From our friends at www.digitalmindmap.com
Sunday 24 June 2012
Wednesday 18 April 2012
Doing Digital - Going Mobile
The Whole World’s Gone Global!
The
late 20th and early 21st centuries were typified by
fundamental changes in consumer behaviour and in markets. These were largely enabled
by two significant technological advances; the Personal Computer and the
Internet.
The
first allowed users in business, and later the home, to access unrivalled
computing power, without the restrictions and control of an IT department.
Secondly,
during this period, the Internet evolved into a fully functional platform for
global information exchange, communications and commerce.
Mobile
technology represents the third wave of this technological tsunami and builds
upon it. It puts significant, compact computer processing power literally
in the hands of all of us, connecting everything together across the World Wide
Web.
It is
estimated that about 30% of the world’s 7 Billion population have access to the
Internet, while globally there are about 5.8 billion mobile subscriptions. In
the UK there are now more mobile devices than people! Imagine the potential
that this level of technology penetration gives to marketers.
A striking
feature of Mobile and Mobile Marketing is its ubiquity. Mobile devices are
always connected and in contact. This allows consumers to access the
functionality that they want, at the time, location and in the form in which
they want it.
We are moving
away from a world where media owners and marketers strive to get their message
across just at the times and places of their choosing. Whether in advertising,
news or entertainment, the consumer is now the final arbiter.
As consumers,
we increasingly expect to be addressed and serviced as individuals, rather than
just ‘one of the crowd’. We are conceptually moving from ‘one market of a
million’ to ‘a million markets of one’.
A far cry
from the days when Henry Ford offered his cars in ‘any color you want, as long
as it’s black’!
In time, I believe that the mobile devices of today will evolve to become a
kind of digital ‘Swiss army knife of the future. Imagine a device which; holds
your money and id, captures or delivers media, communicates, navigates, scans,
entertains, informs and educates.
Geo-location
allows our Mobile device to be ‘aware’ of where it is and what is around it.
With a device that goes everywhere with the consumer and which ‘knows’ where
they are, there are many potential benefits for advertisers. Combining geo-targeted
Mobile advertising with known customer data, for example from a web based CRM
system, can provide highly relevant messaging which will add value to the recipient.
Delivered through a Concierge or PA application, services can be envisaged that advise the consumer of where to go and what to do, based on their location and predicted or specified preferences and tastes.
Delivered through a Concierge or PA application, services can be envisaged that advise the consumer of where to go and what to do, based on their location and predicted or specified preferences and tastes.
A further
growth area will be in the case where the Mobile device acts as a ‘Social
Object Controller’. With the development of web 3.0, more and more ‘inanimate’
objects will have web connectivity. These will include; cars, household
appliances, games and media devices. In future, most of these will interact
with, or be accessible and controllable from, the consumer’s Mobile device(s).
Consider a
retail environment where your Mobile ‘knew’ where you were and could guide your
shopping trip to nearby outlets and stores which stocked the items in which you
were interested, alerted staff when you had arrived in the shop, performed a
price-check and delivered personalised
offers, discounts and deals, uniquely tailored to you.
Imagine a
world where your car not only had a sat-nav but would also generate active
recommendations for restaurants, rest stops and places of interest en route,
all based on your personal preferences and diary. When it became time for a vehicle
service, the embedded Mobile device could notify the driver, contact the garage
to inform them of areas for attention, and book the appointment. Bugatti Veyron
technology today – in most vehicles in the future.
In a recent
discussion with some of my students, these ideas raised some concerns about
safety and security, with so much of a user’s personal information on one
Mobile device. Today, with services such as Apple’s iCloud it is possible to
remotely locate, lock or wipe a misplaced iPhone. Compare that with the
nightmare of trying to contact all of the credit, debit and store card
companies, after your purse or wallet is lost or stolen.
At present,
many of these predictions may seem far-fetched or fanciful. In the past, many
of us marvelled at the first ‘green screen’ PC’s, mobile phones the size and
weight of a house-brick and even ‘Space Invaders’ or ‘Pong’ on the games
machine in our local pub.
