Mobile revolution spreads eastward in 2016
From only a very slight penetration at the start of the decade, by 2019 over half of people will be using Smartphones in Poland, Russia, Turkey and the Czech Republic. These countries will be important for marketers in the coming few years, as a slowdown in China means greater focus on the 'near-East' rather than the 'far-East'.
In these areas where smartphone use currently lags behind the western world, there is still room for double-digit annual growth in penetration. This rapid growth in-turn leaves gaps open in the market just waiting to be filled by people who have developed compelling mobile responsive sites. Marketers should thus pay attention to these often overlooked markets. eCommerce folk that already have great customer journeys for those on mobiles should look at increasing language options to include these countries.
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This experimental new 'Podium' feature from Google hints at plans for slightly more social SERPs
Google Posts wasn't so much launched by Google, as it was quietly rolled out with little to no fan-fare. Months have passed since the feature first went live for a select few people, but still most digital marketers haven't heard of them. So what exactly are Google posts?
Google Posts are short snippets of text, rather like Tweets or Facebook status updates, uploaded directly to Google rather than social networks. At the moment they are only available for US Presidential candidates, but their landing page suggests that Google aims to open them up to "verified people and organisations". You can see an example of a Google Post below for a 'brand search' on Hillary Clinton where it forms part of the Knowledge Graph on the right.
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How the behavior of search users is evolving
Google handles 2 trillion searches per year, but the way people are using it is changing. Last year we saw the shift to mobile pass the tipping point, with over half of searches coming from mobile devices. It was this shift to mobile that prompted one of the biggest PPC changes of 2016; the removal of side ads. As you can see from the infographic below, this has mostly boosted clicks on ads that appear at the bottom of SERPS, although also has meant more clicks on the top ads as well.
Thanks to JBH for creating this infographic…
Use Hofacker's 5 states of information processing to understand how your web copy communicates with your intended audience
Professor Charles Hofacker originally created the 5 stages of information processing in his book ‘Internet Marketing’ originally published in 2000. It was intended to help marketers and advertisers consider how well their websites and adverts/promo panels communicated value to website visitors. The book explained how web browsers work (can you imagine reading an article on how Chrome or Firefox work today?) for an audience that was new to the Internet.
What are the 5 states of information processing?
Exposure
Ensuring the web visitor is exposed to the website for long enough to absorb the content or the ad. Within online advertising today, this is measured and media traded based on the concept now known as “Viewability”
Attention
Physical factors such as movement and intensity that attract attention when visitors are on a website
Comprehension and perception
How well visitors understand…
2016. A Bot Odyssey
Bots are the marketing equivalent of drones, but a couple of years behind. A few years ago no one had heard of them and they didn't really work very well (except the sinister military sort), but now everyone and their mum seems to have a drone, and the media is a buzz with ways drones could transform different industries.
All the big movers and shakers in the industry are agreed that bots will be the next big thing (we've had content marketing, marketing automation, big data, now bots are the buzzword of choice). MIT technology review told us that the bots are coming back in April, whilst in the same month Facebook opened up its messenger platform for people to build Bots. The little chart of the left shows interest in messenger bots recently according to Google trends.
Are bots…
EU data law hasn't gone away just because of the referendum result
The decision to leave the EU has created the impression that it means UK digital marketers have heard the last about the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), or EU data law, that comes into force in May, 2018. But it is nowhere near as straightforward as that. There is strong speculation that the law may still come into force domestically. Knowing whether to prepare is important because there is a considerable amount of time, money and effort needed by companies to prepare for it, and the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) has been given heavyweight powers and sanctions to enforce it should the data law come into effect.
UK will need Data Act if there is no GDPR
The ICO itself…
How to survive digital transformation
I'm not sure we should be encouraging people to think of digital transformation as armageddon scenario, but then again it does bear certain similarities. It's hard work, and keeping your team united is key to success (or that's what I'm lead to believe by all the survival movies I've seen).
When you're working on a digital transformation project, anything that can go wrong probably will. It's a difficult task, so it makes sense to get some help. In fact, Gartner research shows that digital transformation initiatives only have a 30% success rate, so most fail. To make sure yours doesn't, it might be wise to have a read of tfm's new Digital Transformation Survival Guide.
Thanks to tfm for publishing this infographic. If you want more advice on managing the digital transformation process, expert business members can download our …
How to structure your thinking when planning for the future
You can't predict the future. I don't care how smart you are, how prestigious the Univeristy you got your MBA from is, or what your horoscope said. The top economists never saw the 2008 financial crisis coming. The top political commentators didn't think Donald Trump would win the Republican nomination. Even the pollsters couldn't get the result of the 2015 UK general election right, and they were only having to predict what would happen the next day.
So given that you aren't going to be able to work out what will happen in future, you shouldn't base your business planning on a single scenario, which we can broadly define as 'business as usual'. Instead, you should plan for multiple scenarios, which will allow you be more responsive to future changes that will impact your business.
But how do you know what scenarios to plan…
Using Cause-and-effect or Ishikawa fishbone diagrams for marketing analysis and management
If you’re involved with managing Ecommerce, there are many inter-related marketing activities that are important for success. With the increasingly complex range of channels companies use for communications today and alternative customer journeys on site, mastering best practices is helpful to make best use of each channel or digital marketing technique and how it integrates with other channels.
I first started to use Ishikawa diagrams when I was responsbible for managing software development teams where we used them to identify the potential cause of problems and minimise bugs. As I got involved in digital marketing I was reminded them when I heard Sam Decker, then responsible for Dell’s consumer web site, explaining how Dell used this as part of their Six Sigma thinking to improve operations, content, design, analytics, and P&L management. This technique seemed to me to be…
Over a half a billion Smart Phones will be sold in Africa between now and 2020
Digital marketers by definition focus on areas where people are connected. The tech revolution started in the US, and quickly spread to Europe and then on to Asia. Now there are more smart phones, internet connections and ecommerce purchases made in Asia than any other region.
Unfortunately, Africa has frequently missed out on the potential of the digital revolution, and because of this it has remained a small market (in relative terms) for digital marketers, and hasn't received an awful lot of attention.
That should be starting to change. As the chart below shows, not only are phone shipments to Africa increasing considerably, to over 200 million units a year (that's the combined population of the UK, France and Germany!) but they are also becoming mostly Smartphones.
Smartphones ownership means internet access, ecommerce potential and social media use. Digital marketers should take…
