Unusual Tactics To Help Small Business Win The Holidays
I’m writing this article on the morning of Black Friday, just after I cleaned out my inbox of all the promotional emails I had received from retailers about their special offers.
There were about 10 promo emails in my list. I opened two and clicked through from only one. The others were unceremoniously archived.
This sums up the challenge that small businesses face during the holidays.
Markets have gotten more saturated and enterprise-level marketing technology is readily available to everyone. Instead of competing on a level playing field, it’s harder to reach your customers and bring them back to your store.
This is especially true during the holidays when there are so many retailers (some with massive marketing budgets) vying for the same attention and dollars.
I’ve always liked…
A case study example of applying the Smart Insights RACE framework to measure customer engagement and marketing success
You probably already use—or at least have thought about using—some form of marketing dashboard to track and manage your analog and digital marketing KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). But how has it impacted your decision-making ability concerning customer engagement? And do you effectively leverage that data to help you manage all the most important marketing factors that drive success for your organization?
I subscribe to the basic premise behind the Smart Insights RACE (Reach, Act, Convert, Engage) framework for organizing and tracking digital marketing KPIs as they relate to customer engagement, but I’ve expanded it to include analog marketing activities as well.
[Editor's note: Since Kent Huffman wrote this post, Smart Insights have created a RACE dashboard based on Google Analytics to automatically…
Digital Economy Bill update: New Marketing Code Sanctioned By Commons Committee
The Committee stage of the Digital Economy Bill has passed with a change to the Data Protection Act 1998. The key consideration is that the Information Commissioners Office is being given powers to put forward rules for a new direct marketing code that will apply to relevant areas of digital marketing.
The significant element of the act will be the instruction to the ICO to prepare a code that includes practical guidance in accordance with the Data Protection and Privacy and Electronic Communications Acts, plus introduce any other appropriate measures necessary to promote good practice.
The act gives the ICO a broad remit to put forward new rules, but must take into account the views of trade associations, members of the public and bodies that represent members of the public.
…
Stay ahead of the curve with these essential 2017 retail trends
There are lots of exciting new digital technologieis for retail marketers to explore next year, including: chatbots, social commerce, Google Beacons and virtual/augmented reality.
Retail marketers have had to be patient over the last few years. We all know the future lies in creating a seamless shopping experience between online and offline consumer habits. And we know personalised, targeted messages are the way to guide users from one habit to the next.
The problem is, we don’t really have the technological means to do all of this in an integrated way yet. Despite all the talk and ambition, the necessary technology isn’t readily available, affordable or practical enough for retailers to implement on a wide scale.
However, 2016 has felt like a genuine turning point for retail marketers. We’re almost there. 2017 could finally be the year retail marketing comes of age.
Chatbots are…
Chart of the Day: An example of the 'Critical few' KPIs
To coincide with the release of an enhancement to our RACE digital marketing dashboard, today's Chart of the Day isn't published research around digital marketing. Instead, it's what I think is a nice, practical example of achieving focus through a marketing dashboard:
The visual dashboard above is a well-known dashboard example, taken from the well-regarded source of sharing approaches to managing Digital Business - the UK government's digital service.
Their article explains that when they're building a digital-by-default service like Carer’s Allowance, their team is continuously designing, testing and releasing changes to the live service to improve it and better meet user needs against critical KPIs of which standard usability measures like completion rate, user satisfaction and time to complete are…
Use our new Digital Marketing metrics Google Docs reporting Spreadsheet to see your key marketing metrics at a glance
For Marketing, Digital marketing or e-commerce managers, the first week of the month is always a frantic one launching new campaigns, monthly dashboard reviews and on top of that you need to report the performance of your marketing to the internal stakeholders (the boss). Hopefully, it's a good news story, but if it isn’t, that just adds to the workload, identifying what went wrong and putting plans in place to turn things around.
This is where you need to practice the art of analytics, to quickly create a report or dashboard with a subset of key metrics covering all marketing activities in an easy to understand format for rapid review and recommendations for upcoming activities?
But how do you create a dashboard for reviewing digital marketing performance to compare different…
Key Findings from a survey of 500 European fashion retailers
Retailers are undoubtedly enthusiastic about innovation, with more than half viewing it as a priority for their business. But when it comes to actually delivering innovation, retailers face a variety of challenges.
To find out how retailers are approaching innovation in 2017 and beyond, we surveyed 500 retailers from across Europe. Here, in a summary of our full report, we share five key findings.
9 in 10 retailers take innovation seriously
Almost all retailers surveyed recognise the value of innovation, highlighting the growing importance of innovating in order to stay ahead in an increasingly competitive market. UK retailers in particular, place great emphasis on innovation, with 76% of respondents saying that it is a priority for their business.
A lack of time is the #1 barrier to innovation
Fashion retailers cite several barriers to…
Digital marketing models to provide useful frameworks for digital audits, planning and strategy
If you are a marketing manager needing to create a digital marketing plan or conduct an audit or review online communications, models provide a helpful flow as to what to include and to ensure nothing is missed.
Previously, in 2013, we created a free guide to support students using models in their assignments or when creating plans - Essential Marketing Models. Based on feedback from studying professionals and their lecturers, we thought it would be useful to have a specific guide to Digital Marketing Models.
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Smart Insights Free Members can also download an editable digital marketing plan template featuring our popular RACE Growth System, a simple structure to…
Over half of customers prefer to buy from a site using guest checkout
In our latest Chart of the Day, we find that research by Worldpay suggests there are several key barriers to cart abandonment, including lack of guest checkout and lack of delivery option available.
It's the most important thing anyone in E-commerce or digital marketing can focus on: how to cut abandonment rates and increase conversions. As digital marketers ourselves it's something we're working on everyday.
The research found that:
Over half prefer guest checkout
Over half would abandon their cart if they cannot get the delivery option they want
Almost 7 in 10 customers aged between 18 and 35 are more likely to purchase on their mobile phones
Over half of customers are positive about one click purchasing
Nearly 4 in 10 think paying online is too slow
…
How and Where to Add Chat To Your Website
I’ll start with a simple question: Are you actively interacting with visitors to your store? If you own a physical store, your answer is probably ‘Yes’. But if you operate a virtual storefront - a website - and you’re answering ‘No’ to this question, you’re leaving a lot of visitor questions unanswered. And since people who don’t get their questions answered are less confident and engaged shoppers, they’re more likely to leave your website. And too many bailouts will kill your conversion rate.
Picture yourself in shopping mode: even if you know exactly what you want, and from which stores you’d consider buying it, you usually have at least one lingering question. For example, if you’re shopping for shoes online, you might not be sure if the website you’re visiting offers black suede shoes in your size. Or you might wonder if they…