The EU's GDPR law requires compliance by 2018. Even with Brexit predicted to occur in 2019 or after, it can't be ignored.

Last month, I woke up in the blissful world of B2B marketing. I could create campaigns, upload my purchased data lists, segment them as appropriate and set up my lead nurturing series to send. Then it happened. That thud that resounded throughout my perfect little marketing world and shattered that blissful bubble. The judges hammer as the EU General Data Protection Regulation was put into force. It has taken me a while to come to terms with what the EU GDPR means for my marketing. Below is an account from my marketing journal through this year, with the questions that kept me awake at night, and the answers I discovered along the way. I hope you find it useful! 29th April 2016 So, I've just heard about the EU GDPR. I…

The Privacy Shield is a great opportunity for brands to win back consumer trust

The estimated $250 billion occurring annually in trans-Atlantic digital trade spells growth and opportunity for media and technology companies on both sides. However, there’s a lot of red tape involved in the ownership and transmission of sensitive consumer data. With the European Court of Justice striking down the 15-year Safe Harbor agreement last fall, citing fundamental differences in the handling of private information and legality concerns, the U.S. and the European Union have established a new data privacy agreement. Privacy Shield is meant to ensure that sensitive data is secured to EU standards before being submitted to corporations based in the U.S, all of which must agree annually to the terms provided in the directive. From traditional media houses to live event companies, the industry’s responsibility to safeguard its customers’ data and privacy is now paired with legal obligation.

Better Data Management Will…

Digital marketing systems, CRM roll-out and Big Data project failure rates exceed 50%

Long ago, before the World Wide Web (yes such a time does exist, it was in the late 1980s, early 1990s), I worked as an IT project manager managing teams building marketing systems for clients and packaged solutions used worldwide. So IT project failure is still 'close to my heart', particularly since now with my focus on digital marketing we hear that many project failures occur raising questions about the Return on Marketing Technology (RoMT). For example, you hear shocking statistics like these bandied about: 63% of CRM initiatives fail 70% of Marketing Automation projects fail (actually a bogus statistic) 84% of digital transformation projects end in failure They're certainly shocking and raise HUGE questions about the way marketing technology is procured and implemented today. Yet we need to be careful about their validity. As Venture Beat…

Showing how integrating personalisation and automation can deliver a more personal experience

Long gone are the days when a website was a 'one size fits all' online brochure.  Now your web presence needs to play a fundamental role not just in reaching prospects, but also leading them through a personalised customer journey toward conversion to customers and long-term engagement.

According to Econsultancy, 77% of companies are currently planning to increase their digital marketing spend in 2016.  Whilst 38% of companies are focussed most heavily on acquisition, 62% recognise that retention is either as important or more important.  It’s vital to remember that getting visitors to a website through acquisition tools is an expensive exercise if you don’t also successfully convert the customer and grow your customer equity.   Estimates of how much it costs to acquire a new customer vary wildly from the conservative 3 times to an eye-watering…

Knowledge base software options to consider

A several years ago, knowledge base software wasn’t as accessible and easy to use as it is today. Nowadays, there are many SaaS providers, and these tools are far more sophisticated than before, and optimized to perfectly meet the demands of any line of work. So, if you are a rookie entrepreneur who wants to optimize his business and boost its efficiency, then you should consider implementing a knowledge base. The following article will serve as a guide, and show you which aspects of knowledge base software you need to consider before getting one. It will also list some of the quality knowledge base tools for beginners and point out their strong points.

What do you need?

Since there are various types of knowledge base software or SaaS providers, you need to go after those that are specifically tailored for your needs. Most of these are…

What metrics are EMEA email marketers using to measure their campaign performance?

Following on from the  launch of the "Wowing with Contextual Email Marketing" - Email Personalisation report yesterday, I found it interesting how marketers measure the success of their email marketing activities. No matter what type of dynamic content, contextual personalization or segmentation used, the metrics used are largely the same. Most marketers use the basic metrics to measure success 78% of marketers are using Open Rates and Click-Through Rate 58% are using conversion rate 1 in 3 are using "sales value per 1000 emails" Every other metric is used by less than 29% of email marketers For more insight into the state of email personalisation in 2016, download your free copy of the report from our partners MovableInk. The report also includes: Which campaign types drive the most revenue. Welcome series, birthday promotions…? Which…

Dynamic content features are key to making your emails more engaging

Email marketing over the years has evolved in leaps and bounds. In fact, what seemed impossible in the previous decade can now be easily achieved with help of HTML-based emails. Rich design layouts including visual delights like photos, videos to GIF’s are all epitomes of a HTML-rich email. This drastically improves customer experience, boosts customer engagements and in turn increases sale possibilities. Studies have revealed that personalized emails improve click-through rates by 14% and conversion rates by 10%. Dynamic content can allow you add personalisation into your emails. If you have not already implemented it, this should be something you are working towards. In the below Email example from EEC, you can see the subscribers in U.S receive greetings for their Independence Day and non-U.S subscribers are greeted with a Rocking Summer, all thanks to Dynamic Content.

How Dynamic Content in Email Works

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Apple's iPhone 7 may yet be a success, but that doesn't mean it deserves to be.

This week I came to the conclusion that I have officially gone mad. Either that, or the entire world is mad, and I am in fact sane (which, in terms of probability: 7.4bn to 1 just doesn’t add up. So it must surely be me who is mad whilst the world is sane). Here's the evidence for my supposition –you decide which, or what it is. As is now customary, the month of September saw Apple launch its latest ‘must-have’ gadgets and upgrades. As you, me and a stray aardvark in some distant land know by now, the September headline Apple news for 2016 was the launches of the iPhone 7 and IPhone 7 Plus. (Additionally, the September event focussed on an Apple Watch system upgrade, as well as release of new IOS and Desktop software). Like…

How Do Thought Leaders & Social Media Influencers Use Hashtags On Twitter?

Last week I published a seemingly controversial article and infographic about how hashtags have become almost worthless for businesses. I found that many generic hashtags like #Marketing or #SocialMedia were magnets for bots or spammers. What I did not expect was such a fevered pushback from some of commenters and readers. They felt I took to harsh of a stand on hashtags and that they were still the best thing since sliced bread. And there were a lot of people who believed that.

Since so many people thought that hashtags were still relevant in business, I decided to take a look at how thought leaders and influencers are using them. For this sample I selected 30 thought leaders analyzed 15k of their most…

Just what are the barriers to embracing contextual personalisation in email marketing? Budget? Senior manager buy in? Lack of strategy?

Today we launched our report Wowing with Contextual Email Marketing with our partner Movable Ink: we wanted to share some interesting stats from the report.  We wanted to understand what stops EMEA marketers from using personalisation in their email marketing campaigns due to its potential. As can be seen in the chart above, budget, platforms not up to scratch and surprisingly, a lack of email communications strategy were the biggest barriers. For this question within the report we found that: Lack of strategy was the largest barrier with 45% of respondents indicating this, this suggests that EMEA marketers may be using email without a long term strategy Budget was also a major barrier for over 4 in…