In future,
the next generation of consumers will adopt and adapt to ubiquitous Mobile
devices as an accepted and expected aspect of everyday life.
I, for one,
can’t wait to join them!
Peter Rees DipM FCIM FRSA MCIPR MIDM, Chartered Marketer
Principal
Principal
City Digital Marketing Academy
Thursday 16 February 2012
Monday 6 February 2012
EXCLUSIVE - e-interview with Dr. Dave Chaffey
After many months in the planning, I am delighted to post this EXCLUSIVE interview with stellar Digital Marketer Dr Dave Chaffey, to whom very many thanks!!
Dr Dave Chaffey is CEO and co-founder of Smart Insights (www.smartinsights.com), a digital
marketing advice site that helps businesses succeed online. He is author of 5
bestselling books on Ecommerce including Internet
Marketing: Strategy, Implementation and Practice and has been recognised as
one of 50 marketing ‘gurus’ worldwide who have shaped the future of Marketing.
Question 1: Many companies and
managers today are overwhelmed with all the hype around Digital Marketing. What
practical advice would you give them, to help get started in this area?
Yes, I think
many “rabbits in the headlights” moments with the growing pace of change and
the speed at which the key players introduce new features. The great thing
about digital marketing is that you can “dive in” and start small by creating a
blog or Facebook page. The problem is, you’ll often then lurch to the next
latest hype to see whether that helps. It’s currently Google+ and Pinterest for
example, this time last year it was Quora. None of these will help build
commercial growth if you don’t get the marketing fundamentals right.
At
SmartInsights.com we're firm believers in a planned, structured approach to
help make sure your online marketing activities are aligned with business
objectives. Planning also really helps you prioritise on the areas you can have
the biggest impact, maybe opportunities in tactics that competitors have
ignored. It's also essential to get inside customers’ minds to see what they
think, feel and do online and work out how that connects with your brand.
It’s crazy
really, with how much is invested in digital media today, how few have a
planned approach. We asked this question in a post about digital planning a couple of years ago and were not surprised to see that the
majority have an ad-hoc approach. We repeated this informal poll again this
year and found there was little change:
So, my
practical advice is “don’t just jump in”, think about what you want to achieve
and how you’re going to position yourself online, to differentiate yourself. A
practical tip here, is to improve how you communicate your value proposition
across your website and social outposts. If you’re an established brand this is
less necessary, but if you’re starting out, it’s essential.
See our advice on crafting an online value proposition (OVP).
Question 4: What steps can companies
take to measure and validate the returns that they get from their Digital
Marketing investment?
See our advice on crafting an online value proposition (OVP).
Question 2: What place do Social Media
tools have in the Digital Marketing Mix? Are they simply additional advertising
channels or something more?
Sure, you
can think of social media platforms as advertising channels, but as you know
Peter, that’s completely missing the point. We had an interesting discussion of this topic on our LinkedIn Group just yesterday.
A student
studying digital marketing was asking about the scope of social media and their
relevance to marketing. The short definition from my book is that
"Social media encourage audience
participation, interaction and sharing"
You can see
that doesn’t sit at all well with advertising; we all know we don’t want to be
advertised to when we’re socialising. That’s not to say that advertising on the
social platforms doesn’t have value in raising awareness and connecting with
advocates, far from it. But social media has an impact across the whole of
digital marketing mix as you suggest.
Jen Law, one
of our expert members expressed it better, saying “Social media is about conversations, community, connecting with
personalities and building relationships. It is not just a broadcast channel or
a sales and marketing tool”.
I think it’s
interesting that in 2011-12 we are seeing company response to social media
growing up and many now see it more broadly and are thinking how best to
harness social media marketing across the business. We’re seeing companies talk
about broader management of social media. In the same discussion, Paul
Fennemore, a social media specialist, said:
A purist would say 'social media' is
media. In this case Web2.0 interactive, real-time based media
including: Video, Blogs, Wikis, Gaming, Photos, Music and so on.
