Key approaches to develop your marketing analytics strategy
When you first begin venturing into the world of marketing analytics, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. Why? Well, put simply, marketing analytics is made up of a number of processes and technologies that help you analyze the performance of your marketing efforts.
By measuring marketing data, you can determine where to adjust your strategies, improving your ROI. And because it’s all about tracking and responding to data, your first instinct might be 'the more data, the better!' but that can be a slippery slope.
You’ll soon learn that crafting an effecting strategy can help streamline your processes and give you more 'bang' for your metaphorical analytics 'buck.'
Why you need a marketing analytics strategy
Your strategy acts as a plan that informs the purpose of analyzing the data you collect. Rather than just looking through all…
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17 Sep 2014
A look at academic research on change management with a digital lens
"You can't do today's job with yesterday's methods and be in business tomorrow" - Peter F Drucker
The current Mrs Sealey and I sat down recently to watch Captain America: the Winter Soldier (my choice). It's a great action packed film that sets things up nicely for the forthcoming Avengers 2 movie. It occurred to me during the film that Captain America is a leader of change. He identifies threats and handles them with help from the ensemble cast. He removes corruption, replacing it with new alliance with the vision and mission to do right.
Let me segue into the main topic of this post; accelerating digital transformation (definition). I've had the good fortune in my career to work for or with digital leaders who are attempting to do something new and brave. One thing that is common about…
The 3 digital techniques B2B marketers must excel in
Whether it’s on desktops, laptops, phablets or tablets, there is one truth when it comes to marketing your business online. If you can’t be found, don’t have a clear and compelling offer and don’t make “transaction” easy for customers, you’re doomed to failure.
Web searches, supplier websites, and in most countries email remain the primary information sources for the modern business buyer. These are the tools that allow customers to seek out products and services, to learn about the companies that provide them and to ensure they are regularly updated on them.
Brand storytelling for B2B lead generation
The underlying premise of effective B2B (digital) marketing though, lies in engaging customers and prospects and providing them with useful, relevant content that improves their own business’ revenue and performance and positions yours as an expert to rely upon.
So before we get distracted by no less important traffic generation,…
Digital Impact Conference 2014, Wednesday 17th September 2014, Central London
We're in the final countdown to our first conference in London and looking forward to meeting everyone who has booked. Thank you if you have registered! The final confirmed programme is below.
We have just 8 tickets remaining, so it will be a "full house". If you haven't registered, but are now able to attend, then we would, of course, like to welcome you - please register via Eventbrite which has details on discounts for Smart Insights members that are still available.
Here is the final, confirmed programme for the day.
You can also download a PDF of the programme here
Smart Insights Digital Impact Final Conference Programme.
Finding the venue
Of course, you know how to use Google Maps, but we have found that the venue needs careful navigation to…
Don't let BAU get in the way - make the time to plan for account growth
New business is the lifeblood of every agency, or so the saying goes. But, at the same time, the equally well-known adage is that it costs you a lot more in internal time and external / freelance costs to acquire a new client compared to retaining and growing an existing one. Unfortunately business-as-usual work on client projects or "agency life" can get in the way.
So, if you (the client services / account handling team) are not focusing on existing account growth, then you should be. By the way, I’m not a fan of the term ‘organic’, which is often applied to refer to growing an existing client account. It can imply 'it’ll just happen' rather than 'let's plan to grow this account…
Compare your traffic sources and mobile vs desktop audience split to others in your sector to make the business case for investment in digital marketing
Value: [rating=3]
Recommended link: Google Analytics Benchmarking announcement
Do you remember Google Analytics Benchmarking? You’ll need quite a good memory since Google withdrew it in late 2011 I recall - we lamented its passing in this post on using Google Analytics to Benchmark engagement with a site recommending how to use measures like bounce rate, pages per visit and visit duration to compare engagement with your site.
Well, now it’s back with a bang including a new interface and new types of reports. Here’s how to check it out:
How do I set up Benchmarking?
This is easy and you may well have it set up before. Head to Admin and check the second box shown.
Data is shared anonymously,…
Digital change management and getting buy-in for digital marketing transformation
One of the key aspects of evolving a traditional company into a digital company is getting buy-in. One of the challenges is that digital simply isn’t understood. Some Chief Executives think digital is tactical, it refers to activities like sending out newsletters, improving Facebook page or online catalogue. As a result, digital is often delegated to the most junior person in the building who is perceived to have a great understanding of the business functionality of tools like Facebook.
The exec team are missing the bigger picture. What’s worse is that less reputable agencies have constructed myths that it’s complicated and difficult and explain that only ‘masters of the art’ are able to access analytics, manage Instagram or increase Twitter followers.
The path towards digital transformation is littered with disaster. There have been many Twitter…
Our alerts and advice on the "must-know" developments in digital marketing
In August our two most significant alerts were about changes to the Facebook and Google algorithm - check these out in the sections on search and social media marketing below.
Now we’re into September we’re into the final build-up to our Digital Impact conference which is in central London on the 17th September.
We’re looking forward to meeting members at the event where we'll show how to make a bigger impact with your digital marketing with in-depth case studies and workshops covering all the digital marketing techniques we cover in our monthly updates, that’s Digital Transformation, SEO, AdWords, Content, Social and Email marketing plus improving desktop and mobile experiences using CRO and analytics.
Strategy and planning
What influences purchase of your product or service? - Our new infographic showing how your marketing communications should match your customer’s…
Integrating different inbound channels as part of a content-led digital strategy
Here's the only way to approach your marketing: What content will your customers thank you for?
Ann Handley, Chief Content Officer at MarketingProfs @MarketingProfs
In the ever-evolving sphere of digital marketing, creating compelling content just isn't enough. Instead, what you need to do is develop a strategic plan that is both consistent and integrated and will help drive traffic, generate leads and increase your conversions. While content creation still plays a pivotal role in an effective marketing strategy, smart brands are taking a more holistic approach - and that means focusing on how content marketing, SEO, social media, blogging and email marketing all work in sync.
Along with our own tips and tricks of the trade, in this article AWeber has enlisted a few industry leaders to share their insights…
Do We Need a Digital Department At All?
When I began working on the Smart Insights Digital Transformation guide, I believed that the days of the digital department were numbered. After all, if digital integration was a true goal of a business, shouldn’t this department simply be merged into marketing and other ‘non-digital’ departments? I felt that we’d only created digital departments as a bolt on reaction to the changing landscape, and that over time different skills would simply be ‘absorbed’ into the rest of the business.
While this sentiment may run true amongst some readers, I soon found that this ideal has seldom been reached, and may never occur in many verticals. After all, it often seems that there will always be requirements for specific skills that need to sit within a specialist team. Rather than saying whether we ‘should’ or ‘should not’ have a digital department, there are varying ‘phases’…
