Social Media Day round-up: 6 updates in social media from this week

Social Media Essentials: Facebook hit a new milestone, Instagram lets you reply live streams and Messenger just got more fun

Firstly, Happy Social Media Day! This day, launched by Mashable eight years ago to recognize and celebrate social media’s impact on global communication. The way social networks impact our personal and professional lives is far greater than many would have anticipated. Each week there are new updates and developments in social media, opening up new opportunities for businesses.

To celebrate all things social, here are 6 updates we saw happen this week that could help inform your social media strategy and help keep you up-to-date with what's happened in the world of social media.

1. Facebook community-building tools

Facebook has rolled out some great new tools for group admins that will help them manage their groups more effectively. The aim of rolling out theses changes are to help group admins and moderators to save time and increase the amount of meaningful content to ensure the groups are adding value for Facebooks users. The first to be launched are analytics, membership request filtering, removed member clean-up, scheduled posts, and group-to-group linking. Find out more about this changes is our full summary here.

2. Instagram adds live video replays

Instagram has introduced live video replays to Instagram Stories for 24 hours with a new Share button found at the bottom of the screen once a broadcast ends. Instagram is also seeing the rise of their popular feature stories. it was reported this week that it has over 250 million daily active users.

3. Snapchat rolls out Snapmap

Although Snapchats daily users are decreases they are trying to keep their users interested with new features. This week they introduced Snapmap. This feature gives users the option to share their current location and location-based content with each other. This is currently being rolled out to all users so watch out. You can also view Snaps of events, celebrations and news from around the world.

4. Facebook hit a new milestone

This week Facebook reached 2 billion users connecting and building communities each month. To celebrate this milestone Facebook are sharing three personalized experiences to say thank you and recognize users making meaning contributions to the platform.

The first will be a video celebrating all the good and love each user has spread from their profile called 'Good adds up'. the second experience is every time a user reacts to a friend’s post with Love, wishes someone happy birthday or creates a group, they will see a message in News Feed thanking them. Lastly, they will be featuring facts about how people are contributing to the community and sharing people's inspiring stories.

5. Spotify bot allows groups to build playlists on Facebook Messenger

Spotify has made an exciting expansion in its Facebook Messenger bot by now allowing groups to build playlists directly from within the Messenger app. Spotify did already allow for collaborative playlists across devices but group playlists is a new concept for them.

6. Messenger just got more fun

Facebook Video chats have some cool new features such as animated reactions, filters, masks and effects, and the ability to take screenshots. You can use these features in one-on-one and group video chats. There are five emoji icons you can use to express your emotions and a range of filters. Messenger video chat now let you capture and share your memories, by tapping the camera icon to take a picture of your video chat and save.

What do you think of Facebooks new group admin tools? Would you find them helpful? Do you think Snapmaps will take off or be a big flop? Let us know what you think and connect with us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn. Don't forget to join us next week for another weekly round up.

source http://www.smartinsights.com/social-media-marketing/social-media-platforms/6-updates-social-media-week/

Creating forms that convert: Six common mistakes to avoid

Optimize the forms on your website to maximize your revenue opportunities

Usability Testing forms a massive part of the User Experience Research we carry out, so naturally, we observe a lot of forms being filled out!

With the amount of time we all spend form filling online you'd think that creating an easy-to-use form would be a 'piece of cake'. Sadly, it's not and there are plenty of substandard forms out there preventing users from getting what they want.

Here are six mistakes that you can avoid to ensure your forms contribute to a positive experience for your customer’s, rather than hindering them from making a purchase (let’s be honest, no one wants that!).

1. Think before you ask

Customers see the data they enter online as an exchange - they give you information and you give them what they want. But if that balance is off and it's not clear why you need the information you're asking for, they can quickly lose confidence or get frustrated. If you're sure you're only asking customers for data you need, check that the need is obvious. If it's not, find a way to explain - but keep it short and sweet.

2. Don't expect users to read the small print

You might have a paragraph of text that precedes your form that helps your customers fill it out, but if users skim right past it you're no better off. From our experience, there is no amount of styling or design that will make users read copy that they don't want to read. If your form has a lot of explanatory copy identify where you can be more concise and make your questions easier to answer.

3. Be up front with rules for passwords

Yes, we all have dozens of passwords and should be better at creating secure ones but, as The Telegraph noted in January, "more than 50% of people use the top 25 most common passwords". Making it as easy as possible to create a secure password will have customers thanking you in the long run. Help them create a secure password the first time round with clear guidelines, rather than showing them multiple error messages: one to add a number; one to add a capital letter; one to add a special character etc. Allowing users to show/hide passwords can also help, although this is not universally understood by users.

4. Avoid the date of birth dropdowns

This one comes from a good place: wanting to get accurate data and avoid mistakes. However, scrolling endlessly to select your year of birth not only makes you feel old but is also time consuming. It's also not impervious to mistakes. Government digital guidelines recommend using three text boxes to make it easier for customers to complete, including those with accessibility issues, and is simple for developers to validate.

5. Show clear and useful error messages

Easy error recovery is a basic principle of online usability, but we still regularly see customers struggle to correct their mistakes. Firstly, make sure that your customer knows where the error is - mark the field(s) with a bold red outline so it can be quickly identified. Secondly, don't just point out the data entered is incorrect, explain how to fix it: "your email does not have an @ symbol" is more useful than "invalid email address". Unfixable errors form a barrier to form completions and you will lose customers.

6. Make it quick and easy to enter an address

Searching by postcode is typically the way users expect to enter their address - don't make them type in their full address if they don’t need to.  More flexible address searches, that use postcode or the start of an address, are also available and are fairly easy to use. Do make sure the user can enter their address manually if they need to though!

It's clear, when it comes to forms, simple is best. If you’re not sure if your website forms are user friendly you can find ways to test this through User Experience Research here. Be brave and find out what your customers really think about your website’s forms.

Thanks to Susanne Wraight for sharing her advice and opinions in this post. Susanne is Head of UX Consultancy at RedEye.

source http://www.smartinsights.com/conversion-optimisation/conversion-optimisation-strategy/creating-forms-convert-six-common-mistakes-avoid/

Email campaign tracking with Google Analytics

A short tutorial and example showing how to track your email marketing campaigns by tagging links in your email with Google Analytics

I was prompted to write this how-to post since some email marketers I speak to during Email Marketing training courses, use Google Analytics, but weren't aware it can be used for email tracking "beyond the click". This means that as well as getting reporting in your email marketing system on opens and clicks for your sends, you can also isolate visits from email in your Google Analytics to see which pages are viewed and whether visitors convert.To set this up email tracking you will need to tag your email with 'Google Analytics campaign tracking codes as explained later with the example in this article.

Once you're using tracking, Google Analytics segments can be used to isolate visitors referred from email to understand their preferences and behaviours. This really helps prove the value of email for your list members and to your company particularly if you have goals set up in Google Analytics.

This is powerful insight since you can then compare different email campaigns and newsletters to see which produce the best results.

 

Note: Before you go ahead and follow the advice in this article to manually set up campaign tracking, be aware when selecting an email broadcasting system that many email providers have added functionality to make it easy to track with Google Analytics or other web analytics systems such as Adobe Analytics. So, check with your Email Service Provider to check whether they support automated link tracking. This is a huge time saver since  you can set up the campaign tracking tags within the email system rather than having to manually add them to the links or write your own scripts as we do, or use spreadsheets like that for our members as described below.

