Chart of the Day: 2017 Deliverability Benchmark Report

The dreaded word

With Halloween on its way, you naturally start thinking about all things spooky. Things like clowns, vampires or toddlers who won't go to sleep. For email marketers, there is something far scarier that strikes fear deep in our hearts ... poor deliverability. Calm down my little email geeks. Finding out your inbox placement is a good thing. Once you find out your own, you can start strategizing how to improve it. And the chart below can let you know if you are within your industry benchmarks.

How does email get into the inbox?

"Email that is deemed malicious or untrustworthy is often blocked at the gateway, never reaching either the inbox or the spam folder. For messages that make it past the gateway, spam filters look at the reputation of the sender, subscriber engagement,…

Inspiration for your Black Friday marketing campaign, to help you stand out from the crowd

With everyone shouting about the same thing, its hard to get your voice heard. Black Friday is no exception. Nearly every major retailer will promote Black Friday. Black Friday has become increasingly popular in the UK over the last few years, after originating in the US. Although it's a day hated by many, it has become a great way for retailers to increase profits. [si_guide_block id="5676" title="Download FREE Resource – Digital marketing plan template" description="Our popular marketing planning template built on the Smart Insights RACE planning system."/] Last year 154 million consumers made purchases, that’s about 3 million more than the previous year. Last year Black Friday surpassed the $3 billion mark for the first time, setting a new sales record. It was found that 76% of retailers will be taking part in Black Friday this year. …

How to achieve brand management and change that drives ROI

My passion is to approach brand as the most valuable asset of an organization. In working with board members around the world, I’ve learned what’s of interest to them. It’s not merely the creative aspect of brand, but much more the business administration side of branding that resonates at C-level. Boring? Yes! Getting a mandate to implement brand change. Challenging? Yes! Let me describe the relevance and ways to go about it – for change and for ongoing brand performance.

The most valuable intangible asset

Brands are an organization’s most important intangible asset, and their management is absolutely critical. According to Brand Finance, brands account for 18% of the top 500 global brands’ market-value (2017). Traditionally, brands have been created by agencies, and brand management has been undervalued. Fortunately, that mindset is now shifting, and I’m pleased to have been part of the…

B2B content marketing strategy for traditional and inbound marketing

The B2B buying cycle is a long, arduous process. It includes multiple stakeholders with different agendas and an aversion to risk lingering from the last decade’s financial difficulties. Couple the aversion to risk with the new trend of buyers researching extensively before contacting the seller and you get today’s B2B selling environment. It demands a change in strategy from your marketing and sales teams. Inbound marketing, a method of “pull” marketing, replaces traditional marketing's practice of appealing to the broadest possible audience in the hopes of capturing a single sale. Inbound marketing is more effective and substantially less costly than traditional marketing, and it meshes with new buying trends.

Inbound Marketing: The Definition

Inbound marketing leverages content marketing, email marketing, and marketing automation to build rapport and trust. Sellers nurture a relationship with prospects by offering valuable content that answers the most pressing questions from…

Chart of the day: Research has found customer are twice as likely to recall ads, when they are exposed to those ads on multiple devices

Research by On Device found increased brand awareness, increased recall and increased "top of mind" awareness when the ad creatives were exposed to users across multiple devices. This is very positive for advertisers, as the increases when customers saw the ads across multiple devices are large, even if it's overall not surprising that seeing an ad multiple times increases awareness. The scale of the increase is higher than expected, specifically for brand awareness, going from 12% on a single device to 21% on multiple devices. The research has also found that ad fatigue is increasing in on-demand tv. Over two in five respondents said that seeing fewer ads on paid tv and on-demand services, compared to watching "normal" TV, encourages…

Interview: Rachel Cooper, Director of Global Content Strategy and Editorial at GSK

Ahead of Digistrategy - London World Forum 2017 in December, we interviewed Rachel Cooper, Director of Global Content Strategy at GlaxoSmithKline, to find out how she manages effective content on a global scale and how she assesses ROI. Rachel one of many senior keynote speakers at Digistrategy 2017, London on December 14th. 

Effective content on a global scale

1. As the Director of Global Content Strategy & Editorial at GSK, how do you ensure the quality and effectiveness of different types of content at a business with your global scale?

The primary aim of our global content and editorial team is to simplify and strengthen our storytelling. We do this through building relationships and providing guidance on storylines and editorial development. Our global content flatplan – held by our team – outlines content priorities, themes…

Comparing growth and sources in smartphone mobile visits in the retail, travel, automotive, finance, banking, insurance and media statistics

We know from trends in mobile adoption statistics that, in most industry sectors, we have passed the tipping point where smartphone mobile visits (and sales) exceed desktop visits. In this latest research from Adobe, there are useful benchmarks comparing smartphone growth by sector and the traffic sources for this. This graph showing trends in the device used to access websites and apps suggests we're not only seeing growth in smartphone visits, but that visits from desktop and tablet are declining as smartphone effectively cannibalises these other platforms This next chart compares growth in smartphone visits by sector shows that while overall web visits have been flat, larger companies are still seeing growth (c 8% year-on-year) in smartphone visits. …

Apply behavioral psychology to your web design to boost your conversion rate

Getting people to choose something over another has more to do with psychology than anything else. When the principles of psychology have been understood, they may be integrated in UX and website design. If they are integrated well, they end up becoming a determinant of whether the website is a success on the market.

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The principles of psychology employed in general marketing are the same ones employed in UX and web design. The following are some of the psychological principles that work in marketing. Use of research in social psychology is important. It explains the reasons why consumers sometimes do the opposite of what is expected of them.

Users Prefer Substance Over Beauty

It’s…

How to engage your site visitors with your brand in 7 steps

Ever been to a web site and wondered 'Why am I here?', 'How does this help me?' or 'Does this site give me what I need?'. And then left shortly afterwards? A succinct online value proposition is a crucial way to hook new visitors into your site and brand in those crucial seconds (not minutes!) that a visitor is deciding to click-on or leave your site. It also encourages continued usage and advocacy about your site, so it's vital to an effective web strategy. An online value proposition is closely tied to your brand positioning which answers questions like: who we are, what we offer, which markets do we serve, what makes us different? But the OVP extends this the difference is that it identifies the reasons why customers will click on, return, register or buy from your site…

Chart of the day: 16-24s spend 50% of online time on mobiles

Users aged 16-24s spend the longest time online more generally, half of this online time is now taking place on a mobile. Whereas age 55-64 users are spending 74% of their online time on desktop still. The popularity of mobile devices, many of which are now smartphones shows why businesses must continue to prioritize investments in mobile marketing. We now spend up to 5 hours per day on our mobile devices, as this only increases businesses need to ensure their website and content is optimized for mobile. Developing compelling mobile experiences is the future for customer communications and developing customer experiences. Source: Global Web Index  Sample Size: 178, 421 internet users Recommended Resources: …