Posts tagged digital marketing
Why social media needs to learn the marketing basics
Sep 6th
In the past I’ve
spoken several times about the unwillingness of some executives to adopt
social strategy. It’s pleasing to see that this is becoming less of a
problem, but it’s also worth noting that the river flows both ways here.
Social media is a fairly young discipline even in the barely-codified
world of digital marketing, meaning that many social media managers have
a background that isn’t based in marketing.
In some ways this is a very
good thing. Social media teams aren’t burdened by many of the set in
stone rules that bound traditional marketers, meaning there’s greater
room for innovation (not to say that traditional marketing can’t
innovate as well –quite the opposite), and room to create genuine
one-to-one customer interactions without always worrying about the
bottom line.
In many cases, social media staff genuinely are there to
help the customer.
Unfortunately in some this has led to a sense of
superiority. It’s rare that you’ll find a broadcast media ‘guru’ after
all, but while social offers some great opportunities, it’s important
that as social media professionals we don’t get carried away.
There’s a ton of posts out there about what social media can do (and
I’ll be making plenty more of them in the future), but maybe it’s time
social media professionals address the gaps in our own knowledge?
Let’s look at a few of the more common problems and see what we
can do
about them:
Assuming social media is more influential than traditional media
While digital spends have increased massively over the past decade, print has steadily declined.
It seems that people simply aren’t prepared to pay for general content any more. However, while newspapers may be struggling other sections of broadcast happily soldier on, their fortunes increasing steadily as they expand into new markets.
TV experienced a minor drop in penetration but studies now show increasing adoption in younger users, while even the advent of free streaming services hasn’t been able to significantly reduce global radio audiences.
Often we’re all too keen to stack falling broadcast numbers up against rising social adoption, but it’s worth keeping the wavering fortunes of many social platforms (MySpace is the obvious case in point here).
Broadcast media is a fluid, adaptable medium that continues to be the information service of choice for many people. Likewise, it’s worth considering for a moment how much of your social media output actually falls under the broadcast banner.
Tweeted about a new service or written a blog post lately? Just because you invite comments actively, the initial post is still a broadcast.
Social media professionals need to work out how they can expand upon broadcast services, rather than attempting to compete with them.
Social media is the best place to create brand awareness
One of the great things about piling cash into Facebook ads and the like is the fantastic ability to track conversions.
In terms of direct sales, social media campaigns offer extremely fast turnaround and accurate feedback but it’s important to remember that brand engagement and advertising isn’t all about counting click-throughs.
Social media professionals often find themselves struggling to communicate that successful social campaigns are about more than just numbers, but when it comes to sales we’re too often guilty of forgetting our own words.
To succeed, businesses project and plan years in advance, mapping extremely complex customer behavior and seeking out new audiences who may not click that ‘buy’ button for a very long time.
Social media professionals like to talk about ‘creating buzz’ and ‘increasing brand awareness’, but it’s important to remember that brands have always engaged in these practices.
Social media makes feedback easier to monitor but you need to remember you aren’t reinventing the wheel here. Get advice from other marketers about how best to engage and plan long-term.
The audience can be trusted to curate their own content
Or to quote Spinal Tap’s David St. Hubbins: “I believe everything I
read”.
Given the sheer volume of commentary and information available online,
it’s easy to assume that choice now resides purely with the consumer.
Using services like AllTop or Digg we can pick and choose which content
reaches us. Not a fan of sport? No problem, simply set your
preferences to exclude anything even remotely connected to Wayne Rooney.
We’re all editors now, so why pay someone to do it for us?
Of course, there is a flipside to all this. With
so much content doing the rounds, there’s a real difficulty in finding
the good stuff.
Sites offering quality, well researched information have
that most valuable of all internet commodities: trust.
Just because we can custom define searches and RSS feeds to within an
inch of their lives, doesn’t mean we always will. People enjoy learning
new things, and receiving news from an unexpected source is one of the
primary joys of online existence.
Those with the editorial and
journalistic skills to research, curate, and organise material are more
important than ever.
Social Media is replacing other sources
Social media is continuing to experience impressive growth but it’s important that SM marketers don’t assume this means that audiences are abandoning other sources.
