or the estate of Roald Dahl to sue us.
Instead I’ll pepper the content of this article with only the very subtlest of references to Willy Wonka and the Chocolate in the hope that nobody notices.
Four takeaways from our B2B marketing report: The Pursuit of Standard Operating Innovation
The connection between revenue growth and innovation is a powerful one.
Marketing executives report that 30% of their revenue and 26% of their revenue growth in 2014 is attributed to innovation initiatives.
If B2B organisations are to survive in the face of industry disruption, their rate of learning, innovation, and performance improvement must match or exceed that of their competitors.
Monday, 2 March 2015
Nine of the best social campaigns and stories from February 2015
The start of a new month means it’s time for our regular roundup of news stories and campaigns from the world of social media.
As always it’s necessary to add in the caveat that you won’t find any hard metrics or ROI in this post.
How well is your digital marketing performing?
How would you like to receive a free personalised copy of the Adobe 2015 Digital Marketing Survey?
The report, which Econsultancy has helped to produce, reveals which optimization tactics savvy marketers will use in the next 12 months and gives tailored recommendations on how to build your own winning strategy.
In order to receive your free copy all you have to do is complete the survey by clicking on this link.
Once you have completed the survey you’ll recieve a personalized report that shows how you score against the major industry benchmarks and what you can do to get ahead.
Marketing Budgets 2015: digital investment continues to grow [infographic]
77% of companies plan to increase their digital marketing budgets, the highest rate since our Marketing Budgets survey began, and up from 71% last year.
This stat is taken from our Marketing Budgets 2015 Report, published in association with Oracle Marketing Cloud.
Stories (Not Ads) Help Brands Connect With Millennials
Intuitively it makes sense: the sooner a consumer is hooked on your brand — loyal to their core — the greater the lifetime value of that relationship. More years means more dollars, right? That straight line is certainly the case for some companies. There are others, however, for which the value in reaching millennials is far more nuanced. There are companies that seek to cultivate deep, personal, long-term relationships. That goal and how to reach it quickly and at scale makes today’s marketers sweat. Everyone wants millennials’ attention, loyalty and ultimately their dollars. Earning those takes consistency and consideration. I have [...]
The post Stories (Not Ads) Help Brands Connect With Millennials appeared first on B2B Marketing Insider.
14 best branded Instagram videos from February 2015
Welcome to our monthly round-up of the best branded Instagram videos from the last four weeks.
As I said at the top of this month’s Vine round-up, it being February you can probably expect the usual mixture of Valentine, pancake and Oscar related mirth.
You’ll also get to enjoy some cool polar bear action too.
Anyway, it probably just took you longer to read that introduction than it will to watch all these videos, so let’s get on with the show.
Start Me Up! A profile of Smart Pension
Launched recently, Smart Pension aims to help small businesses deal with automatic pension enrolment.
I've been asking MD Will Wynne about the company and its plans. Will was also the man behind Arena Flowers, as well as being a guest contributor on this blog.
Build Your Social Media Editorial Calendar For Best Results
Want to improve your social media results? Use these 5 key elements to build your social media editorial calendar. Includes tips & tactics.
The post Build Your Social Media Editorial Calendar For Best Results appeared first on Heidi Cohen.
Sunday, 1 March 2015
The new digital c-suite: How influential is the CMO?
As companies become more digitally focused, is the CMO becoming more influential within the c-suite?
Developments in marketing technology have meant that CMOs have had to become more tech savvy in their approach, and we’ve all seen the stat that by 2017 CMOs will be spending more on tech than CIOs and CTOs.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)