Slideshare

venerdì 31 gennaio 2014

Where do you hope to develop your marketing knowledge?

What’s New in Marketing? January 2014


The end of January already! Does anyone not think that? The end of the month means it’s time for our regular roundup of the major developments that affect marketing and our pick of our advice on the latest practices.


When I speak with marketers I’m often asked “what’s new”, “what matters” and “what’s next” and “what matters” so I hope our summary helps answer some of these questions to save you having to sift through the content avalanche.


I also hear that it’s getting more difficult to keep up-to-date, so in our recent research on managing digital marketing I was curious to know how marketers found this. Of marketers completing the survey a majority (55%) found it challenging, with over a quarter (27%) stating that it had become more difficult recently. Nearly a quarter said it was easy – good for them – I’d like to know how?! We also asked in which areas marketers most wanted to develop their knowledge – you can see the results below.


Do let us know via the comments if there are any other areas you would like to know more about or contact us if you’re happy to share your knowledge and experiences with readers.


whats-new-in-marketing


There was a fair level of interest approaching half across the board, many marketers are now confident in their knowledge of digital channels with nearly half (46%) saying they are confident, with in-depth knowledge or sufficient knowledge for what they need across different digital marketing techniques. However, there is still hunger for new learning, particularly in Big Data and CRM (62% want to improve their knowledge), content marketing (55%), digital strategy (52%) and social media marketing (48%).


I’ve acted on this already – as you will see from new advice on Big Data and Marketing Automation within our CRM and Email section below. You may also find the prompts from Katy Howell’s 14 practical marketing ideas for 2014 useful.


Strategy and planning



Marketing Technology 2014


Social media marketing



Search marketing



User experience, analytics and conversion optimisation



Email marketing and CRM



This summary was created by Dave Chaffey of Marketing strategy advice site SmartInsights.com.






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lunedì 27 gennaio 2014

Marketing technology in 2014 : You need to take control

6 implications for selecting and managing marketing technology today


Wow! Scott Brinkler @chiefmartec is a real enthusiast to even attempt to map the technology landscape. He’s done a good job since his latest 2014 Marketing technology landscape provides a great framework to help managers think through the best technology to improve their marketing and to review the leading technology vendors in each category. It’s a retina-burning graphic, which doesn’t look great on a blog, but if you click to expand you can see its value and impact – it prompts you to ask “How do we make sense of this – what does it mean for us?!


2014-Marketing-Technology-landscape


How do you find this? Is it scary to you because of the potential expense and business case preparation? Not to mention the challenges of managing implementation and integration of these systems. Or is it an opportunity to use technology to compete and create more relevant engaging customer experiences than your rivals.


The tool is useful in its own right, but I think it’s useful to not just think “wow!” or “scary”, but think of what the complexity and range of options in technology means for how you manage marketing using technology, so I will explore this also in this post.


Categories of marketing technology


The first implications of this “infographic like no other” is that when you’re reviewing your approach to using technology, it’s useful to audit your technologies across these 6 categories and the 42 subcategories


categories-of-marketing-technology


The six main categories to review are described like this by Scott:



  1. Marketing Experiences — more specialized technologies that directly affect prospects and customers across their lifecycle, such as advertising, email, social media, SEO, content marketing, A/B testing, marketing apps — the “front-office” of modern marketing.

  2. Marketing Operations — the tools and data for managing the “back-office” of marketing, such as analytics, MRM, DAM, and agile marketing management.

  3. Marketing Middleware such as DMPs, CDPs, tag management, cloud connectors, user management, and API services.

  4. Marketing Backbone Platforms such as CRM, marketing automation, content management, and e-commerce engines. [These are quite different in their application, so need to be reviewed separately].

  5. Infrastructure services such as databases, big data management, cloud computing, and software development tools.

  6. Internet services such as Facebook, Google, and Twitter that underlie today’s marketing environment. [How you integrate with these key platforms]


Selecting the best marketing technology


Beyond this, there are many other implications about how you select technology or make recommendations to your clients. The answers will vary a lot by type and size of company, but the implications are similar. Technology is a significant marketing investment, so it needs a structured, not piecemeal approach.