Member resources

Download Expert Member resource – Campaign tracking code creator for Google Analytics

A simple tool to help you standardise campaign tracking codes for email, social media and display ads.

Access the Google Analytics campaign tracking code creator

Download Expert Member resource – 7 Steps to using Google Analytics To Improve Online Marketing

Our guide steps you through the setup stages, but focuses on how you use Google Analytics to get better business results - the missing link in most books and the Google documentation.

Access the Using Google Analytics To Improve Online Marketing

About email campaign tracking 'beyond the click'

"Beyond the Click tracking" is the tracking that occurs once the visitor has clicked through from your email to the website.

It is where your web analytics tracking tool can take over the tracking or your email system may be able to track if you have tracking code from your email system on your webpages to review interaction with different pages or outcomes such as leads or sales.

When selecting new email services it's well worth checking what your email provider offers support for tracking website visitors and conversion points and automatically tagging email campaigns with analytics campaign tracking - it's very tedious otherwise.

All sites will use a standard web analytics solution such as Google Analytics, Omniture, Coremetrics or Webtrends and if you have a standard coding for campaign tracking you will be able to track your email. Here we look at Google Analytics.

Setting up an Advanced segment in Google Analytics to report just on your email traffic

If you setup email campaign tracking in this way or via your ESP I recommend you create a custom Advanced segment where you isolate visitors from email (or different types of email) so you can understand how they behave and convert.

Update: To add an advanced segment for Email marketing in Google Analytics, you should select the advanced segment option using the down arrow at the top left above the reports in Google Analytics, then choose “Create New Segment” and set the medium to “Email”.

The Advanced segment should be based on all visits to the site with a medium of ‘email’ set, provided that this is how you have labelled your links by tagging them. The next section shows you how to tag your links using the campaign tracking in Google Analytics.

Recommended email campaign coding / tagging with Google Analytics

To learn about the principles of tracking campaigns, read this other post which introduces tracking campaigns in Google Analytics.

To setup email tracking, the links from your email to the landing pages should be tagged with standard campaign tracking parameters. These are up to 5 "name-value" pairs which are part of the query string for the URL (denoted by everything after the "?" in the web address as in the example below). FWIW, UTM refers to the "Urchin Tracking Module" on which Google Analytics is based.

Here is an example tagged URL (split across several lines):

http://www.domain.com/landing_page.htm?
utm_campaign=EnewsNov17
&utm_medium=email
&utm_source=HouseList
&utm_term=editorial-link
&utm_content=header

For Email marketing the parameters I recommend are:

• utm_medium -  medium used for marketing, i.e. email
• utm_campaign - campaign name, e.g. EnewsNovember
• utm_source -  This is usually the media owner, but for email marketing can be used to specify the source of email list or type of email, e.g. HouseList, Welcome email, Abandoned-basket, etc
• * utm_term - In AdWords used to identify the keyword used to trigger the ad, can be used in email marketing to identify individual links (optional), e.g. Offer1, can be based on click text summary
• * utm_content - Used to track an individual or segments response (optional), this could be based on any field in database, e.g. user-id, user email, etc.

Note that term and content are optional.

If you want to try setting up Google Analytics, try the Google URL Builder that enables you to add the parameters for a destination page from your email campaign as follows:

Once you know how this work it's straightforward to create a spreadsheet for creating links, but it's really laborious to copy and paste, so for an enewsletter it's best to write a script that creates an HTML page with tagged links included - that's what we do for our Enewsletter since our ESP doesn't automatically support tagging.

Here is a guide from an email service provider giving an example of email tracking in Google analytics [PDF]

Making sure you staying within Google's terms of service on Privacy

Some commentators have recommended that you should use someone's email address to in the &utm_content field. Aside from potential privacy concerns, this is personally identifiable info and so not possible without breaking Google Analytics's terms of service (See #7). 

The precise wording is:

"You will not (and will not allow any third party to) use the Service to track, collect or upload any data that personally identifies an individual (such as a name, email address or billing information), or other data which can be reasonably linked to such information by Google".

They also state that you can't match any clickstream data to any individual user of your site. So issuing each person a unique id and passing that through utm_content is also prohibited. As some comments below make clear, you can still track an individual ID provided it can be linked back to an individual.

source http://www.smartinsights.com/email-marketing/email-marketing-analytics/email-campaign-tracking-with-google-analytics/

Using Google Analytics to evaluate content marketing effectiveness

Chart of the Day: How good is your use of campaign tracking codes?

As this post on campaign tracking in Google Analytics shows, Google's UTM tracking codes provide an excellent way to see which of your marketing channels and content is influencing site visits, leads and sales. This week we have launched a simple tracking code generator for Google Analytics marketing source codes to make it quicker for members to generate these.

Yet, when consulting or training I find that many businesses don't fully track their inbound marketing activities, especially their content marketing where content is shared by email or social. This chart from joint research by Smart Insights and HubSpot of content marketers in Europe also suggests room for improvement in tracking of content marketing.

You can see that fewer than half of businesses are able to track ROI or track links to content from other sites.

Within our own PDFs we always go to the trouble of marking up links from content to the site since this will show you which content is most effective at driving visits and conversions.

Here's an example tracking URL for a PDF. The tracking code follows the landing page address after the '?' so is sometimes called the 'query string'. Google Analytics automatically parses each parameter which starts with &utm so you can see the results in Acquisition, Campaigns report in Google Analytics.

http://www.domainname.com/example_landing_page?utm_source=company&utm_medium=pdf&utm_campaign=22062017&utm_term=hero_link&utm_content=tracker

• Source: Content Marketing Europe 2016 report (to be updated later in 2017)
• Sample: 712 marketers based in Europe
• Recommended resources: Evaluating content marketing ROI

 

source http://www.smartinsights.com/content-management/content-marketing-tools/using-google-analytics-evaluate-content-marketing-effectiveness/

Don’t Get Lost in Translation – Localization is the key to international ecommerce success

Localization means more than just translation, you must adapt to meet your audience's needs

Selling to a worldwide audience at first might seem like the ideal way to increase your profits, but if you don’t get your messaging right you could end up talking your way out of increased revenue.

Retail E-commerce sales reached 7.4% of all retail sales in 2016, and is set to continue rising for the foreseeable future. It is predicted to  increase to over $4 trillion by 2020, making up 15% of all retail spending globally; much of this percentage comes from international sales. Currently the UK holds the highest percentage of online shoppers at 15.4% of all retail sales, followed by China (13.8%), Norway (11.5%) and Finland (10.8%), and the leading destination for those sales is the United States, followed by China, the UK and Germany. By 2020, nearly 1 billion consumers – almost half of online customers, will purchase products and services from a business abroad.

Find the right words for successful cross-border e-commerce

If you’re an Australian shopper purchasing textbooks from the UK, language won’t pose a problem for you. However, if you’re a Chinese customer buying clothing from an American outlet, language will play a much larger role in your purchasing decision. To prove this point, 95% of Chinese customers prefer to shop on websites that cater for their own language, according to a recent Forrester report. In Europe, that number is almost half, at 42%, and yet still represents a sizable population that must be catered to.