However, social media has come to mean than this and is not a good term for what it represents, Social Media Marketing, Social Commerce, Social Business, Social Enterprise are better terms depending on the context.
However, social media has come to mean than this and is not a good term for what it represents, Social Media Marketing, Social Commerce, Social Business, Social Enterprise are better terms depending on the context.
Here, the
CEO of Burberry talks about how fundamental social media are to the way they
operate today:
Question 3: Today, consumers are
exposed to a vast amount of data. How can marketers make it easier for them to
find and hear what they need and filter out extraneous messages and information,
from all the noise?
Analytics is
a passion of mine thanks to my background as a scientist when I was studying in
the 1980s. It’s one of the reasons why I was attracted to Internet marketing as
it was known in the mid 1990s. It seemed to offer an opportunity to understand
our customers much better and deliver relevance in our communications to help
secure better business outcomes and ROI on our media investments. Yet, sadly I
think most companies fail to filter out the noise.
There are
certainly technical challenges with attributing influence to multiple media
across complex customer journeys and how we use cookies to do this. I also
think the web analytics systems as designed, are mostly designed “by geeks, for
geeks” and they’re not structured around the questions that marketers ask –
that’s why we’ve developed guides to step marketers through these questions on
SmartInsights.com. But the bigger problems are todo with the classic governance
issues of people, process and systems. You need the right KPIs, dashboards
tailored to your business and a regular review/action process. Out-of-the box,
the analytics or social listening tools don’t give you this. Some big companies
do get this right, here’s one example we covered:
To answer
you’re question directly, I recommend these steps:
- Define value of outcomes on your site – setup goals in Google Analytics with values assigned to represent value.
- Put in place tracking of all media, on and offline, with consistent marketing source codes
- With this in place start using rarely used measures like revenue or goal value per visit and $Index value
- Understand, at a granular level which media including sites, search terms, placement and creative create value for you.
- Maximise value, prioritising the media with the best conversion rates and ROI.
- Understand more complex journeys through multichannel funnels so you are crediting assists earlier in the journey rather than just “last click wins”
- Find solutions to assess the value within social media marketing – 1 to 6 will help, but specialist tools are still needed!
Question 5: As the Web evolves into
the Cloud and becomes even more pervasive, what changes do you predict for Marketing,
resulting from the growth of mobile and the ubiquitous connection of less
animate objects?
A
challenging question to end! Regardless of the cloud, I think many don’t have a
good conception of the their creative assets and how to make them most
effective. We still have this mental idea of creative placed on our site or an
advertisers site we need to use to get our message across. In 2007, I think
there was a lot of discussion of “atomisation” and I think this is a better way
to think of creative assets today.
My colleague, Dan Bosomworth on
SmartInsights.com likes to call these “social objects” and they are the
fundamental units for effective content
marketing today. They are incredibly
effective in some markets such as tech products and fashion. Companies like
Hubspot, Eloqua in B2B, ASOS, Burberry in Fashion are masters in creating
effective assets and campaigns around these which expand their reach and
preference and link through to commercial goals. There are examples from many
sectors though.
For me a solid content marketing strategy is key to online
success today and it’s fundamental to success in search, social, email marketing
and conversion. It unifies brand communications in disparate channels. So if
you don’t have a content strategy you’re falling behind.
We find
discussions of the potential of mobile marketing are some of the most popular
on our blog, whether this is about QR codes, mobile apps or effective mobile
design. It certainly gives increased opportunities for connecting with
consumers in a more personal way, but I can’t see examples where how a company
deploys mobile marketing has transformed their brand in the way that content
and social media have for some of the examples above.
At some levels a mobile
or tablet device is just an alternative to the desktop platformand gives a
channel choice for similar content and experience. It doesn’t give so many
brands so many new opportunities to engage. But I’d like to hear of more
examples, particularly around proximity or location-based marketing with
experiential marketing events. This is
where it can give companies an edge.
