Archive for the ‘online marketing’ Category
Increase Your Speed to Market with Mobile – SDL Bemoko webinar
April 14th, 2013
I had the privilege of moderating an excellent webinar last week where Phillip Clement, Marketing and Sales Director of SDL Bemoko presented some great ideas and data how to increase your speed to market with mobile.
Phillip focused on ways to manage customer experience across multiple channels, dealing with the rapid pace of change in technology, the blurring of real with digital worlds and the imperative to control budgets.
The presentation deck was lengthy and packed with excellent info so there is only space here to touch upon some of the themes but you can download it through a link at the end of this post.
Phillip advised on practical ways to simplify mobile and tablet delivery, for marketers to adapt more quickly their campaigns for mobile faster, to manage customer experience across multiple channels and respond to the rapidly changing needs of customers.
He explained that “Doing mobile” is not the challenge; rather the challenge is delivering against expectation, keeping pace with change and breaking down traditional silos – marketing and IT. This necessitated the deployment of the right technology, empowering IT staff, reduce cost and complexity of delivery, speed commercial innovation without compromising resilience and ensure that businesses were always ahead of customer adoption
Phillip advises: “Traditional methods will bog down progress and increase cost, when you are trying to control budgets effectively.”
He believes that early adopters and late to market businesses are now on a level playing field but that customers’ expectations are high and businesses with agile technology platforms will succeed and grow faster than their competition.
Multi-channel or omnichannel marketing is rapidly becoming the de facto standard for brands of all sizes, and the technology engagement layers within these are becoming more complex, including wearable web devices, even “sentient tattoos”.
This is why marketers and IT professionals within companies must find new, more agile ways to communicate.
You can download the SDL Bemoko deck here.
UK shoppers spend the most online
December 14th, 2012
The UK is leading the way when it comes to shopping online, according to Ofcom’s International Communications Market Report.
The report looks at the take-up, availability, price and use of broadband, landlines, mobiles, TV and radio across 17 major countries: UK, France, Germany, Italy, the US, Canada, Japan, Australia, Spain, the Netherlands, Sweden, Ireland, Poland, Brazil, Russia, India and China.
Ofcom’s figures confirm that consumers in the UK spend an average of £1,083 a year when shopping online, compared with Australia which spends the second highest at £842.
Mobile devices play a large part in the success of online retail in the UK, and we download more data from our mobiles than any other nation. In fact, 16% of all web traffic in the UK is from mobile devices, which is more than any other European country.
Outside of Europe, British mobile use still leads the way, for example; in December 2011 the average UK mobile connection used 424MB (megabytes) of data, higher than Japanese users who averaged 392MBs.
Considering the UK population’s love of mobile access, it’s not surprising that we have one of the highest penetrations of smartphones, with almost 60% of British mobile phone owners saying they have one, second only to Germany, and up from 46% in the last report.
Only 37 per cent use a desktop computer as their most frequent means of accessing the internet.
Social networks have played a key role in demand for mobile devices, with 40% of UK adults accessing their profiles via the medium.
British 18-to 24-year-olds are also proving to be the world’s top mobile social networkers, with 62% accessing their profiles from smartphones and tablets, a higher proportion than any of the countries analysed in the report.
Traffic referred to FT.com from social media up 20% in the last 6 months
September 28th, 2012
Earlier this week the FT released the results of a survey that it carried out on the social media behaviour of its readers, or more specifically an online survey of 1,128 FT.com readers.
The results of the survey are illustrated in the infographic below and accessible here.
If proof of the influence of social media is needed, the survey confirms that social media is growing faster than every other traffic source to FT.com and traffic referred from this channel has grown by 20% in the last 6 months alone.
Furthermore, the FT has a global combined social media audience of 3.9m. 49% of which is based in the UK or US, with the remaining 51% coming from the rest of the world.
Finally, and perhaps most impressive, 58% of the FT social media audience agree social media enhances its reputation and 40% read the FT more as a result of it.
Plenty of other interesting stats below:
Google screen jugglers research is good news for agile marketers
August 31st, 2012
Elinor Mills’ blog post this week about Google research data on screen jugglers sent me back in time.
Approximately two minutes after the Big Bang 
, I wrote an arguably definitive article on the future of the internet for the Sunday Times Magazine (1995) where I predicted that people would, for example, watch Wimbledon on their screen of choice, check information on the players and buy into Dunlop futures on the stock exchanges. All at the same time. Crazy!
At that time, remember, the internet was seen by the majority as a fad – much like CB Radio.
Anyway, fast-forward 17 years and the multi-tasking prediction has come true – except that it’s not done on a single screen.
Elinor’s post on c|net advises that on average we spend 4.4 hours of our leisure time each day in front of screens, according to research commissioned by Google and revealed in the Google Mobile Ads Blog blog post.
The study reveals that 90 per cent of all media interactions are on a screen of some type or another, which leaves 10 per cent for radio and print versions of newspapers and magazines.
Watching TV is perfect for screen juggling – 77 per cent of the time, we are using another device while viewing and roughly half the time, we reach for our smartphones.
But here’s the first cool takeaway: Most of the time when we use two devices simultaneously, it’s to do e-mail, followed by browsing and social networking.
Elinor’s blog advises that, per interaction, the time spent staring at a particular screen ranged from 17 minutes for the smartphone and 30 minutes for a tablet to 39 minutes for a personal computer or laptop and 43 minutes for TV.
And here’s the second cool takeaway: 38 per cent of our daily media interactions are on a smartphone, 24 per cent on a personal computer, and 9 per cent on a tablet, the research found.
