You cannot hope for a successful content outcome in content marketing without a clear sense of intended outcome, and a strategy to support it. We"€™re a fan of Joe Pulizzi"€™s B.E.S.T Formula to help with this. The purpose of BEST is simply don't start executing on your content marketing until you have a sound content strategy. And, we…

Making analytics make a difference - our interview with David Sealey

How do you try to make use of your analytics? We all know that in theory web analytics tools give us fantastic insight to help us improve results for our digital marketing. In practice you need to know the right questions to ask and use the right reports and measures to find the answer. You also need to know the intuition to follow-up on a hunch. Every marketer and every analyst will have their own unique style. As a consultant I'm always keen to learn how others tackle a problem so I can learn from their ideas. In this interview, David Sealey of Design and Analytics Agency Quba shares his approach on how to avoid "analysis paralysis".

Current marketing challenges for 2011

Question 1: What do you see as the current major challenges faced by marketers and how can analytics help? …

A few days ago, Google unveiled Hotpot, nothing to do with that Lancashire culinary delight, it's Google's foray into one of the fastest growing areas of the internet - location based software. So should Facebook,…

How should marketers respond to the new Facebook webmail service?

Marketing impact: [rating=5] Our commentary : Wow, we should have seen this one coming! This is a very logical and very sound move from Facebook. It's no surprise really since reports from other webmail providers like Hotmail showing that around 20% of emails from webmail providers like Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail are updates from social networks - that's a massive opportunity for Facebook to increase engagement with their brand. Although Facebook are saying this is "not an email service". They're looking looking to differentiate. There's a danger here for email marketers since Friends will have a separate social inbox, making it more difficult for email marketers to get their message through? I'm sure that this service will become as popular as the other webmail providers and it will be optimised for phone access which…

Four options for tracking offline marketing campaigns showing the method for Google Analytics

To track offline campaign effectiveness requires use of a campaign URL within offline communications like Print or TV ads. There are several choices with which URL to use, each with their own advantages and disadvantages. Here's a quick run-through with links to more detail at the end. I'd be interested to hear about your preferences for which are most effective. Do most people ignore campaign tracking or vanity URLs so it's a waste of time or is it worthwhile?

1. The standard home page address

Example: http://www.domain.com This is a common approach by advertisers since it's the simplest. The main disadvantage from a measurement point-of-view is that there is no way to directly track this. Although you can review an increase in direct traffic arriving at this URL through a segmented landing page report. From a marketing point-of-view this also has the…

10 Tips for developing Successful iPhone/iPad Apps

This chart, taken from my post on the consumer adoption of mobile apps and the marketing opportunities shows that it's worth thinking through you app strategy for different mobile platforms. But if you decided you need to launch an app, what's the best approach to do this so that you get the results you're looking for? Well, thanks to Kim Watson, a Managing Director at publisher group MIlliivres Prowler Group, we're able to present this best practice advice on  an app development process.

Source: IphoneDev

Ten tips for developing a mobile app

1. DEFINE A PURPOSE - Be clear about the benefits of your Application and match…

5 Reasons You Need a Content Marketing Strategy

So, social media is the current big thing taking a lot of our time, attention and emotional effort. But is it working for you, is your social media cart cart stuck in the mud regarding results? Are you struggling to figure out how to make it work for you? If yes, why is that the case "€“ after all you have a Facebook Page, you"€™re probably tweeting and running a company blog, of sorts. Have you considered that the social media cart is missing the content strategy horse? Here are five reasons why a content strategy needs to be considered before figuring out how social media integrates into your marketing plans.

Reason 1. Little content = little conversation

Developing a content marketing strategy is about understanding your audience"€™s unmet needs. Whether customers, potential customers or influencers. Only then are…

Whilst researching another blog post I was reminded about this post from January this year, from Joe Pulizzi. "€œWhenever I lose my way (to a more traditional mindset), I read through my content-marketing heavy list.  It's guaranteed to help"€, says Joe. So, rather than just list them, and the several that I don"€™t fully understand, I have picked and commented on the content marketing truths that resonated with me "€“ be sure you review the full 30 Content Marketing Truths from the Junta 42 web site. Joe really writes great stuff. A customer relationship doesn't end with the payment. In truth, the relationship has just started, the marketing sages have told us for years the value and growth is born out of retaining a customer, not constantly seeking a new one. Interruption isn't valued, but engagement is. It"€™s not the 1950"€™s, shouting louder in more places does not get you heard, so…

Smartblog commented this week that being a great WOM (word-of-mouth) marketer requires an understanding of the basics that motivate people to talk about you and share your brand story. They highlight 3 ways, I've listed them below and added an example to each: You. "€œThe "€˜You"€™ reason people talk is all about the goods "€” you"€™re doing or selling something and people want to talk about it"€. A great example would be Apple who do little to fuel WOM except launch great products. There"€™s an industry of Apple blogs! It"€™s about creating or doing something remarkable, like iPhone, to start WOM working for you. Me. Though it applies to a smaller sub-set, "€œthis one"€™s about that feeling of being smart, important or helpful we get when we offer a recommendation or pass something along"€. Connecting people and providing a service, and maybe monetising that. A good example might be key influencers or…

Your options for visualising and better understanding the combination of media that assist sale across multiple touchpoints on the "path to purchase" Back in 2008 I did an interview with Gary Angel, an analytics consultant at Semphonic, where I asked him about attribution approaches.  What he said two years on is still equally relevant: Attribution remains a significant issue for clients. In our view, there is no one right answer to attribution. We all know that first or last doesn't cut it. But it turns out that channels interact quite differently for different organizations. It also turns out to be nightmarishly difficult to produce coherent reports on channel interactions that capture anything like reality. Building an attribution model usually seems to involve a significant company-specific deep-dive analysis followed by the creation of a set of business attribution rules that are applied to ongoing reporting. This is an area…