Getting noticed with 'Three S Timing' for content marketing campaigns

In my previous article covering the core tenets of the Watertight Marketing Framework, I looked at earning the right to a person's time. This can be achieved by developing a range of time-chunked materials will help you to steadily increase the amount of a person’s time they are willing to give you. Today, I'm moving on to deciding exactly when you put that material out there. That is, what month of the year, what day of the week, and what time of the day? Once you have your range of materials mapped to a buying decision in place, you'll need to prepare a content marketing timing plan for its release. You can do this simply and powerfully with Three S Timing: Selectivity Scheduling Seasonality

Selectivity – showing up when they’re in a buying mood

You’ll…

An introduction to measuring and managing online sentiment

Love. Hate. Frustration. Happiness. Security. Excitement. Satisfaction. Desire. Apprehension. Impatience. Just a small selection of common emotions that we feel pretty much every day, as we go about our lives. Many of these emotions are felt and experienced as we interact with hundreds of brands throughout the day. Perhaps it’s the steaming hot coffee and service of Starbucks in the morning, making you feel satisfied, or the feeling of desire of the latest 7 series BMW, as you take the bus home from work, through to the painfully complicated payment system for something you wish to buy online, leaving you frustrated and angry. The power of social media channels has created a new world of venting and consumer voice. For example with a Product recall—you can sure there’s more than one blog post about it. And then there is disappointing customer service? A quick mention of the…

Best practices from the 2014 Form Conversion Report

It all started with a common question from our customers. 'How do I increase my conversion rate?' Marketers know that increasing your conversion rate is one of the simplest ways to impact your bottom line. Conversion rates are a key indicator of how well your website is capturing leads and performing in your industry. Online forms, one of the biggest components of the conversion, are an often overlooked part of helping improve rates. With help from our customers, Formstack noticed a gap of online information around form conversion rates. So, we decided to tap into our own data goldmine and put together a report of our findings. We’ve uncovered some tips that’ll help every industry with conversion rates and optimization practices.

Tips on optimizing your on-line forms

Conversion Rates by Industry

One of the first things we looked at in our data was the average conversion rate of each…

Ideas on making your marketing campaigns more effective

As the take-up of  smartphones continues to grow with 61% of adults now using one - it’s changing the marketing landscape at an incredible rate. Ofcom’s new Communications Market Report offers great context as to why your marketing might be outdated and getting results that don’t match your experience. Here’s 2 snippets: The average adult in the UK spends over half of their waking hours engaged in media or communications activities. On average, UK adults sleep for 8 hours 21 minutes in a 24-hour period, while they spend 8 hours 41 minutes engaged in media or communication activity. UK adults squeeze over 11 hours’ worth of communications and media activity into less than nine hours. The total volume of media and communications activities undertaken by an individual each day equate to 11 hours 7 minutes. But as some media activities are conducted simultaneously, this…

5 reasons why migrating all site pages may be a bad idea

Importance: [rating=1] (Signal currently affects only 1% of queries) Recommended link: Google Webmaster Blog announcement You will know that Google uses hundreds of ranking signals to return the most relevant results for a search, plus many filters to remove spammy or duplicate results too. But it’s rare for Google to announce what these are or to disclose new signals. So, the recent announcement from the Google Webmaster Blog that use of a HTTPS (HTTP Secure) will be used as a positive ranking signal prompted many, particular retailers who will already use HTTP Secure in checkout, to take notice. Google’s precise words were: “Over the past few months we’ve been running tests taking into account whether sites use secure, encrypted connections…

How to combat marketing misbeliefs from colleagues that can kill profit

Marketers, by nature, are persuasive humans, yet sometimes they’re stifled by management’s delusions. In my career, I’ve observed several misconceptions that interfere with effective marketing and, ultimately, prevent the company from growing and becoming more profitable. The reasons behind this are many and varied, but it usually relates to misbeliefs depending on managers' previous experiences. It might be because managers don’t believe in a certain type of marketing investment, or they might simply consider the marketing department a mere backup to the sales team. Whatever the case, if you’ve ever approached your C-suite executives with a killer marketing plan backed by concrete principles only to be shot down because they can’t imagine doing things differently, you’re not alone. However, if you prepare for possible 'pushback', you can present sound rationales for the importance of marketing efforts.

5 Deadly Marketing Misbeliefs

Here are five common…

A new, free report on digital media and technology use [@SmartInsights statistics alert]

Value: [rating=5] For students, researchers and marketers who need to convince others of the importance of digital media Recommended link: Ofcom 2014 digital communications statistics report If you need hard facts and charts for reports and presentations to convince others of the growing importance of digital communications and technologies in influencing the purchase decision today, the Ofcom Communications report is one of the most comprehensive sources available. That’s why we feature it at number 1 in our Top 10 Free Digital Marketing Statistics sources listing. It’s published each August for the UK and includes an international digital media statistics benchmark in its December edition. The latest update for the UK has just been published and in this post I have selected from the 61(! ) charts available to ask what I think are some of the of the most important questions about…

Are you using all the options for email marketing?

For smaller business without a full-fledged email programme, it's not always obvious that email marketing needn't just be limited to the good old newsletter. To help you review all the other different email options, we’ll go through the ‘usual suspects’ available from email marketing that can help you as a marketer, achieve many different goals.

Best practices for encouraging opt-in to email marketing

In the wake of the recent prosecution and fine of John Lewis, the department store chain, for sending of unsolicited spam emails, we need to take a second look at communications we sent out. In almost types of emails, but not all, subscribers should be able to opt-out. To help avoid any legal issues, bear in mind it is best practice for email subscription to: Leave the email opt-in box blank on the sign-up form. I.e. do NOT pre-populate it with a tick. Operate a…

A structured approach to implementing a successful social media marketing strategy

A recent survey suggests that 93% of marketers have transitioned to the world of social networking. But this does not mean that we all currently understand its place in our marketing mix, how we should be using it and how to generate an ROI...  The shift from one-way outbound messages to real-time dialogue has caught many of us off guard, so much so that 20% of businesses still don't even have a social media strategy in place. In this post I discuss some of the planning decisions we can make to improve management of social media comms. The reason many brands do not utilise social well is that they don’t think about strategy, because we use these tools ourselves to connect with people we immediately think it is easy for brands. Unfortunately…

Desktop continues to trump mobile in directing online traffic from print according to new DMA research

DMA's report on 'Mobilising Print Media' polled over 1,000 UK adult consumers, to find out how consumers are 'driven online by brand and charity print marketing'. Nick Barnard, Chair of the DMA Inserts Council and head of Telegraph Reach at Telegraph Media Group, said: ' Today, the path to purchase is more complex than often thought, particularly on how certain media channels are perceived. What media owners, agencies and clients need to remember is that in the end the consumer is always the most integrated and important person in the marketing mix.' Results were interesting as collated in the Infographic, which highlights: 54% of respondents were more likely to visit a brand/charity's website after receiving a direct mail piece; 25% visited the website from a smartphone or tablet. Main barrier to mobile phone usage for direct response is the functionality; 1…