Looking
further into the future, more objects will be web-enabled whether that’s cars,
household items or people! PR Smith talked about this in our Emarketing
Excellence book as earlier as 2001 about the Post-PC customer.
We haven’t seen
real progress in this area although the Verichip was touted as an implantable RFID chip. Health and privacy concerns seemed to
have stopped it and I’m not too sorry about that – I think we all need to
unplug sometime!
It will happen, but “not in my lifetime”.
Useful links and resources:
If readers
of this post would like to learn more about digital marketing, we've created a
framework on Smart Insights which can help marketers explore a topic without
being reliant on Google or Wikipedia.
Here are the starting points I'd
recommend:
Our home page has a widget
we developed based on the PRACE framework to explore
over 200 digital marketing techniques
For a quick scan of all
techniques try our Best Practices review- grouped in 25 key marketing activities
We also have a Digital Marketing Strategy Guide and simplified
marketing planning framework.
Find out more about our Ebooksand training courses.
Thank you Dr Chaffey!
Tuesday 31 January 2012
(UN)SATISFACTORY? ENHANCING LIFE CHANCES BY IMPROVING ‘SATISFACTORY’ SCHOOLS
Becky Francis, RSA Director of Education
December 2011
A report from our friends at the RSA.
Download it HERE
Friday 9 December 2011
Twitter for the Tentative
“I’m in the #bath”
Nothing generates more debate and
exemplifies the perceived problems with Digital Marketing and Social Media than
the high profile, often highly publicised, crumbs of consciousness emitted by
‘A’ and even ‘Z’ list celebrities, in 160 byte-sized bursts.
Welcome to the world of Twitter!
Before I try
to explore the business areas where Digital Marketing and Social Media can make
a very real contribution to professionally planned and managed marketing activities,
it is worth recognising that vast numbers of people, for whatever reason, are
actually interested in the day-to-day minutiae of celebrity lives. Lady Gaga
and Justin Bieber have followers numbered in the tens of millions, larger even
than the total populations of whole countries.
This has
been labelled as ‘ambient intimacy’ and is an effective approach to build
familiarity, favourability and interest for the ones being followed. These are
all very recognisable and desirable outcomes for those with a background in or
experience of PR.
Though it
may be difficult for many to comprehend the underlying rationale for such a
following, this reality could actually present a market opportunity, if these
followers were to represent a significant target segment for your marketing and
communications activities.
Think of
Twitter as a subscription based news or information broadcasting service where its
readers (Followers) can choose to subscribe and follow the articles (Tweets) of
their specifically chosen authors. Each author has a unique name starting with
an @ symbol.
Twitter was
designed for compatibility with SMS text messaging, giving the well known 140
character limit for the content of a Tweet. What can you say in 160 characters?
Not much admittedly, though some people try, with varying degrees of success!
Once you use
Twitter, you will soon realise that most Tweets actually contain a link to a
web page, typically shortened by one of the many tools available, to reduce a lengthy
web address to fit within the 140 character limit. This link very quickly and
dramatically increases the utility of a Tweet, directing the follower to a
place where they can access extensive and interesting information, videos,
music or whatever. Twitter is a wonderful tool for sharing news and commentary.
Recent examples, related to the ‘Arab spring’, show just what a powerful system
Twitter is for broadcasting breaking news, often in advance of the major media
agencies. As with the BBC charter, used in this way, Twitter can be a powerful method
to inform, educate as well as entertain.
How then can
we sort through the tens of millions of Tweets to identify those in which we
may be interested? - and how can we make sure that the Tweets we send can be
found by those with whom we wish to communicate? Twitter has an excellent and simple indexing
technique called the ‘hashtag’.
Putting the # symbol in a Tweet before a chosen
keyword or words (e.g. #marketing) will add it to the Twitter global index. A
subsequent search will find Tweets containing this hashtag. Read these Tweets and
‘Follow’ authors who interest you. You can quickly learn what people think
about your company, your products and possibly you!
The top 10
‘hot topics’ on Twitter are displayed and updated in real time on your screen,
giving you an insight into the things that are being actively discussed.