International Ecommerce businesses looking to increase revenue through internationalization face a number of challenges when targeting foreign audiences, not least of which is the complexity of translation and localization. The ability to present your offering to multiple markets in their native language must be at the core of your expansion strategy, and translation must be treated with the utmost care. Stories of poor translations are all too common in international business, and can cause a blow to the bottom line rather than a boost. Avoid such pitfalls by localizing your website through not just translating content, but also adapting it to a local audience.

Translations that never got off the ground

Airlines have provided some of the best examples of faulty translations without localization taken into account. One example is Braniff Airlines, boasting of all-leather seats on their planes with the slogan ‘Fly in Leather’. The print, TV and radio ads gave the image of a high-class airline until it came to translating the slogan for a Spanish-language radio ad, aired for the Florida market. While ‘en cuero’ technically does mean ‘in leather’, in colloquial Spanish it means ‘naked’. ‘Flying naked’ isn’t quite the slogan that Braniff intended.

A similar mistake was made by another American airline who promoted their posh ‘rendezvous lounges’ on their 747s. The campaign was met with success until it reached the Brazilian market, where the nuanced understanding for ‘rendez-vous’ is a room rented for prostitution. Understandably, Brazilians were reluctant to use an airline boasting this feature.

Successful translation includes function and cultural expectations

Both function and culture must be considered to achieve successful native language translation and meet the expectations of the target audience. Functional content is easier to spot and amend as it is logic based rather than tradition or experience based. Examples include:

• Date and time formats (05/16/17 versus 16/05/17)
• Text direction (left to right versus right to left)
• Weights, measurements and currency (metric versus imperial, USD versus CNY)

The cultural or traditional aspect of translation is harder to define, and simply translating words can lead to more confusion than clarity, making it a delicate operation. To successfully translate content to a native language, cultural expectations must be addressed while avoiding offense in relation to images, icons, humor, etiquette, values, beliefs, and traditions. When marketing a product or service abroad, translation is not enough; localization is the required method to ensure your message is clearly understood.

When localization works, success follows

Coca-Cola clearly put effort into translating their marketing messages well and does a great job of localization. When the 2011/2012 Australian Share-a-Coke campaign went global, the 150 most popular Australian names were changed for Denmark, Norway, and the UK. In doing this, Coke recognized that correct localization often goes beyond simple name changes.

In China, the sheer volume of first names made them implausible to use, and instead Coke bottles displayed common nicknames such as Classmate and Close Friend along with popular compliments from Chinese social media. This proved to be a hit with China’s youth market, and led to a spike in Coca-Cola sales within the region.

Think global, speak local

Globalization is clearly a way to increase revenue opportunities. Reaching out to new markets is the mainstay of growing a business, and cross-border trading is predicted to continue growing for years to come. By planning your linguistic messages as part of your growth strategy now, you’ll be ready to claim your stake of global customers and expand your business beyond geographic barriers. Investing in localization will ensure you reach your target audience with the right messages, boost your bottom line and become less dependent on your own local markets.

Company Bio: Morningside Translations is a premiere global translation agency, servicing companies across industries.The company has helped businesses localize their website content and optimize success by transforming language barriers into revenue-maximizing opportunities.

Sirena Rubinoff is the Content Manager at localization company Morningside Translations. She earned her B.A. and Master’s Degree from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern. After completing her graduate degree, Sirena won an international fellowship as a Rotary Cultural Ambassador to Jerusalem. Sirena covers topics related to software and website localization, global business solutions, and the translation industry as a whole.

source http://www.smartinsights.com/online-brand-strategy/international-marketing/dont-get-lost-translation-localization-key-international-ecommerce-success/

Social Media now captures 30% of online time

Chart of the day: How long do you spend on social media networks each day?

This chart looks at average daily time spent online and what we are actually doing with that time. It was reported that the most common reasons for using social networks are to “fill up spare time”.  Users are now spending around 2 hours per day on social networks and messaging, that adds up to 5 years and 4 months spent over an average lifetime. This figure is up 15 minutes from 2012.

The increase we see here will be due to how social media platforms themselves are evolving their tools and options to further attract and engage new audiences. As they evolve the more time we will spend there.

What does this mean for marketers? Start researching when your followers are most active and use this insight to make sure your content is targeted and reaching them at these prime times.

• Source: Global Web Index 
• Sample Size: Internet users aged 16-64
• Recommended Resources: Social Media Marketing Toolkit

source http://www.smartinsights.com/social-media-marketing/social-media-now-captures-30-online-time/

Tracking campaigns in Google Analytics

A how-to guide for campaign reporting with examples

One of the most important (but often overlooked) aspects of digital marketing is setting up your analytics properly. It’s a little bit technical but easy to do once you understand a few simple steps and see why it’s so important.

Being able to track where your visitors are coming from is a valuable opportunity to improve your engagement and your ROI during the campaign. Additionally, when you benchmark your campaign performance you will be able to improve your campaigns in the future, and budget more effectively. It’s worth investing a little time in analytics!

In this post, we’ll show you how to use Google Analytics to track visits to your website or landing page. This is the critical first step in being able to understand how your campaign is performing.

Once you can accurately see where your visitors are coming from, you’ll be able to build more useful reports such as “goal completions by conversion source” (e.g. how many leads or sales are coming from Bing versus Facebook), or “sales by source/medium” (using Google Analytics’ e-commerce reporting features).

Why track your marketing campaigns?

Marketers at the top of their game always want more data. When you know where your visitors are coming from and how each traffic source is converting on your site, you can make on-the-fly optimizations to your campaign and achieve better overall results.

With this campaign tracking data in hand, you’ll be able to benchmark against it when designing and budgeting for future campaigns, making your future campaigns even better. This is one form of data benchmarking, and it’s a powerful tool for any marketer.

Smart Insights recommended resources

Download Expert Member resource – 7 Steps to using Google Analytics To Improve Online Marketing

Our guide steps you through the setup stages, but focuses on how you use Google Analytics to get better business results - the missing link in most books and the Google documentation.

Access the Using Google Analytics To Improve Online Marketing

Download Expert Member resource – Campaign tracking code creator for Google Analytics

A simple tool to help you standardise campaign tracking codes for email, social media and display ads.

Access the Google Analytics campaign tracking code creator

What if you not thinking this way when setting up your promotions? For example, suppose you are running a contest and you’ve promoted it through print, email, Facebook Ads, Facebook Sponsored Posts, and Google Adwords. Visitors from these sources will appear in Google Analytics as follows:

* These can show up as various sources such as m.facebook.com (Facebook’s mobile web page) and l.facebook.com (Facebook’s laptop/desktop version), depending which devices they use and if they are using http or https status.

In this example, you wouldn’t be able to distinguish visitors from print versus email. Your Facebook traffic will all show up as one stat, regardless of whether they clicked your post or an ad. Traffic from Google will all display as organic traffic, not paid traffic (cost per click).

The trouble here is that you can’t tell what the money spent on Facebook Ads or Google Adwords actually translated to in terms of leads, sales, sign-ups, etc. Did the Google Adwords spend pay off? Did anyone actually find your website through print advertising? You just won’t know. And the next time you plan a campaign, you’ll be just as blind.

