"Need-to-know" changes in July 2012

In this “fat-free” round-up we update you to what we see as the biggest changes from the last month in the world of digital marketing. You’ll certainly know some, if not most already, but we hope it will be worth scanning to see whether you missed anything which could affect the way you approach marketing in future. These alerts are mainly changes on the platforms like Facebook and Google which are so important to digital marketing, but we also include a selection of our most popular briefings on best practice in managing and planning marketing. I thought the biggest news this month was the announcement of availability of Google Glass and the new gestural interfaces we cover in the UX section below. Is this what we'll be seeing out of our window this time next year?

A summary of recent changes relevant to marketers

Value/Importance: [rating=4] Google often announce developments in Google Analytics in bursts. In July we've seen several changes notified via the Google Analytics blog that it’s worth being aware of if your company uses Google Analytics. Some are just name changes, others are more significant. Here’s our summary: 1. New Google Analytics version now standard. From 18th July the original version of Google Analytics was retired. Most businesses will now be using the new version, but this is a prompt that users may need training to be aware of the new features such as multichannel funnels and social analytics. It is also a prompt to check that Google Analytics is set up to tailor reports to improve marketing for their business (see our Google Analytics setup checklist for details of 15 setup options). 2. Google Website Optimizer now integrated as Content Experiments. GWO was originally…

The makings of the ideal Community Manager

In a recent post on Smart Insights, Steve Kitt laid out some solid reasons why companies should consider having their own online community.  Steve makes a good argument, but even if you have your own community and manager, your brand will be fodder for discussion on other communities you have no control over and that’s why having a community manager (CM) is important for every company. The reason you need a community manager is not only because you need someone to build or manage your own “walled” community, but because you need someone to represent you in all communities across multiple channels where people are talking about your brand. A company does not have to have its own online forum to have a community manager. A brand’s community stretches across a multitude of channels.

A virtual diplomat

A community…

The role of social gifting for retail Ecommerce  

Social gifting allows users to send paid-for, discounted or free gift cards to their social network friends via mobile or desktop applications from gifting companies. Start-ups offering a social gifting options include: Wrapp for Facebook (Europe and US) DropGifts  for Facebook (UK) Cashstar (US) Socialgift (an own site embedded solution for group gifting)

How does it work?

Each of the main providers have a slightly different approach with some focusing on individual gifting via social networks and others enabling a group of friends to contribute (ideal for leaving presents or shared family gifts). Taking the example of Wrapp a Swedish startup now offering the service elsewhere in Europe and the US, retailers can use the service to help their customers remember their Facebook friends’ birthdays and prompting them to send a gift. Personalisation enables Wrapp to recommend suitable gifts based on account age,…

London 2012 template shows Enewsletters don't have to be boring

While this email template didn't entertain me as much as Danny Boyle's opening ceremony I thought I'd share it as an example of "state-of-the-art" email marketing. It shows all these features well: Dynamic content insertion for relevant events/images for days based on location Multi-column design style Accessibility and mobile support through text version Simple social media integration It also ticks many of the boxes in a previous post giving other Enewsletter examples and a 24 point creative checklist.  Maybe something to show your agency when you're next briefing them - it shows a style that could work for both B2C and B2B email templates. I'm not sure who's behind it, but I was discussing it with Tim Watson and he though from eDialog. Not sure how. Tim?…
Enewsletters are still the main online direct to customer communications tool, so it pays to invest time and thought in a decent template. Over the past few years of running email marketing training courses I have reviewed hundreds of enewsletter templates and often see the same basic errors. Individually they often aren't important, but if several good practice features are missed, they can definitely adversely affect the experience or response rates.

Three best practice enewsletter template examples

Good practice will naturally vary according to sector. The two main enewsletter styles are B2C retail-style for transactional sites featuring products and information-led for business-to-business, relationship development and publishing. We will look at and example from each.

1 B2C transactional newsletter example

2 B2B informational newsletter example 3 Professional services/membership enewsletter Added this since I wrote…

The FT.com web app shows how HTML5 may make support for different mobile OS easier in future

There are so many posts and articles rating the top iPhone/iPad/Android/Windows Mobile app that it might seem that marketers looking to create the widest audience have to develop specific version available through the app store of each platform. But, the success of the FT.com web app shows that it doesn't have to be this way and in the future it may not be; the dependence on app stores for each mobile native OS may seem quaint. Here are the latest (July 27th) figures on digital publishing by FT.com Digital subscriptions to the title, which operates behind a metered paywall increased 31% year on year to more than 300,000. The number of registered users climbed 29% to 4.8 million. Mobile devices now account for 25% of traffic to FT.com, while there are 2.7 million FT web app users. …

Precision App network targeting, simple messaging and a great brand are key to WWF’s success

I've created this campaign summary since it shows just how effective a mobile ad campaign can be when it's well targeted and delivers a strong, simple message. It's based on a more in-depth case study of a WWF Sweden campaign available from Google. The fact that WWF already had a well-respected brand in Sweden at the time of the campaign didn’t hurt either - existing high brand recognition was undoubtedly a factor in making this loyal donor recruitment campaign a huge success. WWF’s campaign results are truly impressive, showing +25% increase in mobile conversion compared with WWF’s total conversions across all platforms. The campaign results were good enough to convince WWF to abandon other advertising channels and increase mobile investment by 400%, focusing exclusively on the AdMob…

Using AlternativeTo to find better ways of working

If you are anything like me, you like to find new tools and ways to improve what you are doing. Software, apps and online services are often ways to aid in process changes, but searching the web, looking for reviews etc can make this task very boring and costly (from a time perspective). In this post, I'm recommending AlternativeTo (www.alternativeto.net), a site recently introduced to me. For any service you're already using, it will give you a user rated list of alternative apps, software and services to trial and use instead. Another example of where this tool is relevant is if you are making the switch from PC to Mac (one I would recommend) you might want to find a similar tool you use on the PC for a Mac. Using the search, filters, categories & tags it is easy to what you are looking…

Recommendations on managing today's media in a new report from the Altimeter Group

Altimeter's new report, "The Converged Media Imperative: How Brands Must Combine Paid, Owned and Earned Media" by Rebecca Lieb and Jeremiah Owyang is very good read. I'll summarise it with this quote highlighting three obvious and simple words that will not do the report justice: "Ensure that you break down silos between traditional (paid), digital and earned media." Don't let that summary put you off, since being comfortable with it doesn't mean you're doing it or even motivated to do it, nor that your marketing partners or agencies are ready to help you do it either... http://www.flickr.com/photos/altimetergroup/7585322178/

Organise around the customer experience

The report speaks to marketers and their agency partners - urging that they must converge their media efforts by combining social, corporate content, and advertising reach – or risk a lack of connection with the fleeting customer. It's true since whilst consumers don't distinguish…