Chart of the day: customers delete smartphone applications mostly because the app is not useful

A study of over 2,000 app users found that users delete the app because it's either taking up too much space on their device or the app uses lots of data. Bugs and dislike of the ads in the app were also issues for users, as well as too many promotional issues.

Key takeaways:

It's important to make app content relevant, as encouraging customers to download your app is the hard bit, keeping them in important. It's best not to just create an app, it needs to be relevant and useful, just having an app is not good marketing. Source: MarketingSherpa Customer Satisfaction Research Survey  Sample: 2,400 consumers Recommended resource: Read more about marketing your app or building your first app  …

Our new guide shows you how to set up and optimise your tag management system

Today, marketers have a wealth of potential tools to manage their digital marketing as shown by the Smart Insights infographic wheel of digital marketing technologies organised around the RACE planning framework. Yet this presents a challenge, since the number of tags on any one web page has increased, in some extreme cases into double-digits, the need for a more effective way to manage them has emerged. This amazing array of tools and products will generally have one thing in common –they all need to be installed using a JavaScript tag, a simple pixel, or most likely both. A Tag Management System is a method of replacing a multitude of tags with a single tag that effectively acts as a beacon for all. The system has come about through the innovation of such tools and products and the need to quickly…

A new report shows over half of web traffic comes from bots

Ever year Incapsula release their bot traffic report, and every year I can't help but be shocked by quite how online traffic is comprised of bots. This year was particularly shocking but human traffic fell below the 50% mark, meaning that the majority of web traffic is now comprised of bots. And before you go thinking; 'that just must be wrong, how could there be that many bots?', the report analyzed 6.7 billion web visits across 100,000 randomly selected domains. With a sample size almost as large as the total population of the planet earth, it's likely that this finding is not far off the mark. Bots aren't necessarily bad, many perform useful functions which the internet would not function properly without. However, the report also analyzed the nature of the bots, dividing them into the 'good bots' which provide useful functions, and 'bad bots'…

Chart of the Day: New innovative management styles and their predecessors

When we talk about managing marketing teams, the emphasis is usually on building up a culture which inspires devotion and innovation. When looking to change company culture managers often have a hard time getting people to align themselves with what they envision the culture should be. That's where I think this graphic can be really useful. It shows the key breakthroughs in the history of managing human collaboration, right from tribes to the most innovative organizations in the world. The chart doesn't specify any examples of the final 'teal' tier of human collaboration. But I think examples like Valve and Spotify show how self-managing teams can be incredibly efficient and effective. Source: Strategy+Busines Recommended Toolkit: Managing Digital Marketing Teams …

How to make the most out of your company's data

Today’s corporate agendas revolve around the staggering amount of data available and the advanced analytics needed to gather, interpret and use such data. When it comes to Big Data and Advanced Analytics, things can get really tricky for a company not making the best of them. A recent McKinsey report shows that businesses which are not able to leverage Big Data and which fail to achieve performing data management also witness an average of 14% in lost revenues per year. Surprisingly, oil companies, life sciences, and consumer goods make the top three industries where big data and advanced analytics are poorly managed, thus leading to financial losses. As opposed to the McKinsey report, a study coming from MIT and Harvard Business School shows that companies focusing on big data management and advanced analysis witness an increase in revenue of up to 6%…

Too Many Tech Options = Random Acts Of Technology

If you blink, a dozen more marketing technology providers show up. Just 5 years ago, about 150 providers could hang their hat in the marketing tech sector. Today, we count more than 3,500 marketing technology providers. With so many choices to choose from, it’s no wonder random acts of technology happen more often than not.

What’s A Random Act Of Technology (RAT)?

A RAT happens when companies throw technology at problems without a strategy. In sales and marketing, it’s one of the top reasons marketing technology ends up flopping. In research conducted in 2016, Ascend2 conducted research into application of marketing technology. They found insufficient strategy as a top barrier to achieving success with marketing technology.

…

Chart of the Day: Average share of weekly activity on Twitter and Facebook

So, here's the thing. Most businesses don't utilise social media effectively enough to generate a return on their efforts. But with a few simple tweaks anyone can make Social work for their business. Start by considering the following questions: 1. Which platform is right for your business and target audience? Consider who your target audience is and find the right social media platform(s). If you are a B2B business Linkedin is probably the best place for you and Snapchat is better aligned to targeting under 23 consumers. Which a little research you can find the right audience for you. 2. What content are you posting? The Sell-Inform-Entertain balance One area where businesses fall down on social is posting promotional content too often in their eagerness to push a sale through the channel rather than posting engaging informative content that builds brand loyalty. Look at your posts, would…

Analysing your customers behaviour using buyer personas to improve your B2B E-commerce strategy

Is your B2B e-commerce strategy stagnating? If so, your buyer personas may be the weak link. A buyer persona is a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer that’s created by studying demographics, attitudes and buying patterns. Detailed buyer personas guide everything from product development to marketing decisions, improving your business’s ability to identify, cultivate and convert the best leads into loyal customers. However, companies often get lazy about their buyer personas. When demographics steal the spotlight, businesses overlook the complex motivators, attitudes and behaviors that influence how individuals shop online.  The result: Your business wastes valuable resources investing in leads with a low probability for conversion, while missing out on higher utility leads. The solution: build a smarter e-commerce strategy through an in-depth understanding of how buyer personas influence B2B…

Leverage the power of the cloud to achieve better insights

The era of the cloud is in full swing. Cloud-based analytic platforms are driving automation and improving the predictive accuracy of marketing programs across all sorts of industries. With these platforms at their disposal, marketers can solve some of the key challenges that have daunted them for years, like connecting data, reporting, gathering insights, making decisions, and optimizing marketing programs.

In 2015, Gartner removed big data as an emerging technology trend, citing the fact that it has become prevalent in our lives and hence is no longer an emerging trend. Yet, McKinsey claims that less than 30 percent of the data’s value is being captured across industries. Big data’s applications will only grow as its true potential has yet to be fully tapped.

Making Decisions at the Speed of Business

Shifting to the cloud isn’t a set-it-and-forget-it proposition. It…

Live streaming offers great opportunities, but without planning, you could be flirting with disaster.

You wouldn't be alone if you hadn't winced once or twice because of a social media blunder you'd seen unfolding or read about in the press. Perhaps you've spotted an offer that has gotten out of hand, seen an ill-thought-through initiative that's simply jumped on the bandwagon, or read about the totally inappropriate handling of a relatively simple error. Whichever it was, social media mistakes are easily done without proper planning. And let's face it, things move quickly in this industry. With the constant conversation and rapid developments amongst the different platforms, it's pretty likely that you'll have missed an update before you've even finished your morning coffee. So as we head into another year of exciting enhancements and who-knows-what new launches, we've launched a new…