But if you had known that mid-way through the campaign your Facebook Ads were converting at half the cost of visitors from Adwords, you could have applied the remainder of your Adwords budget toward Facebook Ads and boosted the overall ROI of your campaign. Or, suppose your analytics could have shown that all of your direct traffic was coming from print, and your email marketing wasn’t working - you could adjust your email messaging to get a better click-through rate there. Perhaps you are emailing to multiple lists (you should be segmenting!). Wouldn’t it be great if you could see your conversion rates for each email list separately?

You can get all of this data, and it’s easier to do than you think.

Download Expert Member resource – RACE Dashboard

The purpose of the Smart Insights dashboard is to help managers to complete a regular weekly or monthly review of the current effectiveness of their digital marketing using Google Analytics with Google Docs Spreadsheets. We use this combination ourselves in our monthly reporting! .

Access the RACE Digital Dashboard – Members instructions page

How to track your campaigns?

We’re using Google Analytics here as it’s so popular, but other analytics tools will have similar features.

When a visitor lands on your website, Google Analytics records that pageview along with the source and medium that the visitor originated from. The “source” is the domain that the visitor came from, and the “medium” is a classification for different kinds of traffic. There is also a “campaign” parameter that can be used to further segment your traffic.

Many tools like MailChimp, Hootsuite, Oktopost and Hubspot have features that let you create tracking URLs, but anyone can use Google’s own Tracking URL Builder.  You can automatically apply tracking parameters to all Adwords traffic by enabling Auto-tagging in Adwords (read instructions about how it works.).

A simple URL looks like this: http://qoints.com

A Tracking URL looks like this: http://qoints.com/?utm_source=smartinsights.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=guestpost

These UTM parameters (everything after the “?”) force Google Analytics to record this data into the visitor’s pageview. In your Analytics Reporting view, under Acquisition > All Traffic, you will see traffic from the above Tracking URL as:

source / medium = newsletter / email

and in the Acquisition > Campaigns report you’ll see this traffic under Campaign = agency-newsletter

Using Tracking URLs for the campaign promotion example above, we’d get this:

* using a simple URL when posting links to Facebook will report people who click the link as facebook / referral by default, but you can use UTM parameters to distinguish different campaigns if you want

The URLs below all go to the same fictitious landing page (http://example.com/), but they have different tracking parameters appended to them:

• http://example.com/?utm_source=mailer&utm_medium=print&utm_campaign=agencies
• http://example.com/?utm_source=contest-promo&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=agencies
• http://example.com/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=agencies
• http://example.com/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=agencies
• http://example.com/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=agencies

So, for each channel that you are promoting through, you should be using a unique tracking URL. This will automatically allow you to report on each channel, as well as reporting on each source, medium or campaign as an aggregate.

Important tips for measurement

•  1. Plan and organize your parameters

Google Analytics simply records whatever it’s told, so organize your parameters ahead of time. It’s best to use a standard set of parameters company-wide. If your company uses a different set of parameters each time an email goes out, you won’t be able to easily report on things like overall traffic from email monthly or year-over-year. Analytics is case-sensitive too, so “Email”, “email”, “e-mail” and “E-mail” will report as four separate mediums.

• 2. Keep it simple

It may be tempting to create unique parameters for all of the variables for each source, but this is not necessary, nor is it ideal. Each channel only needs its own unique combination of parameters in order to be reported on separately.

For example:

These parameters will allow for reporting on all paid traffic, or all email traffic, or all traffic from the whole “summer” campaign as well as reporting on each channel separately by using combinations of the above in a segment or filter.

• 3.  Start now

Any data is better than none. Start simple and grow from there. Optimizing your campaign strategy in response to real-time data is a powerful way to achieve better ROI for your campaigns. Benchmarking your digital marketing data over time is a sure-fire way to improve your future campaigns, too.
Watch our video

Thanks to Cory Rosenfield for sharing his advice and opinions in this post. Cory Rosenfield. Cory is the co-founder and CEO of Qoints, an adaptive digital marketing intelligence (DMI) and performance benchmarking tool for enterprise marketers. Previously, he held the role of Technical Director for multiple small-to-medium sized marketing agencies in Toronto as CSO of InfiniteSM, a social marketing consultancy and technical development firm. You can follow him on Twitter or connect on LinkedIn

source http://www.smartinsights.com/google-analytics/google-analytics-campaign-tracking/campaign-tracking-aa09/

5 landing page optimization tips for better conversion

How to make your landing pages generate more revenue

Do you want to sell more? Or capture relevant targeted leads? Then you need to work on your landing pages to ensure they are working hard enough for you.

Today we are going to talk about landing page optimization tips. More specifically we are going to talk about the steps we can take to improve conversions after a visitor has landed on your target page.

We want to get him to take the step we have identified as the goal for that particular landing page.

To be able to measure conversion, we first need to identify what conversion is in the first place. According to this Google AdWords page:

Conversion rates are calculated by simply taking the number of conversions and dividing that by the number of total ad clicks that can be tracked to a conversion during the same time period. For example, if you had 50 conversions from 1,000 clicks, your conversion rate would be 5%, since 50 ÷ 1,000 = 5%.

So it is the percentage of visitors who take a desirable action on your site.

According to WordStream, the average conversion rate across industries is 2.35%. The top 25% are converting at 5.31%, and the top 10% at an incredible rate of 11.45%.

Image Credit: WordStream

So a high converting landing page is one that prompts a higher number of users to take certain desirable steps. Or complete a certain goal. The more people that take these desired actions, the better your conversion rate.

These goals could be anything from signing up to your newsletter, making a purchase, fill a contact form, or call your business phone number etc.

Let’s try to understand what a landing page actually is.

What is a landing page?

Technically speaking, a landing page is any page where users can land on your site. Well, that makes every page on your site a landing page.

But more specifically a landing page is one where you direct visitors using marketing & advertising campaigns. It is a standalone page quite different from the actual website on which it resides. I say standalone because it is different from the rest of your website pages. And different because it does not have to comply with the theme of your site.

It is more like an advertisement, a banner, focused on one single goal. Your website may cater to many services, like Web Design, SEO, Digital marketing etc. They belong to the same niche. And yet they are different, with different objectives.

A landing page, on the other hand, is focused on a single objective. And to avoid any distractions for the visitor, ideally, you would avoid the global website menu on your landing page. Anything on this page is ideally to achieve the single objective for which the visitor landed on this page.

In all probability, you are paying for visitors to land on your landing pages. And if these pages are not well optimized, you are directly losing money. As the visitors would just leave without giving you any business.

Therefore, it makes sense to take optimization seriously. So that your visitors stick around, and hopefully take the action you want them to take.

A landing page can be classified into these two types:

Click Through Landing Page

As the name suggests, these are landing pages, where visitors get detailed information about the products or services.

Here they are acquainted with the offerings. It addressed their pain points and educates them on how it would help them if they opted for these products or services.

Then they are directed to a page where they can either purchase or opt for that particular service.

Suppose if a visitor is directly sent to a “Request a quote” form. What are the changes that they would fill it up? And especially when they have not been sufficiently educated on what they are getting into in the first place?

This is where a click through page comes in handy. It helps ease the customer’s fear. Helps him educate on the product or service. And then directs them to the page, where they can opt for these services. Or request further information. Whatever the objective of the page may be.

Landing Pages For Lead Generation

The other type of landing pages is lead generation pages. All action happens on this page itself. Lead generation landing pages are used to collect user information like emails, and other contact information, in the hope of connecting with them or market to them later.