Since its inception the media has constantly fragmented and continues to do so. Facebook may well be heading for the billion, meaning sm is genuinely a marketing force to be reckoned with, but it’s a real mistake to assume that these growing audiences are coming from somewhere else.
Have a look on your own Facebook page, and you’ll most likely see updates from friends talking about TV shows, print news and movies alongside the various ‘likes’ and links.
It’s important to realize that an expanding audience in one channel does not automatically mean a decline in another.
Customers are increasingly utilizing multiple channels for shopping, news and business, rather than abandoning old channels in favour of the new.
Social media will never be more than a single, albeit diverse, aspect of marketing.
Social media marketers need to realize that while there is massive potential the emphasis now needs to be on integrating successfully with other marketing channels and creating a multi-channel presence rather than disparaging the effectiveness of other channels. If we make the mistake of competing against ourselves then we’ve already lost.
Why PRs can be better link builders than SEOs
Sep 3rd
PR is built on relationships
The best PR people generate and sustain great friendships and relationships in the world of publishing. Some are no better than press release spammers; but the best genuinely have a little black book of contacts built up over the years, and this is where their value comes from.
Search marketing link builders just don’t have this type of network. They’re far more likely to see link request as a one night stand, and even if they have taken a longer term view, they just don’t have the years under their belt.
Vertical specialism
There are a few search marketing firms which have great experience providing services to a particular type of business, but this is more by fluke than design.
Sensibly PR companies tend to work with certain types of clients which means they are even more likely to have built up the relationships with the journalists who also specialise in that area.
If you’re building links to financial service clients, IT customers and an entertainment brand you’re not going to gain much vertical specialism.
No lack of talent
Search marketing as an industry is still a very young sector. Ask many graduates what they want to do when they leave university, and not many will say SEO, even if they are taking a digital marketing degree.
This doesn’t mean that they are not well-qualified, or that they wouldn’t necessarily enjoy the work. It’s just simply the fact that they don’t know the industry exists. Compare that to PR where demand for roles is so high, long term internships are the norm. That competition for work really drives up standards and instils a hunger in young PRs that serves them well throughout the rest of their career.
Once PR firms get their head around link building, we have an industry with the cream of the crop in terms of graduates up against a career that most people happen upon by accident. That doesn’t mean link builders are hugely gifted individuals, they are, but there aren’t many of them who set out to be a link builder.
Offline contacts will soon be online contacts
The little black book of journalists any good PR has used to only be able to get them offline coverage. The online team was separate and siloed.
Not any more.
Most publishers are integrating their teams. People from newspapers are moving to pure-play online publishers. B2B experts are starting their own specialist websites aimed at micro-niches. Suddenly there aren’t online journalists and offline journalists, there are only journalists, and those working in public relations have a huge head start.
What does it mean for search agencies?
Most are recruiting from PR firms, and many are taking graduate recruitment seriously to get the strongest applicants.
The best link builders are building relationships as well as links, but those who take their eye off the ball could quickly find they are only left with onsite technical SEO, which, while essential, is only part of the business models that’s been working so well for most SEO companies.
Web Measurement and Analytics
Aug 12th
Effectiveness: Improve your digital marketing and e-commerce results through analytical insight
If you and your organisation are to get the best results from your website, leveraging digital insight is essential. This course focuses on using web analytics and other data sources to improve results from your website through analysis of site visitor characteristics and behaviour. It will show you how to produce a plan to develop the most appropriate metrics, tools and digital marketing improvement process for your organisation.
What’s trending in digital marketing during 2010?
Aug 10th
Econsultancy director Peter Abraham identifies and explores the current “up and coming” trends in the digital sector that will have a direct impact on how marketers operate.
At more than 90 slides long, this presentation provides a concise snapshot about what’s trending within established digital channels, such as search and email, but equally importantly looks at new and upcoming areas such as social media, mobile and augmented reality.
It was originally a client-side presentation during August 2010 and includes Econsultancy research, charts and diagrams, as well as those from other third-party sources.
Topics explored include:
- The state of media
- The state of marketing
- Planning and organising in a shifting landscape
- Mobile
- Social media
- Micropayments
- Collaboration and content distribution
- Augmented reality
- Search
- Acquisition
- ROI and measurement
Who did Google just smack? Performance cheats or traditional media buyers?