A solid business case and review approach is needed. Define a process and template for technology business case that avoids wastage and duplication and prioritises the technologies that will give the biggest returns. In larger companies this needs to be centralised to a great degree to avoid maverick purchases.


A technology roadmap is required as part of digital strategy. Starting from scratch, it would take years to implement these technologies. A technology roadmap helps prioritise and make it achievable.


All-in-one vs Best-of-breed solutions. One approach to reduce complexity is to use all-in-one solutions such as the Marketing Cloud services that many of the large technology companies like Oracle, Salesforce and Adobe are now offering. But these may be overkill for some businesses who may be best using simpler tools, for example, an email service provider rather than a full blown marketing automation system.


Open source options can give significant savings. Open source can give significant savings in some areas such as content management or video hosting. But savings in licensing need to be offset against potential lack of support.


Businesses need to get the value from technology. Implementing the technology is just the start. If a technology isn’t used by the business to get the value from it, then that’s bad management, not the fault of the technology.


Change management and education are as important as the technology. None of these technologies work without human intervention or intelligence. Customisation is needed, so encouraging ongoing adoption is key, although not all technology vendors support this as well.






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mercoledì 22 gennaio 2014

Should we stop guest blogging now? Yes or No?

5 reasons you should continue guest blogging and 10 actions you should take given Matt Cutt’s latest advice affecting content marketers


Alert importance:


Recommended link: Matt Cutts: The Decay and Fall of guest blogging for SEO


If you work in SEO, the biggest development so far in 2014 is Matt Cutts of Google’s clear guidance for marketers to cease guest blogging. But Guest blogging isn’t just an obscure SEO tactic, it’s used by many media sites and brands, so many businesses who practice content marketing will be affected by this.


His new post this week starts with this seemingly unequivocal piece of guidance:



“Okay, I’m calling it: if you’re using guest blogging as a way to gain links in 2014, you should probably stop. Why? Because over time it’s become a more and more spammy practice, and if you’re doing a lot of guest blogging then you’re hanging out with really bad company”.



He then gives this example of what he calls an unsolicited Spam email, similar to many who run a blog today receive daily:


SEO-Guest-posting-quote-Matt-Cutts


So that’s clear, many marketers will think if they just read the headlines or many other blog posts that, they should simply stop guest blogging. Actually, no, I think that’s bad advice, as I’ll explain.


I say clear, but that’s relative to some of his previous obfuscating comments at conferences and in Google’s webmaster videos. It’s not so clear any longer, since he added this key footnote, because of the hundreds of comments on the blog, implying that quality guest blogging is fine if the quality is there. The key comment added is:



“I’m not trying to throw the baby out with the bath water. There are still many good reasons to do some guest blogging (exposure, branding, increased reach, community, etc.). Those reasons existed way before Google and they’ll continue into the future. And there are absolutely some fantastic, high-quality guest bloggers out there. I changed the title of this post to make it more clear that I’m talking about guest blogging for search engine optimization (SEO) purposes.


I’m also not talking about multi-author blogs. High-quality multi-author blogs like Boing Boing have been around since the beginning of the web, and they can be compelling, wonderful, and useful“.



But credit where credit’s due, it’s useful to have this guidance, particularly when many SEOs have been expecting a change for the last year or two even. We now know to be aware, to beware.


This latest announcement is close to my heart since I’m often asked when speaking or training ‘what’s works best in SEO since the latest algorithm update?’. Over the last couple of years quality content marketing and guest blogging have often been two of my core SEO recommendations, particularly at B2B conferences. We publish (high quality, generally well-received) occasional guest posts almost daily on Smart Insights as well as regular posts from our multi-author panel of Expert commentators. Less commonly we selective guest blog too on sites which fit our audience profile.


There has been a huge discussion on his blog and every blog that comments on SEO, most just discussing the rights and wrongs and interpretation of the guidance. But most reading will be wondering should we stop, either writing or publishing guest posts? To help you take the decision I’ll present the side for continuing guest blogging, here’s my take – 5 reasons why you should continue and I offer 10 practical actions companies can take.