The page usually describes the offer in detail. Describing how the offer can ease the visitor’s pain points. Enticing the visitor to part with their contact information in the hope of solving their own problems.

Something of value is usually offered to the customer in lieu of their contact details. These could be free ebooks, coupons, discounts etc.

Landing Page Optimization

So a landing page plays a vital role in capturing potential customer information and generating targeted leads.

If it works well, it can generate a lot of revenue for your business.

And a poorly designed landing pages can cost you a lot more than just new customers. Remember, you are paying to get visitors to land on these pages. And if they are not converting well, then you are hurting your business.

Therefore, it is important to look at landing page best practices to get the basics right first. Implementing these landing page optimization tips will definitely push your page conversion rate higher.

Tip #1: Keep It Clean

Cut out the clutter as much as possible. Keep the page as clean as possible. Preferably a background color or pattern that does not distract, but rather accentuate the elements on the landing page.

Use Adequate White space

Making use of enough white space or sufficient blank spaces so that the eye can easily flow from one element to the other. And the visitor can concentrate on different elements on the page.

The white spaces help separate the different elements on the page. Gives the impression of a clean layout. This, in turn, encourages more interaction with the landing page. A cleaner layout also helps minimize confusion.

Visitors are able to grasp the message you are trying to give them quicker.

Also, you need a clean, distraction free background, to highlight different elements on a page. For example, your Call To Action (CTA) button.

Get Rid Of The Global Navigation Bar

Remember you are trying to focus on one goal for this landing page, which is your CTA. You need to cut out as much distraction as possible so that the visitor can concentrate on the important things that matter at this moment.

Having a navigation bar that takes the customer to all different sections of your site is not a good idea here. It will only serve to distract the customer.

Your landing page can be very different to your original site. So it does not need all the elements that your site has.

Your header & footer navigation can be done away with.
The only button that should be highlighted here is your CTA button.

Keep Only What Is Necessary

Don’t clutter up the landing page with too much information. You only need to keep the information that is important for the visitor to make an informed decision. Keep your focus on the goal you have set up for this landing page.

Tip #2: Keep The Message Consistent Throughout

When the user clicks on your ad and lands on your landing page, the messaging and goal should be consistent throughout.

The user should feel that he has landed on the right page. And that what he is seeing exactly what he expected.

To maintain consistency it is a good idea to use wording that compliments each other. Many great landing pages go as far as using the same wording on the main headline. To reinforce that idea in the supporting headlines. The same goes with supporting arguments and statements.

Remember your main headline is one of the most prominent elements on the landing page. Therefore, use is wisely. It is probably the first thing your user will read when they land on the page. Keep it precise and to the point.

Use a color for the headline that compliments the overall page color, and yet sets it apart from other page elements. But don’t make it too distinct as to overpower the CTA button.

Tip #3: Use an Appropriate Image or Video for the Hero Shot

An image is worth a thousand words. An image can captivate your audience and evoke emotions to positively influence decisions.

Humans are emotional beings and they decide with their hearts. Not with their heads.

So appealing to emotions in a positive way can favorably tip the decision in your favor. Some of the things to keep in mind:

• Choose an image that reinforces the message and portrays what the landing page wants to convey.
• Use a clean image that is easy to understand and comprehend.
• Never ever use stock images that are generic and are mostly used on low-quality sites. Avoid generic images totally if possible. Use custom images, graphics, & faces of real people that are unique to your landing page.
• Optimize images so that they load faster, at the same time maintaining image quality. There is nothing worse than a pixelated image.

Remember video packs an even bigger punch than images. So if possible use videos instead for the header image or display. Videos actually help you show a story. Why read, when you see and hear at the same time.

A video is anytime more engaging and captivating than other media formats. It engages users in a big way. And it is well known to increase conversions when used on a landing page. See the infographic below for some interesting facts on video usage on web pages:

Tip #4: Include Social Proof

People are social animals. And they like to do things that are accepted and acknowledged by others. No one wants to be the odd one out.

Out of two shops, which one would you choose? The one with happy customers in them? Or the empty shop with no one it?

Obviously, you would choose the one with customers in it! Those customers have acknowledged and shown their trust. Other things being equal, it would only be wise to choose the one that others have already acknowledged and trusted.

Take advantage of this fact. You need to show social proof of your acceptance. These could include social metrics, like your number of Facebook fans, Twitter followers, YouTube subscribers, Instagram followers etc.

Not sure how to go about increasing your followers? Here are a few articles to get you started with Instagram campaigns & Facebook Video Ads.

Also, if you have noteworthy clients, you could list their logos on that page.
If you have been featured in prominent newspapers, magazines, or websites; they also make a good reference.

Metrics like these can instantly make you more trustworthy. And could help increase conversions many folds. So use them generously.

Tip #5: Build that Perfect CTA

That CTA is perhaps the most important element on your landing page. It just sits there, patiently, waiting to be clicked.

It is like, “Please go through the copy. And once you have finished reading, come interact with me. I will show you a whole new world.”

It is the most prominent, highlighted button on the page. It could mean the difference between a bounce and a conversion. That is how important a CTA is.

Some tips for crafting an effective CTA.

• There should be ideally one CTA on a landing page. Having too many would just confuse the visitor. The more choices you give to the customer, the more distracted and confused they will be.
• Use colors that make it stand out from the rest of the page.
• Don’t use texts like “click here”, or “submit” that explains nothing. It does not tell the user what will happen when they click the CTA.Use words that appeal to the user, like “Sign me up”, “Send my free gift”, “Send me my quote”, “Grow my traffic” etc.
• The more personalized the CTA is the more click through it will get. Therefore, avoid using generic images wherever possible. Including in your CTA
• Speak the language of your customers. Use the tone and language your customers are familiar with. That is why it is so important to know & research your customer base first.
• If you are using a form along with the CTA, ensure that it is Responsive. And that it adapts beautifully to different screen sizes on the fly. Make it easier for mobile user as much as possible. Filling up a form is not an easy task, and more so when it needs to be done on a mobile!

Conclusion

It is important to track conversions for any ad campaigns you run. You want to know what is working and what is not. And rectify the issues that are stopping you from achieving great conversion rates.

The tips will let you understand the important elements that make up a successful landing page. How those elements affect conversions, and how to optimize those elements to achieve higher conversion rates.

Please do let me know your thoughts and opinion in the comments below.

Thanks to Amrit Ray for sharing their advice and opinions in this post. Amrit Ray takes care of marketing at Raydez & Ray Creations, a web design company working with global clients. He is also a singer/songwriter. He tries his best balancing both his passions giving adequate time to both. You can follow him on Google +, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

source http://www.smartinsights.com/conversion-optimisation/landing-page-optimisation/5-landing-page-optimization-tips-better-conversion/

What is a Good Unsubscribe-to-Open Rate?

Chart of the Day: Understanding subscriber loyalty - Part 2 of 2

This is the last of a two-part blog, covering subscriber loyalty and unsubscribing following on from - What is a good Unsubscribe Rate?

We all know about click-to-open (CTO) metrics and even click-through-rate (CTR), but what the heck is unsubscribe-to-open (UTO)?

UTO, is a good indication of how unsatisfied a customer is with your email. They are the customers, who open your email but promptly unsubscribe.

