Interview: Roberto Abbondio, Managing Director of Eurostar
We spoke to Roberto Abbondio, MD New Digital Business of Eurostar, to find out how they plan, optimize and manage their digital transformation and long-term marketing strategy.
Roberto is one of many senior keynote speakers at Digistrategy 2017, London on December 14th.
Roberto joined Eurostar in 2017. As MD New Digital Business, he is in charge of strategic projects aimed at engaging the customer with innovative and relevant ancillary propositions. Roberto joined from Cathay Pacific where he served as Managing Director Cathay Pacific Holidays in Hong Kong, leading its transition to a modern digitalised one-stop shop for the airline. Prior to that he was part of the start-up of Hostelbookers.com and he worked for Expedia as Business Development Director for their b2b division, based in Paris. In his early career, after his Political Economics degree at Bocconi in Milan, Roberto covered various roles at British Airways,…
Chart of the day: AB testing is the most popular method of improving conversion rate optimization (CRO) - personalization is the least used technique
Feedback and insights from surveys and usability testing are also popular methods of improving conversions.
Are CRO and UX becoming one entity?
Over the years there have been two distinct ways of improving conversions, the testing approach of trying different methods (like AB testing) and the insight approach (getting feedback from surveys and doing user testing). Now the two are coming together more than ever, UX practitioners and CRO specialists are slowly becoming one, as they realise AB testing isn't enough. But it still is the most popular technique. Copy Optimization is also a very popular technique - but marketers realise that copy is so incredibility important. Marketers have really bought into the value of copywriting and content marketing, so ultimately copy optimization being a popular method, does make…
Chart of the Day: How verticals differ in their email campaign performance.
Out of the top six sectors, who would rate their company's email campaigns performance as excellent?
The chart shows amazing growth from the print/publishing & media sector. To go from 40% effectiveness in 2014 to 73% in 2016 is astounding. This shows the importance of keeping up to date with current trends and getting the most out of your Email Service Provider (ESP).
At the other end of the spectrum are tech and telecoms. They are the only sector to be under the 56% average in 2016 for how it uses email. In fact, it has a 9% drop from 2014 to 2015.
It isn't surprising to find that those who don't have an email strategy or use email optimisation, end up having low-performance rates and poor Return on Investment (ROI) figures.
The king of…
Chart of the day: Heavy users of messaging apps are extremely likely to want to use different emojis and have more variety
Emojis are one of the fastest growing languages worldwide. With more than 60 million emojis sent each day and 2,666 emojis in the Unicode Standard to choose from, it's hard not to notice the popularity of these small icons. They have gone far beyond simple characters. We are now seeing many brands tapping into emoji, stickers, GIFs, geofilters and other forms of content in a more conversational way.
Despite this demand, the opportunity for brands in mobile messaging has been limited by the experience. If users want to expand their range of emojis they had to download separate emoji keyboards, apps or sticker packs to expand their choices.
This chart shows that heavy users of messaging apps are extremely likely to want to use different emojis and have more variety. Therefore brands can tap into this desire…
Chart of the day: How data give opportunities to grow a business
I think it's fair to say that improving the quality of marketing data isn't a fashionable or sexy topic. Indeed in a recent article by Keith Weed, Chief Marketing and Communications Officer at Unilever reviewing discussions at AdWeek US he says as much:
"The very unsexy topic of measurement has become a hot conversation
Sorting out the digital ecosystem should be a priority for everyone in our industry. It has been heartening to see this become an increasing focus of conversation over recent months and certainly this past week.
As an advertiser, I want to be able to see one consumer, paid for from one budget, not separated out for online and offline".
In this quote, he is specifically talking about measurement of paid media, but he goes on to look at the importance of customer data more generally across the customer journey.
In…
Econsultancy and Harvard Business Review are amongst the most popular
Last month we asked our members and readers what sites they use to keep their marketing knowledge up to date.
Respondents were worldwide, many from the UK, US, Canada and Poland, but also extending into the APAC and EMEA areas too.
It's no surprise that our own blog outweighed others in popularity - as voters were coming through our blog content to vote.
However, the second and third most popular marketing blogs to read were Econsultancy and Harvard Business Review. The blogs provide all levels of marketers, from CEO's to Executives, marketing knowledge and updates in all industries.
We also wanted to know any other sites that we didn't feature that are also great sources of knowledge. 'Other' examples include:
Zest.is - A Google Chrome extension that collects suggested content from…
Create an inbound marketing strategy that facilitates lead generation and sales
Marketers who have learned the inbound methodology are already familiar with the complexities that are involved in formulating a holistic inbound marketing strategy. The starters in inbound marketing may know the concept and the components; however it becomes inevitable to get a pathway that leads to smooth execution of the campaign. The list of
The list of questions goes on when you decide to build a marketing plan – what to do, how to prioritize, what will work for your business model and how to implement the proper infrastructure, tools, and technology to facilitate lead generation via inbound. A robust plan could only help in differentiating between an amateur and master campaign.
Only 68% of marketers believe their marketing strategy is effective.
[si_guide_block id="47577" title="Download Business Member Resource – B2B Inbound Marketing Workbook" description="The aim of this workbook is to provide B2B…
Seven predictions to act on for your future marketing plans
The start of 2018 is in sight, So, it’s the start of seasonal predictions about the forthcoming year’s marketing and branding trends.
In this article, I gaze into the crystal ball to make seven predictions relating to 2018’s marketing trends. These cover trends in audience engagement, branding and advertising. For more coverage of digital marketing, see Dave Chaffey’s Marketing trends 2018 article .
Prediction 1: Personalisation gets even more savvy
Marketers have long understood that consumers are preoccupied with one question: “what’s in it for me”? Accordingly, personalization through the use of big data has become one of sales and marketing’s important campaign considerations.
[caption id="attachment_96564" align="aligncenter" width="550"] Stub Hub lists all my favourite artists and venues first[/caption]
For example, StubHub, an online ticket exchange operated by eBay, reported a 42% improvement with a personalized call…
Chart of the day: Creating the right content is one of the biggest challenges facing marketers when it comes to mobile marketing
Research by Incite Group and Open mobile media, has revealed in their latest State of Mobile report, that content is marketers biggest challenge. Even with advancement in technology, creating the right content and relevant content is still as important as ever, as that's essentially what mobile marketing (in terms of mobile applications and mobile websites) comes down too, the right content.
The research also found that context (and relevance) as well as marketing feeling quite separate from other parts of the business, were big challenges for marketers too.
The research also found:
Understand the customer was the biggest challenge facing mobile product management teams, followed by monetization strategy and fragmented OS environment
Increasing brand awareness and engagement are the biggest objectives for…
Five ideas to help supercharge your marketing brief
The ability to write an effective marketing communications brief can be the difference between a campaign that comes to life and generates the results you’re looking for or one that misses the mark and leaves your audience cold and indifferent.
The IPA outlines three reasons why marketers should write a brief:
It leads to better work.
A good brief helps ensure that there is clarity around the goals and objectives of the campaign meaning an agency can focus their efforts in the right direction
It saves time and money.
Efficiencies can be made by helping agencies to get to the right ideas more quickly first time round rather than changing the goalposts several times during the process, all of which costs time and money on all sides.
It makes remuneration fairer.
Make it clear from the start what exactly is expected of the agency and how success…