Aug 2nd
I can get awfully worked up about digital marketing. Yeah. I know. Geeky. One type of villain that I particularly get angry at are the performance agency scammers.
You know the drill; they could call it a black box approach or might simply hide behind IP claims but there are agencies who’ll take your paid search cash, “spend” it for you and deliver on something like a CPA target.
The scam? Some of these agencies 
might not be spending all of the money on search. Some of these leads might be acquired elsewhere. A common trick is not to reveal how much certain keywords actually cost in the auction. Some performance scams even put a technology layer on top, letting the “client” see some cost data but that doesn’t actually match what’s in the raw AdWords account.
Google is taking steps to force partners (aka agencies) to reveal some core attributes of a campaign. Come February 2011, Google will amend their legal terms and conditions so that partners must;
- Show how much advertising budget (cost) was actually spend on AdWords campaigns.
- How many times ads appeared (impressions).
- How many time users clicked on your ads (clicks).
Google plans to get that rolled into its paperwork for February 2011.
There are still more details to come. We don’t yet know whether this data applies on a macro level only or whether more details will be required. From my point of view, the more detail agencies must show the better.
Google’s current third-party reporting requirements are in their large accounts & agencies help section.
Let’s just pause on the “large accounts & agencies” phrase for a minute. It’s certainly true that some performance deals, especially in travel and finance, are large.
The pub chat I sometimes pick up is that some traditional media buying agencies might tell their clients that a percentage of the media spend has gone on search. Sometimes they promise that an actual X million dollars will go on search. Sometimes that doesn’t really happen.
In fact, it is fairly common for some traditional media buyers to struggle to scale up search spend. That’s why some of the bid management systems have automatic keyword building functionality built in.
That’s also why one of the first things an agency with a strong search team will do when picking a search account off one of the old school boys is sort out the likely keyword mess created by the previous agency’s desperate attempt to spend budget.
I’m not honestly sure how often this “sometimes” situation occurs. Google suggests that only a third of agencies that it works with currently meet their proposed new transparency requirements. I find that number surprisingly and disappointingly low.
We may never know whether it was frustration with performance agency scams, traditional media agencies blundering around with search or some other reason was behind Google’s new transparency initiative. I do know the new transparency rules will be a good thing.
(Flickr credit Jepoirrer)
Inception: multichannel marketing that works like a dream
Jul 21st
Christopher Nolan’s latest film has had a blockbuster opening weekend, figures stand at $60.4m at time of writing, and has already garnered some great feedback from critics.
However, what’s really interesting to marketers is happening offscreen. Nolan and Warner Bros. had made a point of releasing very little advance information about the film, so even with the not-insubstantial resources at their disposal it’s amazing that they were able to transform a completely unknown entity into the ‘must-see’ release of the year in such a limited time.
In doing so, Warner showed their understanding of digital marketing and cross-streaming to produce a marketer’s dream campaign.
Initial points go to the company for their intimate knowledge of their audience.
For example, Warner went to great pains over its blog outreach campaign, utilising major and minor movie fan sites to help spread titbits of pre-release information.
While they were kindest to influencers like Ain’t it Cool News, they also took time to develop fun products for the fanboy in the street, beginning with a ‘must read’ online comic book prequel, The Cobol Job. The book introduces us to the characters and rules of Nolan’s filmic world, and more importantly gives those reading it a little something extra.
Most major movie fans want to know more, to be ahead of the man in the street when it comes to a film’s expanded universe. For proof of the success this kind of incentivisation can have consider the thousands of yearly Star Wars and Star Trek conventions that occur all over the world.
These events are designed around people who want to say “I am the biggest fan, the central source of knowledge”, and while this may be too niche (or downright geeky) to attract mainstream audiences, Warner knew in advance that they’d be utilising one of the best connected and most highly motivated online groups available.
Of course, fan approval is all well and good but it won’t necessarily pay the bills for a $200m film production. In order to engage the casual viewer, word needs to spread beyond the dedicated enthusiasts but luckily these days there’s a handy crossover point called Facebook.
