Good User Experience = Good Customer Service = More Sales

Christmas shopping has begun and with it, the stress! And no, I haven’t been shopping offline at all, I’ve been shopping online! But this time of the year always brings to the fore one of the most obvious issues that many Ecommerce Managers have control of, but yet remains to be one of the most lacking in terms of solutions. Picture this: you go into a store where a very nice assistant helps you find everything you need to purchase. You’re thinking “Great! All my Christmas shopping done in an hour!”. You walk on up to the till point where the assistant starts totting up all of your purchases, but the sales assistant then suddenly tells you that you can’t actually pay at their till unless you have a specific device. So you…

Google+ communities and 24 other minor new features

Value/Importance: [rating=2] Recommended link: Google+ Communities Announcement Google+ is certainly continuing to grow. In the announcement of this launch, Google reminds us about the adoption rate with these new figures: “Today Google+ is the fastest-growing network thingy ever. More than 500 million people have upgraded, 235 million are active across Google (+1’ing apps in Google Play, hanging out in Gmail, connecting with friends in Search…), and 135 million are active in just the stream”. So we have to be aware of new features and question their value for marketing. How relevant do you think the new Communities feature is?

Google+ Communities

Remember Yahoo! Groups and Google Groups? Well, although these quietly continue to exist, the latest version of these is Google+ Communities. As with the equivalents on Facebook and LinkedIn there are public and private groups. Differences are that you can offer hangouts and Events to group members…

Read how and why RevZilla has produced over 1,800 videos clocking up 9 million video views

Video marketing is a rapidly-growing technique for increasing brand recognition and loyalty. In fact, according to this Fast Company article from Kerrin Sheldon, short-form video will become a dominant form of marketing over the next five to ten years. Sheldon explains that the trend is gaining momentum due to increasing numbers of online video consumers, the growing use of marketing through social media, low barriers to entry, improved production quality, and enhanced distribution options. Even large corporations are turning to online video marketing – for example, check out "The Single Life," a barely-branded video marketing effort from Dentyne. But small and medium-sized companies without huge advertising budgets can grow their brand through video marketing, too. Producing online videos provides companies with a more meaningful way to interact with (and grow)…

12 great LinkedIn pages to learn B2B marketing from

If you're a B2B marketer, particularly if you work in professional services, you will have noticed how LinkedIn has become a much more effective platform for marketing your business in 2012. With innovations to company pages, profiles and advertising. Just this week, LinkedIn has enabled your groups to be showcased on your company page too. If you're looking to improve your company page then take a look at the leaders - there are some good examples from a range of sectors. LinkedIn asked followers of their blog to tell them their favourite LinkedIn Company Pages and have now compiled their 12 Best Company Pages of 2012. I think these are great examples of how businesses and organizations are using their LinkedIn Company Page to showcase…

... advice on developing a social business strategy

If your work involves planning how social media and social business can support your business I recommend following the Ogilvy Slideshare channel.

Current trends in social media marketing

A recent share from the sister Social @ Ogilvy channel caught my eye recently. It's short, sweet and impactful with each current trend in social media supported by a visual.

Social Business Strategy

Also recently posted by John Bell, Global Managing Director of Social@Ogilvy, this outlines a "plan describing a simple and practical way for business leaders to think about gaining the benefits of social behaviors (and the technologies supporting those behaviors)".

Social media for financial services

Only relevant if you work in this challenging sector, but…

Social media campaign tools can save you from developing and maintaining bespoke social apps

Popular social media management tools such as HootSuite are great for posting simple social media updates, interacting with your followers and tracking responses. But their capabilities can be lacking when you want to use more interactive tools like surveys or contests to engage your audience on Facebook and other social networks. I've recently written a report for Smart Insights members where I compare social media campaign and community-building tools which reviews the options in detail.  In this post I give a flavour of what some of these tools offer. In the guide we review the alternatives and give examples of campaigns created with each tool to inspire campaigns.

The benefits of using social media campaign management tools

The main purpose of the tools featured is to help marketers and agencies go beyond basic status updates to launch promotions…

A summary of Ofcom International report comparing consumer use of the Internet in 17 countries

Value: [rating=5] Recommended link: New Ofcom International Internet usage statistics Ofcom’s seventh International Communications Market Report was published on 13th December 2012, this examines take-up, availability, price and use of broadband, landlines, mobiles, TV, radio and post across 17 major countries. If you’re involved in reviewing changes in consumer and business demand for online services as part of planning for 2013 it’s worth a look - some statistics will be useful for presentations to convince colleagues or clients... While the focus is on the UK since the research is produced by Ofcom, its purpose is to compare with other countries particularly Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United States. So it also has data if you're based in these countries and I have…

Using copy to make a good first impression

Writing copy for your web page is much more than adding in just keywords for SEO and sometimes we forget the obvious – it’s about your customers!. Here are some tips on writing good copy for your pages by Mel Henson.

Your Home page

Quickly it needs to say ”This is what we do – and this is what’s in it for you” within a few moments before your visitors leave.  Include a simple statement or value proposition that tells your visitors at a glance. Of course, this is best from the customer’s point of view, not the company’s. Additional copy should expand on this and incorporate keywords that apply to the whole site. Of course, there are lots of other functions of the home page and navigation is important. the architecture of your site. It draws your customers in, stops them leaving, gets them…

How attribution data has informed the affiliate channel

I recently met Helen Southgate, Online Marketing Controller for Strategy & Planning at Sky, presenting their approach to media channel attribution and how it informed their understanding of the affiliate channel in context with other online activity. With that in mind she kindly agreed to this interview where I asked about how BSkyB manage their affiliate marketing. You may also find her presentation interesting for reference:

1. You have been talking attribution for some time at Sky. How did you begin the process?

Yes, I have been talking about it for some time and to be honest it’s still in progress. It’s a massive project and one that is forever changing given the dynamic nature of online. I…

New research reveals increased mobile usage during holiday periods

Value : [rating=3] Recommended link: Clash Group announcement All marketers are familiar with the increasing adoption of mobile browsing, however, it’s worth considering the averages conceal seasonal changes in mobile usage, particularly over holiday periods. New data from the Clash Group, a Performance media company that offers targeted advertising services in both mobile and wider digital markets is seeing significant increase in interest on mobile devices amongst its clients: A 33% uplift in mobile ad spend during the first week in December compared to normal shopping periods, and a 100% increase on the period in 2011 Clickthrough rates on mobile rose 26% compared to the average for normal shopping periods, and a 5% increase on the same holiday period in 2011 This stands in contrast to a rise of 7% in CTRs on desktop ads compared to normal shopping periods, and a 1% increase on the same…