5 reasons you should continue with Guest posting



  • 1. Google’s guidelines suggest high quality relevant content is fine. Cutt’s posts calls out poor quality guest posts and in his final footnote states that high quality guest posts are still fine. If you’re writing or publishing guest posts that have all the signals of quality in terms of social shares, comments and back links from other sites, you should expect that you won’t be penalised based on previous Google anti spam approaches. Google has given specific guidance warning against many other techniques in the past like using directories, press releases, even infographics in the past

  • 2. Guest posting has been a highly effective inbound marketing technique, particularly for B2B marketers. It can help businesses create quality content at a relatively low cost which generates significant traffic over time, while helping writers raise awareness and showcase their talents and those of their companies. To date it has benefited both parties for SEO. Google are raising the issue now because it works so well. So you will likely lose potential site visits and business if you stop now.

  • 3. Many major marketing sites use the technique. The comments to Cutt’s article mentions Moz, Marketing Land, Mashable and the Huffington Post, for example, which led him to add the footnote. When they stop guest blogging then I’ll start thinking about stopping more seriously.

  • 4. Google’s algorithm updates are generally accurate in identifying quality content. Given the announcement we can expect an update penalising or filtering poor quality posts. The latest announcement warns:

    “Given how spammy it’s become, I’d expect Google’s webspam team to take a pretty dim view of guest blogging going forward”.


    As as Joost van de Valk of Yoast observed – of 200 sites he or his team has reviewed with a penalty, they invariably deserved the slap they received, with just one or two exceptions.



  • 5. Google authorship will show the credibility of guest writers. Google has developed Google Authorship markup which will help it to assess the credibility of authors based on their reputation in Google+ and the blogs they write on. If your already using this and have quality writers, the risk is much reduced.


So, perhaps, like us you’ve decided to continue to publish guest blogs, or guest post yourself, if so, it’s time to get serious and do it right by Google. Here’s what I recommend right. Do let me know other suggestions or if you disagree.


10 actions you should take if you’re continuing guest blogging.



  • 1. Update your guest blogging quality criteria if you’re a site owner. We have very tight guidance to ensure quality posts are produced. Many of the recommendations below can be explained in your blog quality guidelines.

  • 2. If you blog on other sites, only select quality sites which follow similar guidelines. Check examples of other posts carefully – would you accept them on your own site? Do they have signs of being shared carefully.

  • 3. Ensure the quality of posts by only accepting or creating high quality content. The test is, will it be shared, commented and naturally linked to by blog readers?

  • 4. Think carefully about the type and frequency of links in a guest post linking back the site of the blog author. For example, we don’t accept links to product pages targeting keyword rich anchor text, but will link to a limited number of of relevant posts. Keyword rich anchor text links in an article, often out of keeping with the theme looks like a red flag to me and it will to Google already. We encourage links to relevant posts on our site too, to balance links out.

  • 5. Think about how you use links in the post bio area. Matt Cutt’s suggests in the comments to his post that all links back to the site should be no followed in his “ideal world scenario”. In the real world, we won’t do this unless it’s essential, since we believe our content is high quality, so why shouldn’t we credit our authors who give their time to produce high quality content? In future, consider adding no follow links to anchor text links in the article or bio, but as many have pointed out, how will you apply this retroactively to 100s or 1000s of guest posts?

  • 6. Build a team of regular writers, either staff or external writers who have a good level of credibility and authority in Google’s eyes. On Smart Insights, these writers are our Expert commentators. Reduce your reliance on Guest posts and obvious signs that you produce many of them.

  • 7. Select authors who are established on Google+ and use Use Google authorship. They don’t need thousands of followers, but if they’re in 50 circles that’s better than none.

  • 8. Prepare for an algorithm update targeting poor quality guest posts this year. It’s difficult to see how Google could automatically penalise guest posts, but the warning presages a change, my money is on a major update to Panda or Penguin – you’ll hear about this no doubt!

  • 9. Monitor your SEO traffic weekly or even daily. Use a tool like Google Analytics Intelligence to be alerted if traffic falls by 5–10% compared to the previous week and then act straightaway.