I’m sure we’ll see that tablet stat change as Google gains a stronger position in the market.
Maybe this research shows that people are very happy to use a range of devices and that smart mobile is the most significant element in their daily engagement. My dream home would include a state-of-the-art TV screen, three tablets (Slates), an iPhone and an Android phone. Gigabit wireless is hardly too much to ask.
I’m not too concerned about the compression of knowledge, news, entertainment, sport and gossip into a single home device. I think we’re doing quite nicely, thanks.
But the Google research does clearly indicate that marketing teams around the world have a massive opportunity to build brand reputation, influence and authority through campaigns that flow seamlessly through the multiple channels of engagement.
Currently, I think that there are disconnections between these channels. The Google research should spark changes that will ensure marketers engage more effectively with the screen jugglers – that is, you and me.
Google+ builds its social marketing business proposition step by step
August 17th, 2012
Google+ is building its social marketing business proposition step by step and the vision is integration.
I think we will ignore Google’s social plays at our peril simply because the company has a greater leverage than any other social media platform.
More than that, Google’s ability to mesh its social innovations with the other elements of what is surely the greatest marketing platform ever developed means that GPlus will transform online social business relations over the next months.
Google has had a few false starts in social media but has got it right with GPlus. Some people are pointing to data that indicates the low engagement status of Google+ compared with Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
But you often get what you ask for in surveys and I’m not convinced by the structure or the interpretation of the Google+ infographic.
Google is building its social spine and the facility for integration with everything else it offers is a huge opportunity for marketers. Maybe it will not become the Facebook killer but I’m convinced that this is not its goal.
This week, Google+ launched custom URLs to profiles and pages, currently available to a limited number of ‘verified’ profiles and pages but this service will be soon rolled out to more brands and individuals.
David Beckham, Britney Spears (already the uber-presence on Google+) and brands Toyota, Delta, and Hugo Boss have received the custom URLs. So that’s sport, entertainment, auto, aviation and fashion/style covered
“Your Google+ profile is a place for you to share your passions with the millions of people who come to Google each day…Today we’re introducing custom URLs to make it even easier for people to find your profile on Google+. A custom URL is a short, easy to remember web address that links directly to your profile or page on Google+,†says Google product manager Saurabh Sharma in a blog post.
Softly, slowly, Google is transforming the online social landscape.
The invisible bicycle helmet and the perfect marketing film
August 15th, 2012
I love this perfect marketing film about the invisible bicycle helmet – and I love the idea even more.
To say the film veers to the laid-back is an understatement but it works for me on every level, not least the fact that’s it’s in Swedish and we’re having a big cultural hug-fest with the Nordic countries right now. Yep. I have watched it a few times, to get the sub-titles after watching the flow and it gets better with every view.
The filmmakers actually break a few online film laws themselves – it’s 3 minutes, 35 seconds for goodness’ sake. Surely we know that you have 30 seconds, 1 minute max for online marketing videos? But it works … really well.
Whoever developed the storyboard and wrote the script deserves an award. During the 215 seconds runtime we’re introduced to the invisible bicycle helmet inventors Anna Haupt and Terese Alstin and get to spend some joyful quality time with them – real quality. By the end, we know they are special and have a world-changing product.
They also throw in a nice MacGuffin that has you distracted, which I won’t spoil by telling you about it.
But it’s only at the very end of the film that we have the “revealâ€. By the time you get there, you know this product is exceptional. The fact that it’s to be marketed for women doesn’t discombobulate you for a single second.
The film is a must-watch. See The Invisible Bicycle Helmet here and hope you enjoy it as much as I did. You can also find out more about the Invisible bicycle helmet, or Hövding (which means “Chief†or “Princeâ€, I think) here.
As the film says: “If people say it’s impossible we have to prove them wrong.â€
Infographic response: 20 reasons for marketers to switch to Google+
August 9th, 2012
Douglas Karr at The Marketing Tech Blog has shared an infographic offering 20 reasons for marketers to switch to Google+.
His introduction positions Google+ as a game changer in online social marketing and he says: “The opportunity is that Google+ [is] an enormous social network, with almost 32 million visitors and 43 per cent growth in June 2012. This is still your opportunity to plant your flag in the ground and build a following before your competitors do… go do it!â€
I love Douglas because he is an out-and-out professional and passionate about social marketing – and he puts his head where his passion is.
The infographic, created by Infographic Labs is a template for every would-be infographic designer. It’s clear, precise, and with good references. It’s got an online American aesthetic but is none the worse for that.
I agree with the Infographic Labs view that Circles are easily the best thing to happen to social media and we can thank Paul Adams (@padday) for much of that, I think. He was a prime mover in this development and his book Grouped is an essential read.
Paul is now Global Head of Brand Design at Facebook, having left Google. Not sure why they let him go.
Circles do what Paul thought they would – and the infographic reinforces this – they reflect online the way we engage and manage our social relationships.
The 19 other reasons to switch to Google+ rest to a greater extent on the connection with the Search giant. That gives me, personally, pause for thought but for marketers, the professional benefits should outweigh the unequal data exchange.
The infographic also boosts the Google+ photo gallery implementation and it’s surely better than the rivals but I still hope against hope that we can devise a tool that curates images accurately so that we can find the images (still and video) we want without the noise.
I think Douglas @douglaskarr) and the team at Infographics Labs have identified that Google+ will be one of the strongest, if not the leading online social marketing tool in the next year.
I haven’t used  Google+ fully up to now – but sure I will after enjoying the infographic. The evidence is compelling.
And, by the way,  the top five Google+ users are celebrities – where Britney, Snoop and Larry Page (Larry Page?) go, we follow .