New research highlights different approaches to engaging retail customers
The DMA has identified four different types of consumers when it comes to brand loyalty. Some customers are always loyal, others only loyal for certain purchases. But whatever their natural propensity for brand loyalty, you need to engage them and build trust. The DMA's 2016 research presented below shows that over half of consumers will stick to a brand that provides good service when they know they could get a cheaper deal elsewhere. In addition in found customers don't particularly like being asked to provide reviews, yet brands are keen to do this. One the flip side, almost half of customers would like to receive free gifts from brands, but only one in ten companies do this. There is clearly currently a big mismatch between consumer desires and brand actions, and this needs to close. Find out more by checking out the infographic below.
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As an industry, how are we finding the process of recruiting new talent?
We recently conducted some research where we asked over 700 professional marketers about their current digital skills, how they wanted to develop and what trends they saw in the industry. That research resulted in our Digital Skills report 2016 which you can find here.
When we asked "How easy is it to recruit people with the right amount of digital skills based on the experience of your organisation?" we got quite an array of answers.
On initial inspection, it clear to see that, the digital marketing industry finds recruitment more troubling than easy. Whether this is as a result of unreasonable expectations, or a flaw in the system we are using, it's something to be conscious of when looking for your next hire.
Looking at the…
How to build and nurture online communities
A surefire way to build trust and foster brand loyalty is to establish an online community or membership site. It provides your audience with a sense of belongingness, exclusiveness, and the reassurance that your company is looking out for your valued customers. However, before you get ahead of yourself, remember that a successful community is not easy to establish. It requires extensive planning, research, and time and effort in order to set up an engaging platform.
The first step in creating an evergreen community is understand the how the best in the business have done it in their respective markets. Below are seven of the best online communities or membership sites operating today:
1. Blogging on Your Own Terms
Membership sites do not have to be complicated. For example, Blogging on Your Own Terms by Daniela Uslan is built completely on Facebook. It is a community…
Simon Swan interviews Digital Marketing consultant David Sayce
One thing remains consistent for the role of the digital marketer, whether client side, agency or as a consultant – disruption. The need to embrace change, continuous learning and help mentor and coach colleagues and businesses to digital best practice are the skills needed to help develop your career. There are a number of factors why pursuing a career in digital is a good choice, take a look at this article in The Drum which highlighted the UK is facing a major digital skills gap.
I caught up with digital marketing consultant, David Sayce to question him on some real life questions as to the role of the digital marketer and how this has changed. We discuss a number of areas including the key challenges for businesses and what they need to be doing to retain digital marketing staff, the advice David would offer brands…
The key things to remember when developing a mobile app
In a world where 80% of Internet users choose their smartphone as their primary means of connection, there’s a need for creative and innovative app ideas.
The best news about this rising number comes when you break it apart. Smartphone use is breaking the age barriers as well. In fact, 27% of the 65+ population has begun using smartphones as a means of staying connected.
What that means to you as a creative entrepreneur is that there is no limit in the type of app you can create. So, if you have an innovative idea that can service the needs and solve the problems of any generation, there’s no limit.
You just need to commit the steps of getting your app from your mind to the shelves. Here are 12 easy steps to follow in order to do so.
1. Set an Attainable…
Tricks are useful only if they actually work
As such, there are dozens of tips and trick out there on how to use social network platforms effectively.
Many of these tips just don’t work. Some of these tactics might have worked a few years ago. But as users change over time, so does social media. And some of these tricks never worked in the first place, even though they made sense. As new data starts coming in, we’re likely going to have to readjust the ways in which we use social media as a marketing tool.
1. More Hashtags Don’t Help
Most social media experts point out that using hashtags in your posts is going to drive your share rate up. And while that may be true, often times they leave out one very important fact. While one or two hashtags can have a positive impact, overusing them can actually drive followers away.…
A sizeable majority of millennials shop via their phones, yet many still worry about payment security.
For any online retailer to thrive and enjoy a fair share of the market, it is imperative to understand Millennials’ smartphone habits. 28% of Millennials in the United States indicated that they prefer shopping online using their mobile devices as opposed to computers. Millennials now make up 26% of the total population and it is no wonder that they are influencing the online shopping trends.
Coupofy conducted a study on more than 2000 Millennials in the USA so as to understand their mobile shopping habits. We established that 73% of the Millennials use their smartphones to find locations, 67% to play games while 59% use their mobile devices for online shopping.
42% of the Millennials feel unsafe making online payments using their smartphones while 32% feel safe and secure about online payments. When even the digitally native generations worry about…
We collected some of the best social media campaigns from 2015 and 2016 and analyzed how they could have been improved with personalization tactics.
We’ve seen some cool ones, but let’s dig deeper!
Social media sites like Facebook personalize their visitor’s experience in almost every possible way. They try to understand who their visitors are and what type of content would delight them in order to provide a better experience.
In contrast, social media campaigns often fail to use personalization to their advantage. Below you can find five of our favorite social media ads from 2015 or 2016, and a short description of how we would make them more personal.
The Last Selfie
Photos sent on Snapchat disappear after 10 seconds, with no chance of being seen again. World Wildlife Fund used this mechanism to illustrate what could happen to endangered species around the word. The organization posted pictures of tigers,…
Finding the right user, with the right content, at the right time is the perfect scenario. But how do we avoid our message getting distorted by Multi-Tasking?
As a marketer, we take great care in positioning our product/service/offering, which makes distractions from our message very frustrating.
Following on from yesterday's Chart of the Day, the Communications Market Report from Ofcom has provided yet more nuggets of information. This time in the form of Figure 1.21, which highlights the proportion of solus vs simultaneous minutes by grouped activities.
This basically means, The amount of time spent doing one communications activity over doing multiple. The segmentation of these categories can also go a little deeper, into "meshing" and "stacking", which Ofcom describes as...
Meshing: When the simultaneous activities are related e.g. searching for info on a TV programme online while watching it.
Stacking: When the simultaneous activities are not related e.g. instant messaging with a friend while watching…
And clients need to stop listening to their HiPPOs
When I first meet a new client team, it’s always interesting to hear about how they got to where they are. It’s always different and often complex – but there are some similarities across the board – from multi £m businesses to start-ups.
The most common theme I hear surrounds clients simply not getting business advice. I use the work business pointedly here.
What can happen is clients have a back-story that then leads them to a self-perceived solution or service that they think will solve the problem.
For example:
I spoke to a really smart marketer yesterday who represented a £100m turnover membership business. She had a ‘web design’ brief for a new website and a budget of £25k. It had all kinds in there – better SEO rankings, new…