  • 10. Start or refine your paid search or paid social ads programme. Google’s SEO restrictions get stricter each and every month, so you must be in position to minimise the impact of Google’s algorithm changes using other inbound marketing techniques. If guest posting is your only content marketing technique, that’s risky.


So that’s how I see it at the moment, the short answer is no you don’t need to stop guest guest blogging! How do you see it? Will you ‘adopt a wait and see’ approach. I’ll be certainly watching changes to Google’s comments carefully, and watching how other sites manage their guest posts.






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mercoledì 15 gennaio 2014

Slideshare: An essential B2B Marketing Tool

Ideas to increase visibility and sharing on Slideshare


I thought this was a nice piece of content marketing by Slideshare, so thought it was worth sharing to highlight Slideshare’s ongoing importance if you market to professional B2B audiences. As Dan said in this previous post on 7 Reasons B2B marketers should love Slideshare:



“Assuming that you’re a B2B marketer, and have good content that can be directly used or re-purposed for Slideshare, we think that Slideshare is a grossly under-utilised tool, especially since the “Pro” version launched”



This new Slideshare from Slideshare is worth scanning if your a B2B Marketer since it’s a nice summary of what worked for companies recently with examples.




Apart from the deck itself, the content marketing I liked is the use of a personalised email sent to all Slideshare users with an autogenerated HTML5 infographic. This is an example for my Slideshare page – it shows how Slideshare can reach many people if you have the right type of shareable content developed through time.


Slideshare-marketing-example


My 59 updates are different talks over many years. A lot of the views are down to one Slideshare boosted by Slideshare ranking it favourably within Google – another benefit of Slideshare. You can reach new people by the SEO effect as well as the viral effect.


In Dan’s original post he shared an infographic describing Slideshare as the “Quiet Giant of Content Marketing”. It’s pretty noisy these days with the amount of competition, but worth considering for repurposing content specifically for if your audience uses it.






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giovedì 2 gennaio 2014

Affiliate Marketing 2014

Affiliate experts share their frustrations from 2013 and expectations for 2014


Affiliate Marketing had a big year in 2013 with the industry now estimated to be worth a staggering £9bn. With that in mind I asked some thought leaders in the Affiliate Marketing industry for some of their thoughts on 2013 and what they think will change in 2014.


A big thanks to Kevin Edwards, Strategy Director at Affiliate Window, Helen Southgate, UK MD Affilinet and Owen Hewitson, Associate Director Acquisition from Starcom MediaVest Group.


2014 is fast approaching. Where do you think we will see the biggest changes over the next 12 months?


Helen Southgate (HS): I’m not sure we’ll see any big changes as such, more a developmHelen Southgateent and progression of the current channel. There will be some regulation areas to look out for though. The RMR comes into effect from 1st Jan meaning cashback cannot be used in the utility sector. The “cookies” legislation is still ongoing and is not likely to be resolved soon. The FCA will likely want to show their worth since taking over from the FSA so I wouldn’t be surprised if we see some potential impacts there in the financial sector. The IAB AMC is keeping tabs across all of these changes and will keep all relevant stakeholders updated.


Owen Hewitson (OH): The biggest challenge in our industry lies in how we represent ourselves.Owen1 Collectively, affiliate marketers have been guilty of far too much naval gazing and talking to ourselves about ourselves. As a result we have taken our eye off the ball when it comes to how those outside of our channel see us, and where we fit in the multi-channel mix. The challenge for 2014 is to recognise this and reposition our industry as an acquisition-focused delivery mechanism. I offered my view on how we can do that earlier this year.


Kevin Edwards (KE): I would like to think we’ll see the industry working with third parties toKevin Edwards crack the cross-device challenge if individual companies cannot do it themselves. We’re way past the tablet and handset tipping point and all research shows us consumers are interacting with multiple devices in order to purchase online. Without additional insight into what this journey looks like the affiliate channel, like any other digital channel, will effectively be working blind.


I’m sure individual companies must be assessing what they can do, so the challenge will be whether they innovate or they rely on piggy backing someone else’s technology to understand consumer behaviour.


