Email marketing is still highly effective, but the smartwatch brings with it a new challenge for marketing strategists

I've recently upgraded my watch to a Sony Smartwatch 3, but the Smartwatch 2, depicted below, is often cited by technology bloggers as being one of the devices that kicked off the wearables trend in a big way back in 2013. Life with a smartwatch isn't as difficult to get used to as I thought it might be, instead adding a lot of value to my day in ways I could never have imagined. As a copywriter I've penned many an email for many a marketing campaign, so the way the smartwatch began to change my behaviour as a consumer was of particular interest to me.

The smart watch will impact email marketers

I seldom read full emails or messages on my smartwatch…

How does email compare to other channels in driving customer acquisition and sales?

We can see the importance of email marketing by using the excellent Custora Ecommerce Pulse - which is updated monthly to show the impact of different channels on sales across $40 billion of US retail transactions from retailers who are clients of Custora. Here are three data points showing the importance of email marketing:

1.  How many orders does email drive compared to other media?

In 2015 Email remains one of the top three channels driving sales, not far behind organic and PPC. This position is mainly because of sales to existing customers. The latest data from May 2015 shows that email marketing now accounts for 15% of all sales. All of the top 3 have fallen a little compared to 2014 as Affiliate prompted sales have grown. For all of our interest and attention on social media this…

Russia's current digital landscape: Search and Social

We all know Russia is geographically big, but it is also a big market when it comes to social, search and e-commerce. Russia has 87.5 million active internet users, and 67 million active users of social media accounts. It is estimated that Russian's will make $36 billion worth of purchases online this year. What is more that amount is set to increase considerably to $43 billion next year as shown by this summary from wearesocial. Russia represents a big opportunity as a vast market with high rates of annual growth in the digital sphere. However it also presents a series of challenges because it is very different to Western markets. The big players with which we are all familiar, such as Facebook and Google, do not dominate in the same way as…

How does your lead scoring rate against this benchmark?

Integrated 'SMarketing' is more than generating enquiries to pass them onto your sales team; leaving the ball in their court to qualify the leads, identifying if they are serious buyers or just researching. Qualifying these leads with the help of Lead Scoring Tools is proven to support companies not only to be more efficient, but to connect 'with sales-ready leads', so boosting conversion. By setting scoring criteria for your leads, your Sales team can reach out at the right time in the buying cycle, with relevant information and more likely to convert as they will communicating with serious leads, ready for more information'. Lead Lizard's lead scoring summary identifies which companies are adopting this process, their objectives for lead scoring and which is the most valuable asset when scoring. Read our …

How do consumers search for local products and services?

Google and IPOS research shows American shoppers are searching on their mobiles for local store information, including opening hours, address and directions. This has implications for Advertisers to ensure the right information is available! 4 in 5 consumers are using search engines to find local information, and 18% of local smartphone searches result in a purchase within a day. The infographic highlights 4 important tactics for retailers to embrace: 1. Ensure Ads include your address and directions, across all devices. 2. Tailor copy to take account of local searching. 3. Build an attribution model for local searches. 4. Use radius bidding and local bid adjustments. Download the full Infographic to find out more information from this American research on Local consumer search behaviour.…

Facebook does battle with YouTube to be the king of online video

YouTube has controlled online video pretty much since its inception. There have been some challengers, but they have pretty much given up the ghost and concentrated on their niche. The platform has made stars of online talent who got in there early and understood their audience. And some of those have become very wealthy off the back of YouTube's ubiquity. But just recently there's been a sea-change that is a genuine threat to YouTube's dominance and this is happening quickly and as you read this. YouTube has always had its problems. You have no control over the data, the ad returns are poor (if you require them) and targeting is very difficult. However it is/was the place where people go to find out stuff, be entertained, look…

Marketers agree Email Marketing Automation is the future, yet 4 in 10 automation programmes Fail

Email marketing is one of the top two channels for realising ROI yet email marketing budgets are declining. Alongside this, the use of Email Marketing Automation is becoming less effective - how do we know this? Econsultancy's Email Marketing Industry Census 2015, produced in partnership with Adestra has conducted research. After nine years of surveys, they bring together a wealth of information to show how email marketing has changed and the views of over 1000 in-house marketers, and experts.

How are companies using Marketing Automation?

48% of respondents with a email marketing automation rated its capabilities as 'basic' and 9% as 'non existent':

What are the barriers to effective email marketing automation?

Companies realise that MA is important yet there still appears to be many barriers or challenges to…

Skilled staff and budgets are still obstacles for many companies

With the ongoing interest in applying Big Data to marketing we thought this was a useful report to share - IDG Enterprise’s '2015 Big Data and Analytics Report' surveyed over 1,100 brands in the UK and Australia to find out which stage they are at in terms of planning or deploying 'Big Data' projects and to reveal their plans and challenges this year. The report identified that the top 3 priorities for the majority of businesses is to invest in analytics, visual dashboards and data mining. Challenges were still prevalent for many companies who felt they were lacking in-house technical skills, so as a result are looking to hire 'Business Analysts' and 'Data Architects' to facilitate this if they can obtain the budget - yet another obstacle to overcome. …

Web users are becoming paralysed by the psychology of indecision as a result of being faced with too many options to choose from

I believe digital marketers are offering too many choices to their website visitors. Visit almost any web page these days and you will be faced with a myriad of choices. You can choose to read something, or sign up for follow-ups, or perhaps watch a video. Alternatively, you could choose something else to click on, look at an advert or go to the menu and choose something else. What are you expected to do? There are just too many things to think about. The situation is worse in e-commerce stores. You are faced with row upon row of products to choose from, probably from a selection of a dozen or more different categories. Website owners and digital marketers appear to…

Consumer online shopping behaviours: How do Consumers select a supplier?

Following on from our first post summarising the 'UK Consumer Empower Survey Report' from the BIS, we are extending its findings in this second post to share how the UK population choose a supplier when purchasing an item over £100 and how they search for information. We're highlighting this research since it's a high quality piece of research commissioned by the UK government and surveyed by GfK NOP based on a quantitative survey amongst a representative sample of the UK population (6,024 interviews were conducted with adults aged 16+). It covers a range of sectors relevant to Smart Insights members including: purchases (Furniture, home furnishings or building materials, Computers, Home electronics, Car, van, motorbike) and services (Electricity, Internet, Mobile phone network, Car insurance and Bank accounts.  The research reviews decision making for purchase amongst 5 consumer segments introduced in our previous post.…