A briefing and ressearch on the impact of Google's new Tabbed Inbox

December 2013 update: Return Path have released a comprehensive study evaluating the impact of Gmail's tabbed inbox. We have added it to the end of Tim's post to enable readers to compare their open and delivery rates in Gmail. In August 2013, Google made two important changes to the Gmail inbox that all email marketers need to understand.

What has changed?

The two changes that Google have made are distinct, but have been introduced together. 1. Tabs added to the inbox separating promotional, social updates and other email 2. Ads that look like emails may be placed at the top of the promotional tab These changes are being automatically rolled out to all Gmail users. As Gmail users access their inbox they will see this popup to inform them about the inbox change: Then the Gmail web interface looks…

I recently covered the main trends in social media marketing which should affect your approach in 2014 in a webinar. If you couldn't make it, the Slideshare gives a summary of the 7 key issues that I covered in the webinar: 1. Google+ will be a major player among the social networks 6 2. Facebook isn’t going anywhere! 12 3. We’ll think twice about what we publish 17 4. Social Networks will crack down on promotional material 22 5. Social Media will be viewed as a sales tool, not just a marketing tool 25 6. It will be accepted that you can measure ROI on social media 28 7. Content will be key to the success of your campaign 32 Social media marketing trends 2014 from Smart Insights…

Survey shows the potential for Pinterest to drive traffic

December 2013 update

Social sign-in and sharing tool Gigya have released their latest social sharing report showing which could be helpful if you're asked that general question - which social network should we focus on?

The new infographic shows the dominance of Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest with Google+ surprisingly limited across consumer sites. It also has specific data on sharing for Ecommerce and publishing sites. Pinterest is even more popular on Ecommerce sites. They have also released a regional breakdown for the first time we think.

We know that social sharing is having an increasing impact on traffic and sales, but which social sharing channels have the biggest impact? Demographic information  on social media is becoming more accessible now through sites including…

In webinar we covered Six Trends showing techniques and examples businesses can use in 2014 to increase the value of Email marketing. The six trends, if you want to fast forward, are: Trend 1 – More Email 5 Trend 2 –Offline gets digital 16 Trend 3 – Majority mobile 21 Trend 4 - Video 33 Trend 5 – Open rate retires 37 Trend 6 – Intelligent inboxes 40 Email marketing trends 2014 from Smart Insights This Slideshare was presented as a webinar by Tim Watson of Zettasphere at the Smart Insights Digital Marketing Priorities 2014 summit. You can view all 6 recordings from the Digital Marketing 2014 Summit here. Content marketing trends 2014 from Stephen Bateman Integrated marketing trends from Dave Chaffey Mobile marketing trends 2014 from Rob…

A briefing on the new segmentation features for Google Analytics

Probably one of the most significant updates to be rolled out of Google analytics in recent times is the revamped segmentation feature, it is hard to understate its impact! In fact, when it was introduced Justin Cutroni of Google called it "one of the most important changes ever". Leaving aside the dazzling new layout and looks there are three incredibly strong new features which bare mentioning, in no particular order of importance they are: the ability to segment by "users" (...for which, read visitors) the ability to build sequential segments the ability to create cohort segments.

Users

The first of these is pretty emblematic of all that's changing in the world of digital analytics. Until recently the base level metric underpinning all web analytics data was the humble visit, that's now being usurped by The Visitor or User. The long term goal for all this is the…

The challenge for managers of contact centres in the era of the social media empowered customer

Integrating social media into the Contact Centre is rather a daunting task, but with demand for social customer service growing at its current rate the time to think about it is now.

Social customer service platform, Sentiment, has put together this handy infographic (below) that outlines some of the biggest challenges contact centres face.

We will also be discussing approaches to manage this issue on January 15th 2014, when our Social Times CEO Luke Brynley-Jones will be hosting a webinar on ‘How Should Contact Centres Integrate Social Media?’. He’ll be joined by an excellent panel, including Martin Hill- Wilson (Brainfood Consulting), Luke Porter (Contact Centre Social) and Dom Sparkes (Tempero). You can register for the webinar.

I’ve picked out some of the highlights from…

Which social media complainer do you recognise?

The importance of social media to customer service has been highlighted through 2013. Marketers are seeking to deliver a positive customer experience, but if there is a problem, to use social media to react quickly and transparently to complaints, as well as using analytics to track and respond to customer behaviour and predict problems before it's too late!. Exact Target have recently created this infographic based on the results from research from the University of Florida. They segmented these Social Media Complainers into 5 types. The infographic gives ideas on how to treat these types of disgruntled customers differently, if you can recognise them. The Meek Customer: Don't like to complain, and will do so on Twitter or Facebook as they are seeking reassurance. The Aggressive Customer: Vocal with their complaints and best…

A little fun to end the year

[caption id="attachment_32399" align="alignright" width="270"] Santa discovers his Android rendering sucks...[/caption] If Santa was an email marketer... 1. He'd be the only one who could claim "open rate" is a meaningful metric. 2. He wouldn't have to worry about people complaining they get "too many" presents from him. 3. The message on the gift tag would be limited to 50 characters and always feature first-name personalization. 4. His detailed tests on the “best time and day to send” would have extremely conclusive results (but at least a dozen experts would try and persuade him to always send on a Tuesday at 3pm). 5. Around half the recipients would get their presents while out and about. Some would open them immediately, while some would wait until they got back home. And some would check the gift tags, save the valuable looking gifts for home,…

A briefing and examples of how to use Twitter Cards to boost leads and sales

With the recent Initial Public Offering (IPO) of Twitter on the New York Stock Exchange,  there has been a great deal of attention on the micro-blogging site and how it plans to increase its profitability (likely through advertising) to satisfy hungry investors. Although there has been much publicity regarding the company's recent move to preview images directly within a timeline feed (seemingly a move to court advertisers who can push their brands more), the introduction of 'Twitter Cards' in June 2012 seems to have gone almost unnoticed and still represents a missed opportunity for brands and bloggers alike who are yet to take advantage of them.

Twitter cards

The power of Twitter cards cannot be overstated. Twitter says: ;They make it possible for you to attach media experiences to Tweets that link to your…

Using staff email signatures to communicate your brand messages - a case study of British Red Cross

My journey with staff Email Media started 3 years ago when I rocked up to start a new job and had a loooooong list of induction meetings, one being with my Email Media Account Manager Tamsin. Now I will admit something here, I like to think that I have a good understanding of email marketing, transactional email, and trigger emails, but I was feeling slightly red-faced that I didn’t know much about what you could do with your employee emails.

Email Media is simply a technology that links up with your employee email system such as Outlook, google apps or lotus notes etc., it adds dynamic (and trackable) footers and headers to all employee emails which supports the brand and your business objectives.

In my role at the time I used Email media to support revenue,…