The other change will be a further move towards granularity. The industry has been working to drill down and down into data, and we work reasonably effectively on a granular level, but more and more affiliates will recognise the power of their data and use this to build better client relationships – as well as to create additional complexity and sophistication in our understanding of the channel.


How have you seen mobile impact the channel and how do you expect this to evolve?


HS: I always find the question of mobile entertaining as mobile has affected us much the same as most other digital channels. I read a lot of reports in the industry about the growth of mobile and always wonder why we are surprised at this and why it is headline news. It’s a change of consumer behaviour that’s not limited to the affiliate channel, and one pioneered by the genius of Apple! Despite talking about it a lot and releasing lots of data, I don’t think that anyone in digital or the affiliate channel has totally embraced mobile, probably because it’s moving so fast.


If I think about my Christmas day at home the room will have 3 iphones, 3 ipads, 1 kindle, 1 Hudl and a smart TV. I think the industry has struggled to keep up with the rapid change and growth of technology in this sector, but when we do get it right it will be hugely valuable. It’s about getting the right message, to the right person, at the right time and in the right format. There are so many opportunities going forward which not just the affiliate industry needs to embrace but also the broader digital industry. Once they catch their breath that is!


OH: I think that some of the developments in mobile such as receipt scanning apps could help ease the introduction of many FMCG advertisers into industry where traditionally it’s not been clear what their place could be. Looking ahead, there are some interesting technological developments on the horizon that have immediate applicability to our industry. Apple’s iBeacon technology, which use Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) to transmit or receive with an app to offer micro-location awareness may not be immediately applicable for publishers’ apps but provides a huge opportunity for app download campaigns as retailers start a land grab to get their apps on consumers’ devices.


But in the latter part of 2014 there will be one major new development that I foresee as revolutionising mobile: Glass. With Apple hardly innovating in mobile technology it’s only Google that has the capability to produce a game-changing device. I’m not convinced by any of the wariness around Glass and expect that its extraordinary features will outweigh concerns around looking stupid when wearing it. This time next year I expect that when we talk about ‘mobile’ we’ll mean much more than just phones and tablets.


KE: It can’t be understated how much of an impact mobile is having and will continue to have but few people have crystallised the opportunity well. I think we’re all confused by what we’re supposed to be focusing on and that lack of vision has led to a scatter gun approach with some companies throwing everything at mobile in the hope that some of it will hit the target.


For me the focus has always been about evolving e-commerce into m-commerce. It’s frustrating that we’re still talking about tracking as being a challenge: that a network can make a statement that 75% of their mobile sales track and pass it off as a positive news story is pretty damning when some clients are seeing one in three or one in four sales through handsets. Let’s not run before we can walk: app download campaigns, mobile wallets and Display are all well and good but if we’re haemorrhaging revenue that should, by right, be ours, then we’re doing a pretty poor job.


I want 2014 to be the year when we stop talking about the ‘tracking challenge’ and we start talking about clearly defined mobile opportunities for both existing and new affiliates.


What has been the biggest development in 2013 for you?


HS: Personally, the growth of the UK business at affilinet. We have had a very strong year despite a slow summer period for online which has been mitigated with a strong end to year. The UK market is really dominated by one affiliate network but I think there is room for a quality network, with excellent people looking to deliver top class affiliate marketing; and this is what I intend to do.


OH: The publication of the IAB’s Online Performance Marketing Study was a major step forward in demonstrating the maturity of our industry. Whereas previously the best guess of the value of performance marketing was Econsultancy’s slightly finger-in-the-air guess, now we have a study that’s concrete, broad and properly-audited. That another is planned for publication in 2014 can only solidify the progress made by this year’s.


KE: From an Affiliate Window point of view it’s been the transformation in how we process data internally. The insights we have as a network now, compared to a year ago, have changed how we approach certain elements of the business and how we talk to clients. I think data should be about empowerment: unlocking the potential to make better business decisions. And as soon as you start to unlock one dataset, another presents itself to you.


On a more macro level, seeing how affiliate marketing is perceived in the UK by overseas affiliates and advertisers has been eye opening. We have an industry we should be very proud of and is hugely appealing. There’s great untapped potential there and we should all be working harder to bring it to these shores.


