Don't dump your entire marketing budget into pre-roll ads...
With the thousands of hours your target customer spends on YouTube, I can’t blame you for thinking that pre-roll ads — those 10- to 15-second promotional videos you see before you play a video — seem like a good idea.
After all, you’re catching your audience while they’re in the mood to watch a video, and they’re pretty much trapped unless they want to exit the video entirely. Despite their situational appropriateness, pre-roll ads are shockingly ineffective. They maintain a laughable 94 percent skip-through rate, and without intentional planning, they can quickly alienate your customers.
Fortunately, this is the age of video marketing, and you have alternatives that you can (and should) use.
The problem with pre-roll ads
Pre-roll ads simply don’t measure up to the YouTube generation’s expectations for…
Tips to improve social proof on TripAdvisor including how to handle negative reviews and 6 best practice tips
One of our clients is a group of eight hotels, so for them, like all hospitality businesses, TripAdvisor can be both friend and foe. Recently I was asked to look at each hotel’s presence on TripAdvisor and to suggest some tips for best practice. I was surprised by the lack of online commentary so here are my thoughts.
Setting the scene for TripAdvisor - how it dominates the travel industry.
How to handle negative reviews on Tripadvisor?
Clients we speak to are often worried about entering the world of social media, afraid it will open the door to negative reviews. Our response is consistent; a presence on social media doesn’t create negative reviews, nor does an absence prevent them. What it does do is allow your…
What influences purchase of your product or service?
Getting cut through is a key challenge for marketers today since there are so many online influences on purchase from search engines and social networks and from media sites to personal blogs and YouTuber vlogs.
So, to be effective in influencing purchase today, brands need to intimately understand the footprint of their brand communications through marketplace mapping and how this relates to consumer purchase decision-making.
To help you understand your consumers' decision journey we have created this new infographic which summarises the latest thinking on how to use online marketing to influence purchase.
[caption id="attachment_39199" align="aligncenter" width="600"] Infographic: Today's consumer journey and the influences on purchase[/caption]
Recommended Download:
Free digital strategy infographic bundle
Members can…
Does our business need CRM or Marketing Automation, or both?
Whilst most of us are now familiar with CRM (customer relationship management) systems, Marketing Automation is a relatively new approach. So it's often not clear how the scope of these marketing techniques and the tools used to manage them vary. In this post I'll introduce each and look to show the main difference.
At the heart of both CRM and Marketing Automation is the need to manage your customer relationships. By keeping data about our customers we are able to get to know them better over a period of time, developing better relationships, which leads to greater profitability.
Managing customer relationships
Managing customer relationships relies on our ability collect, store and manage customer data, and then and trigger business processes which lead to sales. So whether it’s a filing drawer, an excel spreadsheet, a CRM system such as Salesforce…
Using the Smart Insights RACE marketing funnel to develop a Digital Strategy
As we enter 2015, the latest stats on use of digital media and technology all point to the growing importance of creating a digital strategy. Did you know that
During 2015 the number of global Internet users will pass 3 billion (Source: ITU)
80% of Internet users now own a smartphone (Source: Global Web Index survey of 32 major markets)
Search remains the main traffic driver for websites (Source: Global Web Index)
The need for businesses to compete to reach and engage their audiences as they use digital devices is clear and well-established.
Yet we know from our Managing Digital Marketing research for 2014 and 2015 that many businesses don't have a digital strategy - only around half of all businesses are using digital media and technology strategically.
Using the RACE system for Digital Strategy development
To help businesses create or refine their digital strategy, Dan…
Does your digital brand really stand out from the competition?
Have you really considered the extent to which your online brand proposition provides something compelling to your audience on an ongoing basis? With the rapid acceleration in new technologies and channels to interact with generic and niche audiences, brands are having to adapt quickly in order to stay relevant and to their audience as well as to out-manoeuvre the competition.
For brands it is ensuring you’re playing to your strengths – are you trusted source or supplier which audiences continue to engage with over time? Are you retaining your authority within your sector and are you listening to your customers and aware of your competition? Developing a digital brand differentiation strategy is essential to retain brand identity and relevancy.
This post will focus on the concept and importance of creating ongoing engagement or 'lock-in' – explaining what it is, how it can be…
7 techniques to saving hours each week on social media updates
So, what you're saying is you just don't have time for social media, right? You've been on all the courses, you've read the 'How to' books, attended all those breakfast seminars - you know you should be using LinkedIn and Twitter, perhaps even Facebook and you've created your profiles/pages but now you've forgotten about them, save for the occasional tweet, post or comment you leave in a group discussion thread. Why is this happening?
It could be simple, you're probably not devoting the right amount of time to doing the right things to make social media work for you effectively.
What's the solution? Well you could outsource some of your social media activities but then there's a cost involved in doing so…
What does your Horoscope say about your Digital Marketing?
The Digital Marketing Horoscope 2015 links the key digital marketing trends for 2015 with the 12 signs of the Zodiac. Each sign represents a different trend and notable influencer who might share your approach to marketing!
Omnichannel marketing, wearable tech and paid amplification are just a few of the predicted digital marketing trends for 2015, identified by key industry influencers. While mobile friendly content and video continue to be key trends going into the New Year, brands will be focusing their efforts on distributing their content for maximum ROI in 2015. We will also see marketers hone their writing skills to create branded content that is confident, bold and honest to really resonate with audiences.
So, even if you don’t believe your life is governed by the position of the sun, moon and planets, some of the trends below need to be regarded as…
The TOP 5 Trends to look out for in digital marketing in 2015
1.Mobile (still)
“It’s all going mobile”.
Yes, we’ve been saying this for some time now. And every year it gets more true. The technology gets better (both hardware and networks). Things just work better. It’s faster. And easier. So consumers are more inclined to do things on mobile devices. As users, we are all accustomed to our mobile devices. We’re well up the learning curve. And so the payback becomes greater and the effort required becomes less.
For most of us, using mobile devices has become a habit and increasingly a life-support system. This thing in our pocket is the most personal communications device ever invented and many of us would struggle without it (ever lose your phone? Or drop it in the toilet? Or just run out of battery? Or struggle to…