Warner’s Facebook page for the film is a lovely exercise in landing pages to start with, but it’s the interactive features that really engage fans.
Facebook has a huge gaming community, so the ‘Mind Crime’ game was a perfect tool for generating viral spread.
Of course, Warner also knows that not everyone is socially networked (at least, not yet…) so they’ve done some fun things with the main website too, including fun greenscreen apps tht put you directly into the action via your mobile, and for those wanting something a little different, the “Mind Crime Prevention” app should do the trick, with a nifty (if ultimately pointless) interface that will “allow you to tell dream from reality”.
What’s striking about all of these is the effort that’s gone into making the viewer feel part of the overall experience through an integrated, expanding augmented reality.
The movie is currently trending on a huge number of independent networks so Warner’s forethought is really paying off, building buzz before, during and after the release.
The movie industry has been pulling off unique and involving marketing campaigns and promo stunts for years (check out ‘The Tingler‘ for proof), and is one of the most forward thinking when it comes to social marketing and innovative digital technology.
It’s worth contrasting this against that similar old media behemoth, the music industry, who have consistently struggled to find a new marketing model that competes with free sharing and piracy.
While the movie industry has been affected, it’s certainly not to the same extent, and while we can’t all have Leonardo Dicaprio fronting our campaigns, the willingness to involve fans and make them feel a valuable part of the marketing experience is something we can all learn from.
What does the rise of Demand Side Platforms mean for marketers?
Jul 20th
Over recent years the online display market has become more and more fragmented. This has presented numerous challenges for advertisers when it comes to buying display advertising. Buying media across multiple platforms can be a very complex matter.
Demand Side Platforms make this process a lot simpler, and offer advertisers and agencies the opportunity to buy across multiple platforms and inventory sources. In a nutshell, DSPs allow advertisers a new way to purchase and manage auction-based (display) media.
The drive for digital marketing efficiency is pushing agencies to change, adapt, and use technology that can attribute, and hence distribute, spend effectively across all of these channels and piece together ad inventory from numerous, fragmented sources.
Being able to purchase, optimise, measure, and combine display and search data is just about as exciting as it gets for many a digital/search marketer.
Google’s purchase of Invite Media shows how serious this opportunity is. Yahoo has the technology, and many companies in the USA and in the UK are launching, testing and building DSPs as you read.
So what does the rise of Demand Side Platforms mean to search and display marketers?
- They provide a single interface to manage search and display that connects to the numerous and vast amounts of ad exchanges.
- DSPs include real time bidding and portfolio optimisation to build upon automated bid management capabilities.
- They help control and management of budgets across all media types and ‘connect the dots’ across all media channels.
- The advertiser has better transparency, efficiency, and accountability. Clients are looking for technologies to help them ‘re-visualise’ cross channel data and run different scenarios to better understand and predict how search and display interacts and will interact in the future.
- Enables real insight into behaviour and allow the retargeting of users across a multitude of platforms.
- As the relationship between PPC and display is becoming increasingly important advertisers can use PPC data to conduct forecasting and make purchasing decisions in a single platform.
The use of real-time bidding to buy display advertising space and optimise display advertising campaigns, combined with search optimisation, gives access to all cross channel metrics and future decision making.
This is a very powerful combination.
Top of the class: Econsultancy’s first MSc graduates receive their awards
Jul 19th
Here at
Econsultancy towers, we’re thrilled. The MSc has been a long term investment
for our delegates and their results have set a fantastic benchmark for those
coming along behind.
Equally, the course
has been a significant investment for Econsultancy. Teaching a (still) relatively new and quickly
evolving subject has had its own challenges and we’ve learnt a lot.
For
example, we’ve learnt that a formal qualification has value for even the most
senior digital marketers. Our MSc courses were always aimed at professionals, but
we didn’t expect the high proportion of delegates with over a decade of
experience.
It’s a trend that’s
continued throughout subsequent intakes, and feedback suggests that for those who
have ‘found’ themselves working in digital, the course provides a valuable
framework within which to evaluate their knowledge, and an excuse to take a step back, spend a
little more time getting ahead of the curve, and make some far reaching changes
to their business practices.