If your Email Service Provider (ESP) doesn't offer this statistic in your reporting, you can calculate it yourself.

(Total Unsubscribe/Opt-Outs ÷ Unique Opens) × 100

Eg: (20 ÷ 359) × 100 = 5.57%

Is this UTO rate good or bad? In today's chart, it shows that the average UTO is 2.59%. So the above example is performing rather poorly. The sector with the highest UTO rates is Sales/Marketing/Design at 4.89%. While the best performing is Public Relations at 0.31%.

UTO isn't a great response from your customers. But at least they didn't click the spam button, which is far worse. To make sure this doesn't happen:

• Clear unsubscribe link: unsubscribe links are generally at the bottom of the email. Keep the link clear.
• Don't ask customers to log in: this is one of my pet peeves. If customers don't want your emails, chances are they won't remember their login details. I click spam straight away and so will your customers.
• No more emails: they want to sever their communications with you. That means no emails saying, "your request is being processed" or surveys on your experience. Basically, don't email them at all!

Email Benchmarking is discussed in greater detail in our post, Email Statistics - 2017 update.

 

• Source: Email marketing benchmark reports 2017
• Sample Size: 1.5 billion emails in 2017
• Recommended Resource: Email Marketing Guide

source http://www.smartinsights.com/email-marketing/good-unsubscribe-open-rate/

How to Hold More Efficient Marketing Meetings

6 steps to getting more from your meetings

Meetings are a necessity for most business operations, especially marketing, where independent campaigns are running simultaneously under the same broad goals. You’ll need to gather your team to brainstorm new ideas, update each other on individual progress, come together for mutual tasks, and follow up after a campaign’s end to review and evaluate what comes next. In an ideal world, every meeting would instantly bring each team member up to speed and give them the resources they need to continue their work.

Unfortunately, this is not an ideal world. Most marketing meetings end up wasting time in at least one dimension, whether that’s by straying off topic, disrupting people from work, hosting too many people, or lacking any actionable conclusion. David Grady explains some of the mechanics in this TED Talk, and in recent years, meetings have come under the microscope of other business researchers, who scrutinize their efficiency.

So how can you make them better?

Tips for Better Marketing Meetings

Get your marketing team members working closer together and more efficiently with these strategies for meetings:

1. Set stricter time limits.

Under the definition of Parkinson’s Law, work tends to swell to fill about as much time as was designated for its completion. In other words, if you set a meeting to last two hours, you’ll find things to talk about for two hours—regardless of how relevant or helpful they are. In contrast, the shorter you set your time limit, the more pressure you’ll feel to actually accomplish what you need to get done (and if you fail, you can always schedule another meeting). Aim for 30-minute meetings, or if you’re particularly daring, 15-minute meetings.

2. Use the right tools.

You won’t always be able to meet with your entire team in person. Some of your meetings will happen on the fly, over chat apps, or through video streaming. In these cases, make sure you have the right communication apps in place to streamline and record your messages. For starters, you’ll need apps that everyone in your company can use easily, with an intuitive interface and compatibility with practically any device. From there, you’ll need to prioritize features based on your unique company needs and goals. To get started with the process, DialMyCalls has a fantastic list of apps for internal communication that can help you generate ideas.

3. Choose someone to lead.

In marketing, everyone has a different role, so it’s easy for conversations to get sidetracked with personal contributions and distracted thoughts. That’s why it’s ideal to have a meeting “leader,” who can help keep the group on task. The leader chooses the invitees, sets the time, keeps track of time throughout the meeting, and guides the group back to the topic of discussion when it wavers.

4. Set an agenda.

Along those same lines, every meeting you host should have a clear agenda, sent out before the meeting takes place. This doesn’t have to be a minute-by-minute analysis, but it should at least provide a skeletal framework for what you’re going to talk about. It should also have a list of goals you wish to accomplish by the meeting’s end.

5. Reserve meetings for when they’re necessary.

This is a general tip, but it’s an important one. For some reason, many businesses and supervisors insist on having meetings for almost any reason—and sometimes for no reason at all. While meetings can be productive, having them for the sake of having them doesn’t benefit anybody. Instead, try to hold off on meetings unless they’re truly necessary—such as when you need to make a group decision or keep tabs on progress on a given project.

6. Reduce everything to actionable takeaways.

It’s fine to talk in abstractions and general concepts in your meeting, but by the end of the meeting, everything should be reduced to actionable takeaways. What are your attendees going to do now that they’ve attended? What are your next directives and goals? Who’s going to be responsible for calling the next meeting, if one is necessary?

Enforcing the Rules

You know how these things go. These strategies might sound good in theory, but they might only be followed once or twice before you revert to your old ways. Instead of letting that happen, instil a system of checks and balances; for example, choose only one person to send out meeting invites, and give everyone the power to question the meeting if it breaks any of your protocols. The more you practice, the better you’ll become, and the tighter your marketing team’s communication will be—so it’s well worth the effort of getting the system in place.

Thanks to Larry Alton for sharing his advice and opinions in this post. Larry is an independent business consultant specializing in social media trends, business, and entrepreneurship. Follow him on Twitter and LinkedIn.

source http://www.smartinsights.com/managing-digital-marketing/hold-efficient-marketing-meetings/

Fashion apps are a major sales opportunity for fashion brands.

Is your fashion store missing out on the potential of fashion apps?

Recent data released by Google confirms what we already know - mobile is the future of retail.  Over 64% of smartphone shoppers turn to mobile for ideas before heading out to shop and 1 in 4 mobile video viewers in the US have visited YouTube for help with a purchase decision.  While consumers may not always have access to a tablet or laptop, mobile is the one device that is always on, connected and in reach.  Mobile is the ideal platform to bridge retailer’s in-store and online experiences and is the perfect avenue for brand’s to communicate directly with the customer.

Recent data released by Google confirm what we already know- mobile is the future of retail. Over 64% of smartphone shoppers turn to mobile for ideas before heading out to shop and 1 in 4 mobile video viewers in the US have visited YouTube for help with a purchase decision.  While consumers may not always have access to a tablet or laptop, mobile is the one device that is always on, connected and in reach.  Mobile is the ideal platform to bridge retailer’s in-store and online experiences and is the perfect avenue for brand’s to communicate directly with the customer.

Fashion apps tapped into the power of mobile early on and although the industry is still in its infancy three broad groups of fashion apps have emerged:

• Discovery Platforms- allow users to browse clothes, shoes and accessories from a wide range of retailers. These platforms are community- driven and provide endless inspiration for fashionistas and regular consumers alike creating an environment where shoppers ‘discover’ products they didn’t even know they wanted. These companies don’t hold inventory or manage orders, shipping or payment. 

Popular discovery apps include The Hunt and ShopStyle which provide an ever- changing rotation of the latest looks from the world of fashion.  The recently launched Hook app is generating a lot of excitement surrounding the fact that it uses a first of its kind Artificial Intelligence (AI) to power a fashion search engine and features a real – time trending feed allowing users to keep up to date with the very latest in celebrity and runway styles. Setting itself apart as the ‘only fashion discovery app you’ll need’, Hook allows users a unique snap and search function, enabling them to upload images directly from their phone and then search for looks; a feature that is perfect for the millennial consumer who may spot a trend so early it may not be defined in traditional search engine terms yet.

