Tackling the challenge of Digital Transformation
One the one hand, we’ve become so accustomed to digital technology, we’re no longer able to imagine life without it. And yet, when it comes to the digital transformation of the workplace, we still have a long way to go. The greatest hurdle digital transformation is going to face is, simply put, people.
To clarify, there are a number of things that don’t have to do with technical innovations that are going to make the process more complicated. That’s not to say that creating the proper infrastructure to accommodate the rapid pace of development is not going to be a major issue in and of itself. But a number of key factors in implementing digital solutions are related to people. And while tech is relatively easy to change and adapt, people are not. However, the situation is not as bleak as it sounds if you break…
A technique for comparing and selecting the best marketing technology or tool for your business
The job of many marketers consists of countless hours doing something that can be automated. Hence why Marketing automation is growing so much in recent years. It’s not just email, but also any other software that you can use that improves performance, such as automatic reporting tools, social media marketing, Analytics, SEO tools, testing tools, etc…
Believe it or not, in these marketing tools infographics, including this one from Scott Brinker you can see there are 3,874 tools in 2016 represented across 50 categories, no wonder we all walk into the jungle of marketing technology.
Over 3,000 companies in 2016, is this good or bad?
The point of this graphic is to demonstrate the following:
Marketing has become a technological discipline;
Marketers need to know how to choose the…
We ask three of our digital marketers how they feel about robots encroaching on their jobs
There has been lots of coverage recently on the BBC about how robots are taking over more and more jobs and that a staggering 33% of junior marketers are at risk of losing their jobs to robots in the next 20 years. Within marketing, we have the rise of Marketing Automation and Programmatic Marketing, so it's not a hypothetical question. As an agency that is all for automation making our lives easier and freeing people up to do more strategic and creative activities which robots can't complete just yet, we asked some of our employees what they thought of this.
Lee Wilson, Head of SEO
In the digital arena you work with big data…
Proper use of well planned long tail keywords is key to SEO success
Long tail keywords are about more than squeezing that last bit of traffic from an overused search engine. They are the closest thing to reading minds outside of a comic book. A long tail keywords is any search of 4 words or more. Since they make up about 70% of all searches, it pays to learn how to use Google to read minds.
Other People’s Problems
Understanding the long tail keywords related to your business is the first step to getting a higher ranking on Google. Search engines are so popular because people want information for solving a problem. It doesn’t matter if it’s curing an illness, buying the right camera or learning to dance the polka. The stronger the need, the more specific the search. The more specific the search, the more likely action gets taken. We use search engines…
Qualitative analytics are the next frontier for cutting edge marketers
It is 2016, and things are not what they used to be. Taylor Swift and Tom Hiddleston broke up, Cristiano Ronaldo actually won something with his national team, and growth hacking has become something of an oxymoron.
Growth hacking, specifically app growth hacking, a term that used to describe doing things differently in order to give your app extra momentum for growth, has been chewed up, washed out and clichéd into oblivion. All the tactics, strategies and methods developers have been using have been thoroughly analyzed and reported, and nowadays – everyone’s using it.
Well, if everyone’s using it, it’s not really ‘hacking’ any more, is it? As if time stopped when we learned how to use social media, word of mouth, or paid-to-free campaigns all with the goal of increasing downloads for our apps. And that really is what the focus of…
On average only one-third of businesses have a process for funding tech innovation across the whole business
Our quarterly focus on digital transformation is soon to end, as we pivot to a new focus on eCommerce marketing. But whilst we're on the subject I thought it was important to highlight the lack of process in place for even larger businesses when funding technology innovation.
Technology innovation will be what brings in the customers of tomorrow. Those businesses who've used the latest tech to create the best products and the most seamless customer journeys will be the ones winning in the years ahead.
[si_monthly_campaign_blog_cta_banner id=154882]
Yet only a minority of businesses actually have a formal process in place across the business for funding technological innovation. The best performers were businesses with a turnover of over 250 million dollars, but even they had only a minority of 45% that were using formal processes established across the business. Smaller businesses…
New research shows most businesses now have digital strategies, but many are developed only within 'silos' and not implemented company-wide.
We poll our members every year asking about their digital plans. Our 2016 research into managing digital marketing found 47% of businesses are doing digital marketing without any kind of digital marketing strategy. It's interesting to see how this compares to digital strategies more broadly in larger organisations.
Harvey Nash and KPMG surveyed over 3,300 Cheif Information Officers and Technology Leaders about IT management, in the largest survey of its kind in the world. Their findings related to digital strategy make for interesting reading, and corroborate closely with the results of our survey into digital marketing strategies. 42% of businesses surveyed by Harvey Nash and KPMG didn't have a digital strategy in place at all in 2016, similar to the 47% we found without a digital marketing strategy this year.
Interestingly, many of…
The EU's GDPR law requires compliance by 2018. Even with Brexit predicted to occur in 2019 or after, it can't be ignored.
Last month, I woke up in the blissful world of B2B marketing. I could create campaigns, upload my purchased data lists, segment them as appropriate and set up my lead nurturing series to send. Then it happened. That thud that resounded throughout my perfect little marketing world and shattered that blissful bubble. The judges hammer as the EU General Data Protection Regulation was put into force.
It has taken me a while to come to terms with what the EU GDPR means for my marketing. Below is an account from my marketing journal through this year, with the questions that kept me awake at night, and the answers I discovered along the way. I hope you find it useful!
29th April 2016
So, I've just heard about the EU GDPR. I…
The Privacy Shield is a great opportunity for brands to win back consumer trust
The estimated $250 billion occurring annually in trans-Atlantic digital trade spells growth and opportunity for media and technology companies on both sides. However, there’s a lot of red tape involved in the ownership and transmission of sensitive consumer data.
With the European Court of Justice striking down the 15-year Safe Harbor agreement last fall, citing fundamental differences in the handling of private information and legality concerns, the U.S. and the European Union have established a new data privacy agreement. Privacy Shield is meant to ensure that sensitive data is secured to EU standards before being submitted to corporations based in the U.S, all of which must agree annually to the terms provided in the directive.
From traditional media houses to live event companies, the industry’s responsibility to safeguard its customers’ data and privacy is now paired with legal obligation.
Better Data Management Will…
Digital marketing systems, CRM roll-out and Big Data project failure rates exceed 50%
Long ago, before the World Wide Web (yes such a time does exist, it was in the late 1980s, early 1990s), I worked as an IT project manager managing teams building marketing systems for clients and packaged solutions used worldwide. So IT project failure is still 'close to my heart', particularly since now with my focus on digital marketing we hear that many project failures occur raising questions about the Return on Marketing Technology (RoMT). For example, you hear shocking statistics like these bandied about:
63% of CRM initiatives fail
70% of Marketing Automation projects fail (actually a bogus statistic)
84% of digital transformation projects end in failure
They're certainly shocking and raise HUGE questions about the way marketing technology is procured and implemented today. Yet we need to be careful about their validity. As Venture Beat…