We’ve
learnt that digital marketers are after very different things from their
training now than they were four years ago. The core digital marketing building blocks are becoming well
established, and well documented. Demand for expert guidance and insight is now
focused on strategic considerations and the ‘big picture’ with the result that
our training provision has already seen a radical shake up. Thankfully our plan
to provide constantly evolving content was already in place.
And we’ve
learnt that your peer group is your most valuable resource. Everyone, at every stage in their careers has
invaluable insights, innovative ideas and areas of expertise to share. Teaching digital skills at this level is not
about teaching facts, it’s about providing an environment within which people
have the resources and support to rethink the question, and figure out their
own way of doing it.
Of course,
we’ve also learnt that some things never change. No-one has time to do the reading,
assignments will always be handed in three minutes before the deadline, and writing
to a word limit is frustrating and significantly harder than it looks, whether
you’re 18 or 58.
At the end
of our first three years we’ve done plenty of hard work on the programme, and
the nature of the subject means that the hard work will continue, but the
calibre of our candidates, their passion, commitment and high expectations have
stood us in good stead to continue to improve and deliver an industry-leading qualification. After all,
we’re only as good as the people we teach.
Congratulations
to all our graduates and good luck to those embarking on their dissertations in
2010.
Lead generation: four questions to ask your provider
Jul 13th
As the UK Online Lead Generation industry continues to gain a foothold in the digital marketing landscape, many brands will begin to make their first tentative steps into lead purchasing and the first challenge they will face is to choose the right lead provider.
For would-be lead buyers there is already a vast array of choice from digital agencies, specialist lead generation companies, vertical specific suppliers and lead marketplaces and platforms.
They all have their strengths and weaknesses but there are a few key questions to consider that should help you make the right choice.
How many links are there in the chain?
In other words, how many intermediaries are there in between the consumer and the advertiser and what role does each one perform? At the most basic level, more links mean higher lead costs which can have a real impact on campaign performance.
For example, a direct marketer might use affiliates to drive traffic to their landing pages and the resulting lead might then pass through a lead platform and then onto an agency who then passes the lead to the advertiser.
The physical process might only take a micro second but each additional organisation in the chain will inevitably drive up the resulting lead cost. As long as each link adds value, e.g. a platform might validate the lead data then there is plenty of room for everybody but prospective lead buyers should be aware of this when choosing a lead provider.
How are the leads generated?
From co-registration to premium lead generation, each method of lead origination has advantages and disadvantages but as a lead buyer you want to find a partner that understands all these different methodologies and how they may impact upon campaign performance.
For example, a new brand that wants to build a large customer database in a short space of time would be more suited to buying co-registration leads at 20p per lead than premium leads. Alternatively, a finance brand wanting to use leads to power an outbound call centre would be better suited to more expensive and qualified leads generated through a more premium journey.
You want your lead provider to understand which type of lead generation is most appropriate for achieving their campaign objectives. Often, it makes sense to work with a lead provider that has experience in generating leads in your particular sector as generating leads for a finance brand is a very different skill to generating leads for an FMCG brand.
What technology do they have?
Online lead generation is becoming an increasingly technology-focused discipline from validation of lead data in real-time to the ability to track every lead and report back on the outcomes. Quite simply, the more sophisticated the technology, the better.
Some of these technologies can provide a very real monetary benefit very quickly. For example, if you purchase 500 life insurance leads per week from a variety of lead suppliers there will be a small but significant duplication rate as consumers fill in multiple forms online. At £40 per lead, even with just a 1% duplication rate if you work with a provider that can de-dupe in real-time (meaning you pay for each lead only once) that’s a saving of over £10,000 per year.
Where do the leads actually come from?
The other big question, is how transparent will your lead provider be? Will they tell you the source of the leads or can they pass a code so you can see the mix of suppliers? Lead quality will vary from supplier to supplier and to paraphrase Orwell, “all lead sources are equal but some lead sources are more equal than others” and if you are buying a blind blend of leads from various sources then you will be receiving some good leads and some bad leads and of course you really only want the good stuff.
Every lead has value but without any transparency you can’t find out what that value is. The most efficient form of lead purchasing is through a value-based pricing model where you pay a CPL based on the performance of the leads. This is more often than not determined by who the supplier is.