• Personal Shopping Apps- combine the bespoke service of a personal shopper with the convenience of mobile. These apps are an outstanding example of how the traditional bricks and mortar model can intersect harmoniously with mobile and create a win-win situation for both brands and consumers. Acting more as a communication interface than a retail site, these apps allow users to communicate directly with personal shoppers in store. As opposed to ‘discovery’ apps users of these apps are focused, mature and know exactly what they want.

• Universal Checkout/ Fashion Aggregator Apps- fashion aggregator apps that feature universal checkout allow users to purchase products from multiple brands in one click. Although technically challenging to deliver, these apps act as a consolidated store front for shoppers and can alleviate the risk of basket abandonment that still plagues e-tailers.

Don’t Lose Out: How Brands Can Benefit from the Rise of the Fashion App

According to Forbes discovery platforms like Polyvore and Pose have revolutionised fashion and driven up sales because they effortlessly combine the 3 C’s of purchase decision making: content, community and commerce.  In a single unified application consumers can discover content (information and inspiration), get real-time feedback and recommendations from a community of like- minded users and purchase items.  It’s little wonder that Fortune magazine recently reported that Polyvore, is now one of the largest fashion community’s online, with a whopping 20 million unique visitors a month and was recently acquired by Yahoo! Inc for US$230 million.

As discovery platforms don’t actually hold any inventory, customers are re-directed to a brand’s website to checkout. Thus, one of the first and most important measures a brand must take before embarking on a partnership with a fashion app is ensuring the efficacy and speed of their mobile platform. A Google/ SOASTA study from this year found that 40% of consumers will leave a mobile page that takes longer than three seconds to load and 79% of shoppers who are unhappy with a site’s mobile performance are less likely to purchase from the site again. However, once your mobile site is primed, building long-term relationships with fashion apps can result in many positive benefits to a brand:

Bespoke Solutions

Hook users create a detailed ‘wish list’ as part of their profile which alerts them when items go on sale or are back in stock. These lists generate millions of data points on an individual’s style, tastes and preferences which can, in turn, be used by brands to tailor personalised, specific marketing and offers direct to customers.

24/7 Access to a Captive Audience

With millions of unique visitors a month, discovery platforms provide the perfect base for brands to test out new products or ideas online without the cost involved of physically producing anything. This group of fashion conscious users can instantly provide feedback on new product launches or offers allowing retailers to quickly and cost- effectively deliver goods to the market that customers actually want.

Cost Optimization

As more complex big data analytics is generated on consumers and shoppers register their preferences online through detailed profiles, retailers can maintain lower inventory- only stocking products that consumers demonstrate a demand for.

Increased Revenue

Big data for retail from fashion apps can help brands recommend related products or styles through in-app purchases leading to enhanced revenue opportunities. These opportunities are magnified with personal shopping apps like PS Dept which gives users access to in-store experts at over 40 different luxury brands including Stella McCartney and Derek Lam. PS Dept fields over 22,000 messages a month and generates thousands of dollars in sales, with its’ average order value standing at around US$800. Although big data for retail is reliable and effective, there’s a definite cost advantage to leveraging the human element in personal shopping apps. Acting as on-call concierges for demanding, time-sensitive clients, personal shopping apps can build a level of trust and confidence with consumers (particularly in the luxury market) which can result in larger, repeat sales. 

Not a One Size Fits All Approach: Maintaining Brand Integrity

Although fashion apps are here to stay and have proved to be a successful tool for retailers wanting to provide a seamless, omnichannel retail experience, they may not be right for every brand. Keep, a popular fashion app had to discontinue their OneCart feature (which allowed users to shop multiple brands through a single checkout on their app) due to technical challenges as well as the reluctance of brands to sign on. While universal shopping carts are convenient and attractive in theory, they don’t allow brands any ‘control’ over a customer’s shopping experience and deny retailers the opportunity to build a relationship with the shopper. This trend is especially worrying for high-end, luxe brands, who work hard to maintain their brand integrity and don’t want to risk diluting it anyway even if it means losing out on potential sales.

Despite the ubiquity of fashion apps, there is no one size fits all approach to engaging with mobile consumers. Brands that are protective of their brand integrity may consider the following alternatives, which will allow them to retain control of the shopping experience while not losing out on mobile sales:

Act Like a Publisher

While mobile app usage continued to grow in 2015 with 58% growth in overall app usage, personalization led the way with a growth of 322. Barneys New York new standalone mobile app The Window is an excellent case study in how a brand can deliver a personalised, effective mobile shopping experience while enhancing its brand value. The Window is an online content blog that launched in 2015 both as a print magazine and a mobile app. Users can view features and stories that are exclusive to Barneys New York and then ‘shop’ those stories through the app.

Hook has successfully adopted this trend of shoppable editorials into its app and elevated it using the ‘list’ format popularised by sites like BuzzFeed to influence undecided, time- crunched shoppers. Providing users with the ‘Top 10 Best..’ or ’20 Trending..’ effectively sharpens a users focus and nudges them into a purchase instead of abandoning the site altogether due to decision fatigue at the number of options.

Be a Thought Leader

The dynamic combination of mobile penetration and social media have reshaped the retail landscape considerably. The challenge is for brands not to just keep pace but stay one step ahead. Iconic British brand Burberry realised this early on and dedicated over 60 per cent of it’s marketing budget towards digital and mobile. A move that paid off in a big way- over the past five years Burberry’s mobile sales have grown at an annual average rate of 48.7%.

The company was one of the first brands to embrace user-generated content as a marketing tool in its Art of the Trench campaign. Burberry tapped renowned fashion photographers to style shoots and encouraged fans to post selfies- in doing so they mobilised a powerful community of fashion-forward advocates for the brand. It’s interesting to note that this campaign launched in 2009, well before the popularity of Polyvore and The Hunt. The brand was clearly not afraid to experiment and succeeded in creating their own community of loyal shoppers.

Burberry was also one of the first fashion brands to livestream its runway shows to audiences across the world and then enable them to click and buy styles straight off the runway within minutes. These measures have ensured that Burberry’s revenues have continued to grow year on year even amidst otherwise sluggish sales for high-end retailers.

Appeal to a Niche Market

 The changes to the online retail landscape are making for an increasingly crowded marketplace. Women’s fashion, shoes and accessories abound and there are more ways than ever now to shop them. In some instances, staying ahead of the curve means drowning out the ‘noise’ and narrowing your focus on a select, niche audience. This is exactly what the popular online fashion hub, Net-a-Porter did with the launch of its luxury men’s site and app, Mr. Porter.

The men’s wear market in the UK, Mr. Porter’s biggest audience outside the US, is currently worth GBP 13.5 billion and has grown 22% over the past five years.  Net-a-Porter realised there was a need for a unique space that catered to this growing demand for luxury, personalised men’s wear. The Mr. Porter app has an extremely focused product offering and is driven by ‘style’ as opposed to fashion.

To quote Net-a-Porter’s founder, ‘we are never going to run out of blue or white shirts, but we will have them from seven or eight of the best shirt brands in the world, rather than from 100 different places.’ To that end, while traditional fashion apps focus on quantity, choice and price-point, niche apps created by brand-conscious retailers focus on quality and a bespoke service offering.

