New research explains opportunities and threats

Since social networks like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter launched, social media has offered good organic opportunities for publishers and other brands to share their content and so gain awareness and new subscribers. As social networks have sought to keep more visitors on their sites, tools like Facebook Instant articles and Google's AMP - offers new opportunities for marketers to share their content, but at the same time, a threat since visitors have less opportunities to interact with the publisher website or register. Given this, this new research from Napco Research and Publishing Executive has useful insight for online publishers. This chart shows the publisher's view of the threat, which is substantial and can lead to a need to explore alternatives or avoid new techniques like Instant Articles. Instant Articles is viewed as the biggest threat with LinkedIn not far behind for B2B…

Be alert to the danger of new government Digital Economy bill

Its hard to believe, but digital marketing may be at its most critical point to date. Day-to-day it continues selling services and products, and maintaining purchasing loyalty while many of those involved are unaware of why a government bill could change everything forever.

The act is nearing its final phase of Westminster consideration before Royal Assent is the Digital Economy Bill, and the element of danger in what is wide and far reaching legislation is a section that instructs the Information Commissioners Office to produce new direct marketing guidelines, which incorporates anything to do with consumer data relating to digital marketing.

This in itself may seem fairly innocuous until the background is considered. The ICO will be instructed to produce new recommendations for ministers to consider. But it knows and understands acutely that the…

Pizza Express are embracing chatbots in their social media - how easy was it for us to book a table and what are the implications for other E-commerce sites?

Pizza Express have launched a new chatbot on Facebook Messenger, they state it allows users to book restaurants using Messenger - we wanted to book a table ourselves, with this in mind, we did. Here's how we got on. The launch followed a trial over Christmas, which was used by 150,000 people, much to the surprise of Pizza Express. We first tried it on desktop, aiming to book a table for the restaurant near our office in Leeds, UK. An interesting point to note is there is not much chat involved, you select options - I  typed responses to see how well it worked, but also because I felt this was the way to do…

Use these tools to speed up your influencer outreach

These tools are especially useful for content marketers who are regularly producing content and need a structured and scalable way of managing their outreach efforts. They help to identify the types of site and key people within your niche that may link to or share your content in order to help amplify your message. Tools such as Kred, Klout and Followerwonk (Twitter specific tool) focus on assigning scores to online users, surfacing those who are likely to be most influential for your given content, search or topic.

Why are these tools important to digital marketers?

They help digital marketers to identify, analyse and contact relevant PR, blogger and other key influencer contacts, usually with the aim of creating backlinks or sharing content. [si_guide_block id="27934" title="Download Expert Member resource – Influencer outreach guide" description="Engage influencers to…

Chart of the Day: What challenges you when it comes to email marketing? Part 1 of 4.

For email marketers, there will always be aspects of email marketing that are a challenge. The below chart looks at the various areas that email marketers are struggling with. I will be doing a 4 part series of issues pertaining to email marketing. We will be looking at the following during the course of the series: Targeting & Segmenting Subscriber list growth Tracking results Main email marketing goal. There is no real surprise that "Targeting & Segmenting" comes up with the highest score of 40%. For most, the main issue will be the clients' data records. They will be inaccurate, out of date or incomplete. The more data you can obtain from your clients, that is relevant to your business, the more tailored you can make your emails. Segmented email campaigns have…

Google will stop accepting new customers for Google Site Search at the start of April, and will turn the product off completely in 2018

You know that search box in the top corner of just about every website you visit? There's a pretty good chance that it's powered by Google site search. This means the site is paying Google to use its excellent search functionality to find relevant results for users. If your site's search uses Google Site Search, then we've got some bad news for you. Google has just announced it will be discontinuing the product, and although it will be fulfilling the contracts it already has it won't be allowing anyone to renew after April 2017. This will mean by 2018 the product will be switched off completely, and anyone using Google Site Search will have their site search function automatically switch to Google's 'Custom Search Engine' (CSE) product. This…

Google home, Amazon Echo and other virtual personal assistants will transform ecommerce marketing

2016 saw the rise of connected home voice assistants, such as Amazon Echo and Google Home, but 2017 is the year they mature. Last week, Google announced that its Google Home product would be able to place orders of essential items for consumers in the US. A user can place orders just by asking Google Home to do it, with the only interface being natural speech. This is the ultimate UX experience. Now it's as easy to get Google to pick up some shopping for you as it is to ask your better half if there is any milk left. Google home will send your order to participating retailers, who can then fulfil it. Google has announced it is partnering with major retailers such as Costco, Whole Foods Market, Walgreens, PetSmart, Bed Bath…

The biggest technology trends emerging this year

For organisations of all shapes and sizes, it’s crucial to stay ahead of the latest digital and technological advances. To help you do this, we’ve looked ahead at those trends that will have a major impact in 2017 - and beyond… 2016 saw significant technological advances in a number of different areas (as we discussed in a post on the Box UK blog towards the end of last year). It doesn’t look like this rapid rate of change will slow anytime soon - so what will everyone be talking about in this year? Here are some of the trends we expect to see dominate:

‘Digital Transformation’

Addressing one of the most talked-about trends in recent years, digital transformation may be fast becoming an overused and increasingly vague term - but with four generations now in the workplace and collaborating across all sorts of projects, digital is…

Chart of the day: Advertisers that implemented Influencer Marketing in 2016 received $11.69 in Earned Media Value (EMV) on average for every $1.00 they spent.

A report by RhythmOne highlights the influencer marketing benchmarks for full-year 2016, finding that influencer marketing is providing high Earned Media Value (EMV). Earned Media Value is the value of earned media (such as influencers promoting a brand). It is the value given to the impact of the influencer campaigns and is organic, compared to paid media (such as pay per click) or owned media (advertising on your own channels e.g. your own website). Food and software industries ran the most influencer campaigns whilst health and pharma had the largest average EMV, followed by retail, food and grocers. With an average of $11.69 influencer marketing is a successful marketing approach, engagement rates average at around 2% according to the report (which is total…

Psychology has a bigger effect on purchase decisions than you think

A while ago I was doing my monthly "Let's see what TED's been up to recently" session, and I came across an older one: Dan Ariely's Ted talk on irrational purchase behavior. It's well-worth a watch (after, of course, you finish this article). In it, he breaks down the delusion that our buying decisions are rationally made. He discusses the true influences and psychological factors which affect our subconscious - the real determinants for why we buy that pack of gum, why that T-shirt stands out, or why we decide we need a jacket we don't.

Ever gone into a store for a single thing and walked out with a full cart?

Psychology has a bigger influence on your prospective customers than you might think. Understanding how you can use psychology to influence buying decisions will make you a better marketer and…