Although by default Tweets are public, it is possible to write directly and privately
to other Twitter users. Just think of the possibilities for customer
engagement, having identified those with strong positive or (maybe more
importantly) negative views about your products and services. Now you can
conduct market research in real time and on a global basis.
Consider the
opportunity that this presents to marketers.
Though it is
not widely realised, it is common Twitter etiquette to follow back those that
follow you. In this way it can be very quick to build a community or interest
group clustered about a specific, product, service or organisation.
Once you
have established such contacts, you can conduct brand and business based
conversations with your current or potential customers. Satisfaction surveys, consumer
input on new product developments and online sales promotions all become possible,
much more quickly and at a fraction of the cost incurred using non digital
techniques.
Twitter
therefore provides a platform for indentifying audiences and market segments
with specific interests and opinions. It allows us to develop contacts and
build intimacy with them and engage in a meaningful two-way conversation,
regarding those interests which we both share. We can now achieve all this,
much more effectively and efficiently than has ever been possible in the past.
Of much greater
value for marketers than the news that.....
“I’m in the #bath”.
Follow CDMA on Twitter @citydigital
Thursday 10 November 2011
Confessions of a Serial Entrepreneur
I am delighted to post this e-interview with Sue Reeves, co-founder of the hugely successful 'Business Biscotti' business networking site and service.
Sue is a top marketer and serial entrepreneur.
I caught up with her and asked for some of her secrets for success.
I have also been a freelance photographer since February 2004. I have City and Guilds level 3 qualification, in Photography as well as an HND in Hotel Management!
I am also the Marketing Director for Business Biscotti Ltd.
I have run an import business (lowgrade recycled
paper products), Printing and Graphic Design House, Web development Agency,
Below the Line promotions business, Online Training, and now I run SuePix
photography and Business Biscotti Ltd!
Business Biscotti provides Free Business Networking, both offline and through an online Community Portal. www.businessbiscotti.co.uk
Business Biscotti has grown organically –
through a viral campaign via the physical groups and the
online community. Last month (October 2011)
we had 30,000 uniquevisitors.
Sue is a top marketer and serial entrepreneur.
I caught up with her and asked for some of her secrets for success.
Sue Reeves - Marketing Director 'Business Biscotti'
I am a serial entrepreneur. Having set up from scratch 5
businesses which have employed staff, had premises, traded profitably and then been sold successfully. I now run 2
businesses!
I have also been a freelance photographer since February 2004. I have City and Guilds level 3 qualification, in Photography as well as an HND in Hotel Management!
I am also the Marketing Director for Business Biscotti Ltd.
My new blog
site for SuePIx goes live late November 2011.
Question 1: You have developed a lot
of expertise as a ‘serial entrepreneur’ – what attracted you to this rather
unusual approach to business life? What businesses have you developed?
I just like
setting up new businesses and creating something from scratch. My first business at the age of 24 was an
Outside Catering business based in Stainland, Halifax, West Yorks.
Question 2: To what extent has a
marketing orientation helped in these ventures?
I have always been the marketing Director for each of the companies that I have run, and taken a very hands-on approach to marketing. I believe that people buy products and services from people that they like. With that in mind a marketing strategy needs to involve face to face enagagement with people. The implementation of my marketing plans has always involved attending and running networking events. The specific objective of attending these events has been to become the prefered supplier in that network for my product or service offering and moreover to build a NETWORK of trusted advocates of my services.
In many instances I have been involved on committees to get profile and become noticed within the higher reaches of the networking organisation. Being involved in charity work is also key to being accessable in a community.
The network that I have built over the last 25 years has been pivotal in securing business over the long term.
My current network is UK wide, as Business Biscotti becomes known and trusted as a National brand. To reach these businesses requires time to be spent researching key players in certain organisations who can help to promote our brand.
Question 3: What advice would you give
to others thinking of setting up new entrepreneurial business ventures?
You need to
have very clear goals from the outset.
