Chart of the day: Qualitative research dominates persona research and such research leads to revenue success

Most businesses are using qualitative research techniques such as interviews to create their personas, according to research by Cintell. Quantitative techniques such as surveys were found to be the least used whilst conducting qualitative interviews with customers and non-customers was found to be most popular, with more than 8 in 10 using such techniques. Interviewing overall dominated the highest results of the survey, which suggested that qualitative methods exceeded persona research goals. The research also found that 7 in 10 companies who missed revenue or lead goals did not conduct qualitative persona research. High performing companies were also more than two times likely to research the motivations of their customers. Source: Cintell Sample: 137 respondents. Popular job titles represented were Director, VP of Marketing, Chief Marketing…

Increase your organic traffic this new year with these future-proof SEO tactics

Search engine optimisation is a constantly changing field, one that requires effective planning and actionable tactics to succeed. This post is aimed at those who have a fast website, perfect on-page SEO and a good site structure, yet are looking for ways to take your website to the next level. In this post, we’ll reveal our top 5 eCommerce SEO tactics that you need to implement in 2017. Allowing you to remain ahead of the competition and drive targeted traffic to your website.

1. Competitor Backlink Analysis

A competitor backlink analysis is one of the most simple, yet effective e-commerce tactics you can undertake. In short, you look at your competitors’ backlinks and see how you can also gain similar links. If done properly, this can allow you to uncover patterns, problems and opportunities, simply from analysing the links your competitors have already built! One…

How to set up a good mobile friendly website

Having a mobile-friendly website extends beyond good practice, it’s a requirement if you want your business to succeed. Mobile now exceeds desktop Internet usage and this means mobile users expect businesses to provide an excellent experience optimized for their device. In fact, nearly half of consumers won’t return to a website if a website doesn’t load properly. If you aren’t sure if your site is mobile-friendly, you need to make sure it is as soon as possible. It’s crucial to find ways to convert leads into sales and not turn people away because your website fails to load correctly. Customers on the go have their mobile devices in hand and want to be able to look up your business no matter where they are located – and possibly even contact you. There is a lot of competition in the small business arena,…

Chart of the Day: Google and Facebook online ad revenue surges whilst revenue of all other providers shrink.

Healthy markets are defined by competition. Consumers have many providers to choose from, and those providers must constantly innovate to improve their service or make efficiency savings to be able to reduce their price - or else the consumers will move to a competitor which is doing so. Monopolies are terrible for consumers because they are defined by a lack of competition - hence why in most countries regulators explicitly ban companies from establishing monopolies in most sectors. But what about Duopolies? This is when a market is dominated by two large players - they still compete, but often the competition is less fierce because of the lack of other providers. As new stats from IAB, Facebook and Google show, the digital ad market is entering duopoly territory. Google and Facebook saw very healthy rises in…

A detailed tutorial on how to research your AdWords target keyword list to improve your ROI from PPC

Keywords trigger your ads. Building and maintaining the right list of keywords is vital to getting the best return on your paid search spend. Keywords are organised into ad groups. You assign ad creatives (ad text) to these ad groups, which appear when triggered by these keywords. Therefore, knowing which keywords will perform best is important. Keyword research is the process of building keyword lists, based on the frequency at which consumers search for these words and phrases.

Why Is Keyword Research Important?

Keywords are the nuts and bolts of your AdWords campaigns. They let you control your visibility in search results, as well as affecting the amount you spend. If you’re setting up an account for the first time, it’s essential to build a robust keyword list as soon as you can. The quality of this list will…

How to create a digital knowledge centre which facilitates your digital transformation and helps you delight your customers.

The way brands are being built is being re-shaped. This is in large part due to consumers’ digital habits; by-passing brands completely and opting for the likes of Amazon, Google or Tripadvisor to satisfy their needs and requirements as the tools of discovery for users. So what can brands do when their market may be ripe for disruption? Start with why you exist and how you can migrate your offering, through digital transformation, in becoming a brand of authority and trust. Authority and trust are two key assets brands can build a distinct unique selling point. For brands that operate in a competitive marketplace, how the brand is perceived to a wider audience can be used as an advantage, in becoming a knowledge centre for your industry sector.

Brands as Knowledge Centres

So what is a knowledge centre? It’s…

Chart of the Day: 42% of marketers are planning on increasing the amount of time they dedicate to Pinterest

This week, Pinterest have announced the addition of ad groups to their ad platform for marketers to better organise their sponsored pins. For anyone familiar with Google Adwords or Facebook Advertising it always felt strange that Pinterest didn't have the ability to arrange their campaign into ad groups. This development shows how Pinterest is trying to capitalise on the interest in the network from marketers by having familiar features. A lower bar to entry for a marketer to get up and running quickly will ensure that they at least give the platform a fair chance to prove its worth. This announcement is interesting when you consider the charts below from the Social media marketing report from Social Media Examiner. The report showed that there is an eagerness from marketers for the platform with…

How to avoid the costly mistakes that plague small businesses

So... you’ve started your new business or start up and 2017 is going to be your year! But not wishing to dampen your enthusiasm there are several small business marketing mistakes that can lead to your untimely downfall. To help you prevent this We’ve put together a special guide for small business andstart-upss highlighting the common mistakes not to make this year. Digital marketing excellence isn't just for big business. In our guide to small business digital marketing mistakes we've noted the top 11 digital marketing mistakes that are commonly made by small business. The guide contains not only highlights the mistakes, but also gives actionable recommendations to help you fix the issues. Our top 10 covers all stages of the RACE digital marketing planning framework so you can easily add them to your digital marketing plans in 2017. Here's an exclusive…

See from this case study how these automated campaigns can generate new streams of revenue for your business

Behavioural emails can generate millions in online sales yet most retailers struggle to get it right. Time and time again, digital marketers grapple with the existential question: How important is email marketing, really? Email tends to have an astronomically high ROI of 3800%; for every $1 spent on email marketing, retailers make an average of $38 and it's one of the best sales online retail sales channels. Itís no surprise that there are hundreds of email marketing software solutions that offer numerous styling, scheduling, and automation options. As the e-commerce space continues to grow more and more crowded each year, all the software options in the world canít and wonít guarantee new streams of revenue for…

Chart of the Day: New research highlights increasing importance of the different types of influencer marketing

If you think of the changes that the rise of digital media have wrought in marketing, the rise of importance of earned media to support online PR and influencer marketing has to be one of the largest. A new in-depth report from Traackr starts by explaining 6 different types of influencers. This highlights the different opportunities from influencer marketing - like their previous infographic on 10 types of individual influencers. The report then goes on to assess the overall importance of influencer marketing in larger organisations. This chart shows that, although it's not seen as a primary investment by many (just around one quarter), integrating into other activities is seen as important by more (just over half). The importance of influencer marketing…