Luke Bilton, Director of Digital at UBM, interviews Claire Hazle of Marie Curie
Claire Hazle, Head of Digital for Marie Curie, is taking the charity through a period of transformation… just don’t call it ‘digital’.
“Digital transformation is business transformation. A business strategy with digital at the heart of it.”
Claire Hazle, Head of Digital at Marie Curie
Speaking at a Digital Transformation conference earlier this month, Claire explained the transformation journey that the team have been through.
In 2012, Marie Curie commissioned a review of their digital capabilities and found they were 3 to 5 years behind charities of a similar size, with talent dispersed across the group with no strategic digital direction to bind them.
The independent report highlighted the charity would face significant limitations to future income if they did not improve the digital channels to make it easy to recruit and…
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16 Aug 2016
5 tactics for more engaging email in 2016
Email is the most misunderstood tactic in marketing. We’ve all heard the oft-referenced statistic that email’s ROI can be as much as $130 per dollar spent. That idea gave rise to the perception that email is a cheap, easy way to generate high returns. And that’s why so many brands treat email as a money button: Press send, get cash.
Of course, that attitude doesn’t leave much room for creativity. Email does present enormous earning potential, but that potential often remains untapped because so many marketers are stuck in 1999. They see email as merely a workhorse moneymaker instead of a source of inspiration and brand engagement.
Email strategies can do more than serve marketers. When done well, they can also serve their recipients. For example, after I bought a Karma Go, I started using the hotspot device like crazy. After a number of…
The 12 key areas you need to get right for a successful digital transformation project.
Transforming digitally is a complex process for companies to accomplish. They must look at how the digital age is impacting their business process and will have to make difficult decisions. The longer a company has been in operation the harder it can be to make the changes required. Newer companies can find the process of digital transformation a less daunting task as they have been created in a digital environment. They can be more attuned to the various factors that are affecting the modern business landscape. Many companies will be somewhere in the middle between these two outlying examples and have various parts of their business already digital but other parts that need more work. If you’re currently considering embarking on the digital transformation process, or if the process is already underway in your company, consider these 12…
How to get your mobile strategy back on track
Next-generation mobile strategies depend on having a solid data strategy. Consumers have little tolerance for generic content that doesn’t speak directly to their interests, so most Fortune 500 companies have shifted toward customized experiences. Good user experiences revolve around effective personalization, and you need high-quality customer intelligence in order to provide that.
Data allows you to better understand your customers, and smart data builds trust. Traditional tools such as geofencing and wireless access points, among other technologies, create a picture of people’s behaviors so you can sell to them according to their circumstances. Modern marketing strategies are adaptive, shifting as they gather more details about audiences.
The way you market to someone browsing your app at home is different from how you’d approach them in your physical store. You might entice…
How to make sure Google knows about your content
Even if you’re arachnophobic, there’s one kind of spider you want on your website. Search bots. These ‘spiders’ crawl through your pages looking for what to show search engine users and save a cached image of what they find. When someone enters a search query, results are pulled from content the bot has cached. Without search spiders, your site is invisible to Google, Bing, Yahoo, and other search engines.
Wrap your head around this: Google has more than 39 billion webpages cached. That number took a sharp dip starting in early June, 2016 (down from a peak of nearly 52 billion indexed pages in May, 2015), but it’s still huge. That’s one of the reasons Google doesn’t cache EVERYTHING. Another is quality – the search engine policies what it shows. Link farms, spam, and black hat SEO often land sites on blacklists.…
There is a link but not in the way some marketers like to think.
One question that refuses to go away in search marketing is how social signals impact organic ranking. Google tells us there’s not much going on here but a large section of marketers seem to think otherwise. And, let’s face it, this wouldn’t be the first time Google has held back from giving us marketers the whole picture.
So what’s the real deal with social signals and search marketing? Well, there is a genuine link between the two – but not in the way some marketers like to think.
What does Google say about social signals?
Not a great deal. It’s one of those topics the search giant likes to keep close to its chest. That said, the few comments we have had from Google say social signals are not a direct ranking factor.
In 2014, before Matt Cutts disappeared, he shed…
A review of the popularity and effectiveness of different CRO approaches
Segmentation and targeting are so important to delivering relevant marketing messages which boost conversion, yet the research suggests that many digital marketers are leaving money on the table because they are not serious enough about segmentation and targeting. In this article, I'll describe research we commissioned to understand the effectiveness of different approaches for segmentation and targeting as part of CRO. I noticed that another recent study has shown a similar situation in the US where 76% of marketing execs say they don't target with Behavioural targeting data according to a Razorfish study.
After 25 years in data-driven marketing, I’m biased, but the facts speak for themselves. The graph below is from the RedEye Whitepaper 'The 7 best ways to improve website conversion and sales for larger e-commerce businesses'.
It shows that for website conversion segmentation is more highly rated compared with,…
How to keep your content strategy cutting edge
We’re entering a new era of content marketing, and if you’re like the majority of content marketers out there, you probably haven’t adapted. Competition is fierce, and if you want to remain relevant and visible for your target audience, you have to reimagine your strategy for the new challenges and opportunities that exist. Influential forces like Google and basic consumer preferences are beginning to weed out the slow adapters, so now’s the time to adjust your campaign and forge a course for the future of content marketing.
The New Era of Content Marketing
What is this new era of content marketing and why is it important? There aren’t many landmark changes that have spurred this shift; instead, it’s the result of a number of gradually evolving technologies and shifting market trends coming together to establish new content marketing norms. Some of the biggest influencers include:
…
Read your customer's digital body language to discover what they really want
This year has seen big companies make emotional measurement a regular part of their product planning. Marketers around the world can no longer afford to ignore this simmering trend. It's time to sit up and take notice of what’s sure to be the next big thing in community reach and conversion.
Think about having a conversation with your partner. They’re telling you that they’re fine, but their tone is abrupt, arms are folded and they’re avoiding eye contact with you. They may be saying they’re ok, but everything else is telling you what they’re really feeling.
And it’s just the same for marketers and digital entrepreneurs when it comes to their audiences.
Likes and views may give you some insight, but you’re missing the bigger picture – the real feelings behind the computer screen.
Communication is 93% non-verbal with body language and…
A review of the costs and benefits of more investment in CRO / analytics
According to the Customer Journeys research we conducted with the eCommerceExpo conference, surprisingly few business are actively involved in CRO - 33% of companies have limited or zero conversion rate optimisation (CRO) activity. Instead, it seems that many people / business are opting for reinvention every few years and focussing on other marketing activities.
It prompts the question of why conversion rate optimisation is under-rated by so many businesses. However, it's good to see that many business are investing in Conversion rate optimisation since its complex, exciting, far reaching, multi-skilled and most importantly a results driver.
If your business is not yet utilising CRO principles then you should certainly start to consider how you can help your team and business by building the business case for it. It will require some work…