You don’t need a lot of money to set up in business – even today its
possible to start on a low capital base.
I have never borrowed from the bank.
You need tenacity, and self belief.
You also require lots of energy and postivitity especially when setting
up in a recession.
I have set 3
businesses up in recession and it's the best time. Costs are lower, and providing you market
yourself effectively you will flourish.
Question 4: What is your view of the
strengths and weaknesses with new ‘Digital Marketing’ techniques in business
development?
Its easy to
do – however you need a Strategy. You
also need clear guidelines on how to use social/digital media for your
business. Do something well and don’t try
to take it all on. Employ a specialist –
even part-time to do it for you.
Remember –
digital marketing is a part of your Marketing Mix – its not the only marketing
you need to do.
Moreover, be consistent in your
messages, your delivery, your approach, the use of your digital channels. Its also easy to get it very wrong.
Question 5: You latest venture
‘Business Biscotti’ seems to be growing enormously fast! To what do you
attribute it’s huge success and where is it going?
Business Biscotti
- is a Business Community
experiencing exponential growth
Background
Background
Business Biscotti provides Free Business Networking, both offline and through an online Community Portal. www.businessbiscotti.co.uk
What makes Business Biscotti really different from any other networing organisation is that we are a COMMUNITY of business people. Who meet to network in neighbourhood groups across the UK - and then continue to network online with others.
And Its all FREE. There is no membership fee, no committment to attend meetings, its flexible - you can turn up without booking in advance, for 1 hour or 2, and simple pay for your tea or coffee to the VENUE. Its also open to anyone to attend, men and women, new to business and experienced entreprenuers of any profession (as long as its legal)!
There are no speakers, no formalities and you can join the online community and never go to a meeting. We have many people who are happy to interact online only.
Everyone in the organisation seems to give a small amount of their time to help one another in some way, whether thats by running a group, offering their business premises free for networking, or providing tips and advice to other members.
People are now building long last business relationships and these are manifesting in sales. Someone posted yesterday onBusinessbiscotti.co.uk
" just ask me about doing business with Business Biscotti ---- I am snowed in!" Peter Morris Pinewood Asset Finance (November 8th 2012)
This is one example of many comments posted everyday in the community.
This community is growing daily without any advertising or PR - purely from an exceptional Digital Marketing strategy. That is being implemented continuously.
The web site provides a dual function that:
- Provides a community platform for those members wishing to continue networking online.
- It is a resource and information portal for members who wish to access information about all the events, meeting times, dates, directions etc.
Communication from Head Office to the membership is
undertaken through 3 channels:
- Website notices and information
- Monthly e-newsletter
- Ambassadors who run each of the monthly group events
Currently Business Biscotti has an audience in excess of
20,000 members through the online membership and the 80 physical groups across
the UK.
Where we are going
Growth will continue through the opening of more physical
groups in targeted areas of the UK and the organic growth that brings to the
online community.
The business model for
Business Biscotti does not rely on 'paid for' membership or sponsors. In order to facilitate the growth of Business
Biscotti, the directors have explored several options; including advertising,
charging members to attend meetings and sponsorship.
The most commercially sound option is from commercial sales.
We have identified that there is currently no vehicle on the
internet that provides a comprehensive set of products and services aimed
specifically at the SME market.
We conducted a survey of our community members to establish
if this is something that they would use.
The overwhelming response was positive, and furthermore a significant
number would welcome some sort of ‘buyers club’, where members could
collaborate to achieve better pricing on products and services.
Success
Its greatest
strength is that people stay on the site for an average of 9 minures per visite
and view an average of 6-7 pages each time.
Resources and links:
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/biscottier
Follow us on
Twitter @biscottier
Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Business-Biscotti-UK-3666077?gid=3666077&mostPopular=&trk=tyah
Videos:
How to open a Business Biscotti group
Reading Central Business Biscotti first birthday
Welcome to Wentworth Business Biscotti
Suepix wedding photogrpahy video
http://youtu.be/HgvSFaLzapk
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