Conclusion

Whether they are community-led or brand- focused, fashion apps are a powerful tool which haver disrupted and reinvented the omnichannel retail experience. The intersection between the traditional bricks and mortar model and online channels have never been as blurred and ripe for change.

This changing retail landscape together with the surge in popularity of High Street brands like Forever 21, H&M and Zara have led to the overall democratization of fashion. Realising we are witness to a fashion ‘revolution’ of sorts, Hook has managed to successfully combine the power of retail analytics with actual fashion influencers in the shape of bloggers and trendsetters to give customers unprecedented access to fresh off the runway styles and celebrity red carpet looks. In today’s super-speed digital world, Hook allows users the ability to replicate trending yet personalised styles in mere minutes.

A first of its kind platform Hook has created a win- win environment for retailers and consumers alike – while brands get in- depth information on customers’ preferences and leanings which is critical in the age of ‘personalisation’, users get a range of trends to choose from in either a search engine format for the more focused shopper or a shoppable editorial format for the undecided.

Fashion discovery apps will soon be ubiquitous in nature, however, platforms like Hook that blend the accuracy and precision that only big data can offer with a human element in a  singular, easy to use experience are better poised to take on the volatile world of fashion.

Neenu Jacob is the Co-founder of Hook the first AI generated real-time fashion feed and search engine. You can connect with her on LinkedIn.

source http://www.smartinsights.com/mobile-marketing/app-marketing/fashion-apps-major-sales-opportunity-fashion-brands/

10 reasons you need a digital marketing strategy in 2017

Using a digital plan to support digital transformation

Where do you start if you want to develop a digital marketing strategy? Well, I don't think it needs to be a huge report, a strategy can best be summarised in two or three sides of A4 in a table linking digital marketing strategies to SMART objectives. Yet despite this, it seems that many organisations still don't have a plan.

Do you have a digital marketing strategy?

2017 Update: Since 2012 we have run an informal poll to see how widely used digital marketing strategies are. The results have shown some big improvements over the years. A few years ago we found around two-thirds to three-quarters did not have a digital marketing plan. Now that number has shrunk to 49% in latest survey, although that is still quite high, and means almost half are still doing digital with no strategy in place.

When we did the research for our free Managing Digital Marketing report we were interested to see how this percentage looked for a defined sample.

Download free Basic member report – Managing Digital Marketing

Survey and recommendations based on how over 600 businesses exploit digital marketing today.

Access the Managing Digital Marketing Research Report

This is what we found in our survey about the level of digital marketing adoption:

So, our latest research suggests an improved approach to planning in this sample of marketers, with fewer than half without a digital strategy. Congratulations if you're one of these companies!

A recommended approach for developing a digital strategy

Whether you have a strategy or not, at the heart of the Smart Insights 'Opportunity, Strategy, Action' approach to improving digital marketing, is benchmarking to compare where you are now to assess the potential against where you need to be in the future.

To help you get started we have created a free digital marketing benchmarks download with a series of benchmarks covering overall digital strategy and the key tactics like Search, Social Media, Email marketing and site/experience design.

Download free resource – Digital Marketing Benchmark templates

Quickly score your approach to digital marketing with these 7 visual templates.

Access the Digital Marketing Benchmarking Templates

Click on the image below to see a larger version of one of our benchmarking templates, which you can download for free to help you create your digital marketing plan.

But what if you're one of the companies that don't have a digital strategy yet? Well, I think the two simple alternatives for creating a plan may suggest a way forward:

• Start with a separate digital marketing plan defining transformation needed and making the case for investment and changes to your digital marketing
• Then, following approval, create an integrated digital plan which is part of the overall marketing plan - digital is fully aligned and becomes part of business as usual.

So, what are the takeaways to act on here? It seems to me that:

• Using digital marketing without a strategic approach is still commonplace. I'm sure many of the companies in this category are using digital media effectively and they could certainly be getting great results from their search, email or social media marketing. But I'm equally sure that many are missing opportunities for better targeting or optimisation or are suffering from the other challenges I've listed below. Perhaps the problems below are greatest for larger organisations who most urgently need governance. There's arguably less need for a strategy in a smaller company.
• Many, a majority of companies in this research do take a strategic approach to digital.  From talking to companies, I find the creation of digital plans often occurs in two stages. First, a separate digital marketing plan is created. This is useful to get agreement and buy-in by showing the opportunities and problems and map out a path through setting goals and specific strategies for digital including how you integrated digital marketing into other business activities.Second, digital becomes integrated into marketing strategy, it's a core activity, "business-as-usual", but doesn't warrant separate planning, except for the tactics.

If you don't have a strategy, or maybe you want to review which business issues are important to include within a strategic review, we've set out the 10 most common problems, that in our experience arise if you don't have a strategy.

10 reasons why you may need a digital channel strategy?

1. You're directionless

I find that companies without a digital strategy (and many that do) don't have clear strategic goals for what they want to achieve online in terms of gaining new customers or building deeper relationships with existing ones. And if you don't have goals you likely don't put enough resources to reach the goals and you don't evaluate through analytics whether you're achieving those goals.

2.  You won't know your online market share

Customer demand for online services may be underestimated if you haven"t researched this.  Perhaps, more importantly, you won't understand your online marketplace: the dynamics will be different to traditional channels with different types of customer profile and behaviour, competitors, propositions and options for marketing communications. See online marketplace methodology post.

3. Existing and start-up competitors will gain market share

If you're not devoting enough resources to digital marketing or you're using an ad-hoc approach with no clearly defined strategies, then your competitors will eat your digital lunch!

4. You don't have a powerful online value proposition

A clearly defined online customer value proposition will help you differentiate your online service encouraging existing and new customers to engage initially and stay loyal.

5. You don't know your online customers well enough

It's often said that digital is the "most measurable medium ever". But Google Analytics and similar will only tell you volumes of visits, not the sentiment of visitors, what they think. You need to use other forms of website user feedback tools to identify your weak points and then address them.

6. You're not integrated ("disintegrated")

It's all too common for digital marketing activities to be completed in silos whether that's a specialist digital marketer, sitting in IT or a separate digital agency. It's easier that way to package digital marketing into a convenient chunk. But of course, it's less effective. Everyone agrees that digital media work best when integrated with traditional media and response channels.

7. Digital doesn't have enough people/budget given its importance

Insufficient resource will be devoted to both planning and executing e-marketing and there is likely to be a lack of specific specialist e-marketing skills which will make it difficult to respond to competitive threats effectively.

8. You're wasting money and time through duplication

Even if you do have sufficient resource it may be wasted. This is particularly the case in larger companies where you see different parts of the marketing organization purchasing different tools or using different agencies for performing similar online marketing tasks.

9. You're not agile enough to catch up or stay ahead

If you look at the top online brands like Amazon, Dell, Google, Tesco, Zappos, they're all dynamic  - trialling new approaches to gain or keep their online audiences.

10 You're not optimizing

Every company with a website will have analytics, but many senior managers don't ensure that their teams make or have the time to review and act on them. Once a strategy enables you to get the basics right, then you can progress to continuous improvement of the key aspects like search marketing, site user experience, email and social media marketing. So that's our top 10 problems that can be avoided with a well thought through strategy. What have you found can go right or wrong?

source http://www.smartinsights.com/digital-marketing-strategy/digital-strategy-development/10-reasons-for-digital-marketing-strategy/