A user's preferred social network factors heavily in their propensity to spend
There are many ways to try to assess the value of the customer and judge their propensity to part with their hard earned cash on your site. You could go by age, use location data or even job title if you have that data. One signal of propensity to spend which you may be overlooking is the users social media use.
Data from QZ.com shows how average order value fluctuates widely between users of different social networks. Polyvore tops the list, which is hardly surprising given it's a site built around fashion and social commerce. If you aren't a fashion retailer it's not really relevant. However, Instagram could be relevant for all sorts of B2C verticals and has an average order value almost double that of the likes of YouTube and Google+. It's interesting how the networks really focused around visuals (Instagram, Pinterest,…
A look at marketing through the lens of economics
I wouldn't call Mark Ritson a hero of mine, that'd be far too lame and I'm sure he'd laugh at me if he found out. But I think he makes some rather important points and I tend to sit up and listen whenever he has something to say.
Recently he has been bemoaning the 'tactification of marketing', which I think is an important enough issue to warrant making up the word 'tactification'. Marketers are increasingly distracted by the latest 'shiny object', and go chasing after it. This leaves them with less time, inclination and ability to sit down and think long and hard about the things which really make marketing campaigns successful; proper research, segmentation, positioning and strategy. The result is to dumb down the discipline and open the door to a whole host of people who are great communicators to call themselves…
Social needs to be better integrated into the marketing strategy if it's to be a major revenue generator
A 2016 survey of 289 US based CMOs by cmosurvey.org found some interesting if disappointing results regarding the value of social media. Although 4/5ths reported at least some contribution by social media to their companies performance, very few thought it was a big contributor.
There are two possible explanations for this.
CMOs aren't giving social a chance. Perhaps CMOs aren't giving social much in the way of budget or resource, and so it's not making much headway when it comes to overall performance. If you only devoted 5% of the marketing budget to social, it would be unfair to then expect it to contribute very highly to the companies performance. It's not just about budget. Even if social is well funded, it won't make a big difference if it's not integrated into the overall marketing strategy. All the…
How to keep your content strategy cutting edge
We’re entering a new era of content marketing, and if you’re like the majority of content marketers out there, you probably haven’t adapted. Competition is fierce, and if you want to remain relevant and visible for your target audience, you have to reimagine your strategy for the new challenges and opportunities that exist. Influential forces like Google and basic consumer preferences are beginning to weed out the slow adapters, so now’s the time to adjust your campaign and forge a course for the future of content marketing.
The New Era of Content Marketing
What is this new era of content marketing and why is it important? There aren’t many landmark changes that have spurred this shift; instead, it’s the result of a number of gradually evolving technologies and shifting market trends coming together to establish new content marketing norms. Some of the biggest influencers include:
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Read your customer's digital body language to discover what they really want
This year has seen big companies make emotional measurement a regular part of their product planning. Marketers around the world can no longer afford to ignore this simmering trend. It's time to sit up and take notice of what’s sure to be the next big thing in community reach and conversion.
Think about having a conversation with your partner. They’re telling you that they’re fine, but their tone is abrupt, arms are folded and they’re avoiding eye contact with you. They may be saying they’re ok, but everything else is telling you what they’re really feeling.
And it’s just the same for marketers and digital entrepreneurs when it comes to their audiences.
Likes and views may give you some insight, but you’re missing the bigger picture – the real feelings behind the computer screen.
Communication is 93% non-verbal with body language and…
In its latest update to investors Twitter reported poor user growth now with a total of 313 million monthly active users, the social network added only 3 million users in the past three months and added a total of 11 million new users since the first quarter of 2015.
This chart clearly shows how the growth rate of Twitter is lagging behind that of its competitors. Instagram recently passing the 500 million user mark while WhatsApp and most definitely Facebook are way ahead in terms of user growth.
Data: Company reports; China Internet Watch (compiled by Statista)
Source: www.statista.com
ComScore research has also shown that Facebook dominates both social media by audience and engagement, with 63% of the 18-34 age gap audience accessing the app on a monthly basis and 15 days on average per month that the app has been accessed. Both the ComScore…
Google's Accelerated Mobile Pages are set to appear in all mobile SERPs, rather than just the news carousel.
Google's AMPs are designed to make mobile browsing a more frictionless experience. Rather than taking sites designed for desktop and making them responsive to mobile, AMPs are mobile first and only. It will mean clean, non-cluttered pages which will load far faster on mobile devices than your average responsive site.
Earlier this year we reported that Google has started rolling out Accelerated mobile pages to certain mobile search results- specifically results in the news carousel that appears at the top of certain SERPs with the distinctive lightning bolt.
The big news from Google is that AMPs are now to be rolled out to all mobile SERPs. In a blog post on August 2nd, the company announced an early preview of the new…
A review of the costs and benefits of more investment in CRO / analytics
According to the Customer Journeys research we conducted with the eCommerceExpo conference, surprisingly few business are actively involved in CRO - 33% of companies have limited or zero conversion rate optimisation (CRO) activity. Instead, it seems that many people / business are opting for reinvention every few years and focussing on other marketing activities.
It prompts the question of why conversion rate optimisation is under-rated by so many businesses. However, it's good to see that many business are investing in Conversion rate optimisation since its complex, exciting, far reaching, multi-skilled and most importantly a results driver.
If your business is not yet utilising CRO principles then you should certainly start to consider how you can help your team and business by building the business case for it. It will require some work…
With GDPR on hold because of Brexit, new UK legislation is set to come into force
With the UK's Brexit vote, the adoption and implementation of the proposed European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is now seeming less likely. In this briefing, I will cover the latest announcements and explain about new legislation that UK marketers will need to be aware of that will influence future rules governing the use of consumer data.
Parliament has now approved the first reading of the Digital Economy Bill that will instruct the Information Commissioner to prepare a code of practice on direct marketing with a clear instruction that relevant parties from within the direct marketing industry must be consulted.
In addition, Minister of State at the Department of Business Energy and Industrial Strategy, Baroness Neville Rolfe, has called for contributions in shaping the future of regulation by declaring…
Investing in social is all well and good, but you need a strategy first if you want it to get results
New data from the CMO's survey of 2016 report shows how major companies are planning on big increases in social media spending in coming years, yet are failing to properly integrate it into their digital strategies.
As you can see from the table below, social media spending is set to double from 10% of marketing budgets to 20% in coming years. B2C services are the biggest social spenders, with a full quarter of marketing budgets to be allocated to social by 2021.
When asked about how effectively their companies are integrating their social media efforts with the overall marketing strategy CMOs are pretty damning. Although there has been a very slight uptick of the past…
