Email campaigns we like to learn from
I recently reviewed how ASOS does a great job of engaging their audience both through email and social media marketing. Here, I'm going to review one example of an email campaign I like, calling out what I think works well and not so well.
In the second part of 2011, ASOS seemed to make quite a few creative refinements to its email designs and this winter style campaign is a good example of the new approach.
Getting the creative balance right
Effective email design for a brand like ASOS needs to get the balance right between the visual appeal the brand offers with clear calls-to-action and offer. I think this creative gets this balance right:
Let's now go into some of the details:
The pre-header
Pre-headers are widely used in the US, but are not adopted so widely in the UK. This one is fairly…
8 practical techniques you can apply today to increase your online audience
There's much talk and some great examples, around how to best use social media to grow your reach online. But, how do you tackle boosting the audience you reach in a planned, structured way. We've picked what we feel are the most practical and important techniques to help you do just that. We'll add to and evolve this list throughout this year.
1. Target the most relevant audience segments
The fact is that your audience demographic, all the people that you could market to, vary in their importance in two ways - how commercially relevant they are - are they likely buyers, and also how likely your content is going to motivate them to either share and amplify your brand, or drive them further towards purchase.
Though you could theoretically appeal to lots of people, the reality of time and resources…
Value/Importance: [rating=2]
Recommended link: Eenox introduction to Qube
We’re fans of the options QR codes give for new marketing applications, so it’s interesting to see a new tool, launched this week by France-based company Eenox that enables better geographical tracking of how offline ads like posters drive response.
According to its developers, Eenox Qube is the first QR code tracking solutions to provide geolocalisation support using the HTML5 API.
The solution tracks specific geolocalisation informations such as a latitude and longitude using either GPS information or either IP location method. Users have the option of disclosing their location, for example, on a basis of 100 scans the system can show that 78 scans have been geolocalised, 18 users refused to provide their positions, and 4 positions where unavailable for technical reasons.
…
Using Multi-Channel Funnels to analyse the impact of marketing channels on conversions
Many marketers struggle to identify which sources of traffic are most effective when it comes to converting web visitors. When conversions take place over multiple visits rather than a single visit to a site, it's really important to understand the complete customer journey and not use the standard "last click wins" model of attribution.
This is particularly the case in the area I work in, B2B marketing, since buying cycles can be as long as 18 to 24 months and include multiple campaigns in between.
The new Multi-Channel funnel reports in Google Analytics is a step closer to providing marketers with much more detailed insights into the first and last interactions visitors have with your website before turning into a lead. At the end of the post I show an example of how they can be used to understand the…
Integrating blogging with other communication tools – an integrated approach
Although blogging is far from new, I find that relatively few organisations have really started using blogs effectively. Where they have, they have found a tool that delivers on multiple fronts because it's integrated into all their communications.
When used effectively, the blog is a place for you to develop newsletter content, integrate with other social media tools, showcase your expertise, play with ideas, research a topic and discover customer views. Of course, blogs also yield dividends in terms of SEO as other sites pick up your content giving you invaluable back links, and customers will get on with the job of tweeting and liking your work.
The Blog Central model
Below is a model I’ve developed to use when explaining the concept to colleagues and on my training courses. To make the point of how blogging must be at the heart of your communications,…
A custom dashboard in Google Analytics you can use for checking your checkout process
If you have an ecommerce web site you know that the performance of the checkout is critical. If anything goes wrong with the checkout it will be costing you money.
That’s why first thing every morning, before I even look at the sales figures, I look at my clients' ‘Checkout’ custom dashboards.
It gives me an instant health check. I can clearly see if something has gone wrong with any of the stages in the checkout, such as the payment gateway or the address lookup system. Or if something is wrong with a promotional offer codes and people who use it are unable to buy…
All I have to do is to take a quick look at this…
Page Layout Algorithm update to affect a small proportion of sites
Value/Importance: [rating=2]
Recommended link: Google : Page Layout Algorithm improvement
A minor update compared to the major announcement last week of Google Search Plus Your World update (still only available on Google.com). This release seeks to penalise sites which have a high proportion of ads above-the-fold, according to Google:
“This algorithmic change does not affect sites who place ads above-the-fold to a normal degree, but affects sites that go much further to load the top of the page with ads to an excessive degree or that make it hard to find the actual original content on the page.
This new algorithmic improvement tends to impact sites where there is only a small amount of visible content above-the-fold or relevant content is persistently pushed down by large blocks of ads”.
This change is expected to effect…
Life’s A Pitch (Part 2 of 3): Writing a decent creative brief
Most people find writing a creative immensely difficult and more often than not, people make a bad job of it. This is designed to be helpful advice for all, regardless of whether you’re new to writing briefs or you’ve been in the industry for years. Like countless peers, I’ve spent years writing briefs. Moreover, in my various new business roles, I’ve received and written a vast amount of potential client/pitch briefs. In such instances, the brief is obviously the key to getting it right.
Whilst it’s important for agency-side parties to be usefully inquisitive, the work you receive will be a reasonable reflection of the brief you provide in the first place (i.e. get the brief wrong and the work represented will likely be shit). So with that in mind, here’s a simple guide to what that brief should consist of. …
A 5 step process using 90-day time-boxes to help implement your plans
The start of a new year always brings a period of reflection and forward planning. New strategies are created and exciting initiatives are launched. It's often the case though, that plans and strategies end up in drawers, little changes and businesses continue on doing the same old things.
I am lucky in that between working for both Smart Insights and First 10 I get to bridge both the creation of strategies as well as the implementation of them. At the moment I'm more involved at the implementation stage which is why I have decided to share our process for making the most of a strategy and delivering on your big ideas.
Running marketing services at First 10 often sees us managing multiple clients as well as multiple freelancers in different markets, positions etc but essentially we help clients run and manage…
How to promote your company blog to reach a larger audience
Writing a blog doesn't end when you hit the publish button. Far from it. In this third part of our series on business blogging, René Power reviews the best approaches to seeding and distributing your blog content - giving it the best chance of being seen by the people you're targeting.
1. Promote it on your website
Add a snippet to your home page. It provides a sign post for visitors and also offers some additional search engine optimisation benefits if you have considered your keywords carefully.
2. Index your blog with major blog directories
Ensure your blog is listed in as many blog directories as possible, particularly those with specialist sections. Why? Backlinks to your blog are still one of the most important factors in determining how visible your blog (and…