It goes without saying that Google continues to cast a long shadow and we know anecdotally some traditional affiliates continue to slip from the channel. The revenue is being replaced with new blood but it’s critical we try and ensure we support those who are struggling. This should be a USP for networks but I don’t think any of us are doing enough.


What have been your major frustrations of 2013?


HS: A lot of talk and little action. I’ve seen a lot happen in our industry over the years and our industry has definitely grown and professionalised, however I feel the industry has lost some of the entrepreneurial spirit that it used to have. I feel that some apathy has crept in at all levels of the industry from networks, to advertiser, to agency and to publisher. I hope we get some of that spark back as we need it to not only grow, but to fight to keep what we already have.


OH: Amongst budget-holders both client side and internally to organisations our industry seems to suffer from a confusion between the aim of activity and the channel through which it should be run. Very often a client request for a mobile acquisition campaign (for example, an app download campaign) will be funnelled to a mobile team or agency that will then typically run a display-based campaign. But the original requirement was to produce app downloads, which is an acquisition, the budget for which should therefore naturally sit in our channel. Likewise with email. A client’s request for an ‘email strategy’ should not be interpreted to mean simply that they want to send more emails. In most cases, there is an acquisition-based KPI behind such a request that is front-and-centre of a client’s mind as an aim, even if articulated with reference to a channel. We are better placed as an industry when we can put ourselves in a position to identify that need.


KE: Poor decisions based on perception rather than fact. This is nothing new but nothing irritates me more than the peddling of certain beliefs that are passed on as fact when little critical analysis has been done to prove or disprove them. I’m also not a fan of multi-attribution commission models and have seen a certain creep (still a trickle rather than a flood) towards them that worries me.


It’s also depressing that networks seem content to appeal to the lowest common denominator as a point of differentiation to win business: price. It commoditises a complex channel and makes us all poorer, with fewer resources to support what is still by far the best solution for most advertisers looking to run affiliate programmes.


What should brands be doing to get the most out of affiliate marketing in 2014?


HS: Working closely with their networks to understand the value of their affiliate channel throughout the customer journey. The channel is diverse and wide-reaching yet we focus too heavily on the short-tail of publishers. To have a truly sustainable and scalable programme naturally you need to focus on the short-tail, but nurturing a long-tail will drive awareness and actions and advertisers will reap the benefits.


OH: For me, the obvious answer is to focus on the post-sale story. Rather than getting bogged down in fruitless debates about cross-channel or multi-channel attribution that seek to weigh the contribution of each channel and apportion a budget on the basis of a perceived value from sitting in a certain part of the user’s path-to-purchase, we should look at what happens after the conversion. Or more precisely, what the customer referred via the affiliate actually looks like – their relative value to the advertiser against other channels, and against other affiliates, in terms of metrics that would indicate this value. This is incredibly simple to do, requires no technological trickery and does not necessarily mean interrogating huge amounts of data.


Whether the affiliate channel produces customers with higher spend than other channels can be ascertained simply by looking at AOVs; whether affiliate-referred customers are more loyal can be demonstrated simply by looking at churn/retention rates. Advertisers that have done this have generally a very positive story to tell about the affiliate channel, a fact I have argued for earlier this year and which I believe we should seek to emphasise in case studies and media packs in 2014.


KE: Challenge your network on your data. Think of all the parameters you collect when storing affiliate sales and how these can be linked to provide better insights. It goes without saying that not all affiliate traffic is equal but this understanding needs to work across the whole purchase cycle from initial interaction to longer term customer value. A network typically only captures a certain segment of that data so when brands challenge them on making informed decisions, appreciate the limitation of what they have access to in order to do so. If you don’t have the ability to challenge that data, give it to your network who might be able to do it for you.


Get stuck in and allocate more resource to it: don’t judge purely on pricing and challenge your network on who your affiliates are, where their traffic is coming from and how you can work better with them.


The basics haven’t changed over the year: there remain few shortcuts, but if it’s not already, try and make 2014 the year your programme turned intelligent.






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