Practical approaches to connect you with consumers
The face of marketing looks entirely different from it did even a few years ago, and mastering the latest trends has become an ongoing struggle for marketers. But in the fight to stay innovative, many marketers lose sight of what really matters: truly understanding their audience.
Assuming that you know what your customers think is shortsighted. Like all humans, the needs, experiences, and expectations of clients and customers change. Taking the time to check in and discuss what’s important to them on a regular basis is the only way to deliver an experience that delights them.
Think about the last time you really felt heard. The person didn’t just listen patiently while you talked. She understood what you were saying and why. It felt pretty good, right?
Marketers who go above and beyond to make their customers feel heard tune in to underlying customer needs and desires. One…
Diners are expecting Personalisation, Rewards and Discounts in return for their loyalty
This research shows how Loyalty schemes and freebies can pay off for new restaurants or bars, and for established food and beverage companies focusing on customer retention. There are also some specific tips on email, mobile and social media marketing.
Coniq's research highlights the pay back businesses receive from loyalty programs, how rewards and incentives are expected by today's diners and what encourages them to return hungry for more.
This may seem second nature for some businesses, though the majority of UK restaurants are missing out as they still don’t offer a loyalty program, and customers would be 2x likely to return with a loyalty card.
Findings on loyalty habits showed that '80% of 1000 customers would return if they were offered a loyalty scheme’ and ‘70% of your social followers expect rewards.'
Coniq's CEO Ben Chesser said 'We have certainly seen…
Using the Three Cs Formula to engage your subscribers
The delete key is only seconds away, so how do you structure an email to avoid being deleted?
Eventbrite asked me to deliver email copywriting tips at the London Brite Space event, to help event marketers avoid the delete key and aid conversion.
As the copy tips are relevant to more than just event invitation emails and went down so well I thought I’d share them and slides here.
Stand in the readers shoes
Start by thinking from the readers’ perspective. The reader has simple questions:
1. What’s this email about?
2. Why should I care, what’s in it for me?
3. What action should I take?
Your job is to answer these questions – and quickly. Making sure the tone and voice is all about what the reader wants and not what you want. A simple…
Case study shows how digital tech and digital marketing techniques combined to boost visits to the Metro newspaper sites
We've seen a lot of interest when we have written about how to apply growth hacking to marketing, so I thought this was an interesting case study to share in outline. It's also a great illustration of the power of combining SEO, Content, Social media and Email marketing. The growth in uniques over a short time scale is dramatic to say the least!
The case shows how businesses can tap into the continuous demand for content via search engines and social media to grow their audience. In this case, the business is a news publisher who many other types of online brands must compete with for a share of audience. So similar principles apply for non-publishers since "Every Business is a Publisher Today" - or should think…
An agency view on the Digital Marketing Trends for 2015
Last year, more and more marketers hopped onto online and social media marketing, they embraced data and social media platforms to connect, listen, and engage with prospects customers. Companies were setting the agenda for their content strategy, resolving problems and providing relevant information along the sales funnel, through social media and video.
Mobile marketing reached a whole new level with Responsive Web Design, companies personalized the web experience and ROI tracking has evolved within the digital marketing landscape.
Given the extent of the changes last year, it’s right to ask what changes are coming in this year? While many commentators like Dave Chaffey have given their views on his digital marketing predictions for 2015, they often don't all look at the practicalities. To answer that question of the changes in digital marketing practices, we have created a summary of the views of our agency to check against…
The biggest gap is surprising..
Where are marketers most keen to improve their skills in digital marketing? Since all the tools in our digital marketing library are aimed at helping members improve their digital skills we were interested to know where people felt confident and where they want to top up their skills.
So we asked this question in our recent research looking at how digital marketing is managed in 2015. The chart shows that over half of respondents feel confident in their own skills or they know sufficient although there is still a huge appetite to learn 'across the board' as shown by the red bars:
We might expect from what's discussed online, that the gap would be social media, content marketing or strategy, but when looking at the highest percentage of those that need to improve their depth…
B2C product landing page discussion for Flaviar
Flaviar gets a landing page makeover.
Welcome to Round 3 of Smart Insights' Marketing Fight Club, where you get 2 different expert opinions on the simplest way to boost sales for a real start-up. Watch the video below to get ideas for simple tweaks that you can apply to your landing page today to improve clarity and increase conversions.
After you watch the video don't forget to vote for the winner of this round in the comments below, and share your thoughts on the strategies discussed. We'd love to hear your feedback!
Stepping into the ring today we have...
Alex Harris - Ecommerce conversion specialist at alexdesigns.com vs Pete Z - Email sales specialist at MAGNETT.co.
Alex and I go head-to-head in this episode to boost sales for Flaviar, a club for discovering premium spirits, where they send…
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09 Feb 2015
Social media in 2015: The tech and trends to watch
You will have noticed that in the world of social media new tools and techniques change happens constantly. While we may now mercifully have a core of six key social networks, new social networks spring up while existing social platforms regularly introduce new functionality. All of this means that businesses need to keep their eye on the ball. If a new network or service emerges, or a social platform launches a new advertising tool, it could provide a valuable opportunity to improve engagement or provide new insight into customers and their opinions.
Last year was no exception, and there were several big stories from the world of social media that would have been of interest to businesses. For instance, 2014 was the year when social video – video content created by users with their smartphones – really hit the…
New research on the importance of discount codes for retailers
If any evidence is required that voucher codes are mainstream currency, then look no further than the success story of Mark Pearson founder of My Voucher Codes. Having identified US coupon sites as a lucrative business model and realised that no-one was replicating it in the UK, he launched his business with a £300 website and eight years later, sold the business for over £60m.
Whilst I’m sure good management is partly behind the success of this and its competitors, contrary to popular belief, it’s also the case that recession-generation businesses can often perform well if they capitalise on the mood of the people, as is the case here.
One the whole, the financial pain felt by many is lifting but our love of voucher codes is not diminishing and whilst their use was previously a clandestine operation, we’re now…
With ½ billion ads banned in 2014 it could happen to you
We know you will be a squeaky clean Google Advertisers; you don't breach advertising policies or deal in counterfeit goods! But how good are you as an individual at spotting a harmful advert which will download malware or spyware software, or is selling dangerous healthcare products ? Let's be honest, we are not trained police or specialists and even the most alert person can be drawn in by fraudsters. Consumers have the 'web busters' looking out for them as the consortium TrustinAds.org helps to fight this on-line advertising crime by removing or rejecting adverts - though we still need to be vigilant!
In this new infographics from Google its seems there is shortage of scammers - last year alone, more than 7,000 Advertisers promoted counterfeit goods, 250,000 sites from Google's network were removed for hiding malware and 2.5 million ads related to weight loss…
