6 steps to successfully managing multi-channel integration.

Value: [rating=3] Recommended link: Whitepaper - Meeting the Multi-channel challenge Vocalcom's whitepaper reviews approaches to customer care within a multi-channel environment. It includes some great insight into how companies are addressing customer service and Managers are meeting the challenges of today's multitude of touchpoints, being caused by greater transparency, insight and accessible technologies. It also provides recommendations on implementing a cloud based solution to support customer service. 'The common theme amongst Managers was a clear desire to understand how customers want to make contact, to integrate channels better, and to implement technology that can facilitate a seamless customer experience across all channels.'

We are sharing one of their table's on the challenges of multi-channel contact and more findings can read by downloading their full report from Vocalcom's website.

What is…

The End of PTAT and Virality measures as they are broken out?

Value/Importance: [rating=3] Recommended link: Facebook blog announcement If you’re a Facebook Admin, watch out for changes to Facebook Page Insights, the analytics tool for monitoring the performance of your Facebook Pages. Product Marketing Manager Galyn Burke told Techcrunch that this is the first time the Page Insights interface has been updated since October 2011. As with many Facebook changes, this has not been rolled out internationally yet, we’re not seeing it yet, but will update this post when it becomes more widely available. In the meantime, here is a preview of the new interface: The relevant update from Facebook is shown below - this suggests that, in what looks to me a backwards step, PTAT will be retired in favour of breaking out its components. Having an aggregate engagement measures is…

A presentation explaining how to plan and optimise automated emails

Created for the International Email Marketing Summit, this free webcast explained the options for creating more relevant automated emails - one of the biggest missed opportunities in Email marketing. I covered: How Automated, Event-triggered or Behavioural emails are surprisingly rare. The 10 options for automated email campaigns. Recommendations to optimise these emails using the CRITICAL framework we use in the Smart Insights 7 Step Guide to Email Marketing. Here is the Slideshare which gives a lot of examples across the different types, but especially Welcome Emails. You can view the talk via the link. Creating more relevant, more responsive more value Event-triggered Emails from Dave Chaffey …

5 ways to innovate for the collaborative economy: examples

Social media marketing is increasingly ubiquitous for most brands, and if not, it is on the radar. We are on our way to mass adoption among businesses. Early adopter brands are now focused on social business. I am certainly talking to a lot of companies about how they can bring more of the outside world back into the business, restructure and be more connected to customers, employees and stakeholders. It seems that the eventual evolution of social media is as a communications channel inside and out. As I talk and work with companies, we see a wide range in the level of adoption and innovation in using social media. Our Social Media Innovation S-Curve, similar to the Gartner Hype Cycle, shows the maturity of process and innovation we see in different companies. Where do you lie? …

A 5 step checklist for reviewing your local SEO Campaign

Thanks to Google's algorithmic changes, many small to medium-sized businesses are finding it increasingly difficult to make their mark on the search engines. Big brands have big budgets, and can pay SEO agencies big monthly fees to optimise their website for competitive keyphrases. But smaller businesses are getting left behind; watching their rankings slip and their conversion rate tumble. But smaller business shouldn’t be competing on the same level as these big players; not right away at least. The first step in any search engine optimisation campaign should see these businesses reaching out to the audience that is most likely to buy from them. And that is the audience on their doorstep.

The importance of local SEO

The customer base in your local area is perhaps the most important tool in your marketing arsenal, and one that every business should be tapping into. By employing a…

Search and social media marketing advice for travel marketing

It’s not an uncommon process for a firm at start-up level to take their passion for a product or a service and jump head first into an enterprise that can very easily run away, become unsustainable and ultimately fail. The advent of the online option for travellers to purchase was a great leveller in the travel industry. Distribution was not limited to high street chains as independents could conceivable set up a shop window with 24-hour visibility, seven days a week. Several years later, the big names have flexed their financial muscle in an attempt to dominate the online channel but I’m a firm believer (and more a fan of David than Goliath) that there is enough for the little guy (and gal) to make a nice living. This post is not intended to be a review of business models, simply a guide with some…

What are you your plans to trial new tactics in the Year of Content Marketing?

2013, if you haven't realised it as yet is the year of Content Marketing. Study after study have shown that content marketing can turn the unaware into aware, the non-engaged into advocates and web browsers into customers. It does though require effort, resources and quality creators. To be successful, content marketing relies on sharing a regular dose of quality content and producing this takes a big investment in time; not to mention being creative with it. 

This recent joint DMA-CMI report on 2013 Content Marketing trends in the UK, US and Australia is worth checking if you haven't seen it. It shows that half of all marketers surveyed are planning to increase their budget on content marketing in the next 12 months, encouraged by the effectiveness of existing tactics.

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Using customer surveys and feedback data as part of a methodology for improving customer journeys

If you want to improve your customer’s experience, listen to what your customers are saying.

Like any cliché, it is easier said than done... Over-simplification can be misleading and it misses the most important point: what are the drivers for customer to follow the path-to-purchase?

If you want to improve your customer experience you need to be focused on the path or the journey and the reasons behind it. Along the way you may find that some aspects you previously considered as the only way to do things are actually not enough. Marketing automation is not enough.

As shocking as it seems for some of us, many businesses worldwide still prioritise outbound marketing and customer acquisition; by speaking at customers, rather than inbound marketing and retention; actually listening to what customers are saying with the objective to provide a good…

Increase conversion through 5 psychology principles

Pardot have released a useful whitepaper on 'Using Psychology to Increase Conversions', and this associated Infographic to summarise the key findings of their research.

As the marketing landscape is evolving they remind us that the way buyers think remains constant. Consumers interact with our products / services and this is determined by a 'pattern of behaviours which are derived from a set of psychological principles.'  Marketers can embrace within their creative and messaging within their sites and communications.

The report delves into 5 psychological principles, some you may recognise from the key principles of influence of American Pychologist Dr. Robert B. Cialdini. In brief, these are:

1. Social Proof: behaviours of others to influence our decisions.2. Loss Aversion: strong motivator is to 'avoid loss'3. Anchoring: individuals  use the first piece of information to judge choices.4. Foot-in-the-door:  obtaining 'opt-in' to something small then it's hard for consumers to say…

6 Essential steps to create a content marketing plan

Last Friday, Stephen Bateman took us through his 6 Steps to creating a content marketing plan in the latest Smart Insights-BrightTALK  Digital Marketing Priorities 2013 webcast. At the end of this post we share the deck and recording as requested. We again had some really interesting questions on the webcast - thanks for those! We covered the majority of them at the time, but Stephen has picked out 3 questions where we thought his answers would be of general interest.

Resourcing content marketing - should we use content curation?

Question: If we don't have enough content experts in-house to create well-rounded content, do you suggest we link to other sources from our site, or should we pay outside sources to create content for us? Answer: Yes, linking to other sources is known as curating content and is a widely used approach to present yourself as an authority…