What you need to know about SEO into 2016

8 Things You Need To Know About Search Engine Optimization to Stay Relevant in 2016

SEO is rapidly evolving. The same techniques you used last year are rapidly falling out of favor for more advanced and efficient models of search engine optimization. Google often modifies the techniques it uses to prevent people from exploiting the algorithm. While that’s great for preventing dishonesty and spam, it also means you’ll have to re-learn SEO concepts to adapt with the ever-changing model.

The Importance of Investment Return

Expertly selecting keywords that will help you jump in the rankings is wonderful, but a jump in your page rank doesn’t necessarily mean you’re maximizing your revenue. KISSMetrics, RJMetrics, or similar tools will allow you to track the movement of your customers and determine which search queries are ultimately leading to your financial success. Using this route to maximize the effectiveness of your keywords, rather than where you score in their relative popularity, will help you connect with people who are ready to buy.

Mobile Friendliness

It used to be that most people accessed websites from a computer, but that’s just not the case anymore. Everyone has a smartphone, and an increasing amount of individuals use their smartphones to conduct searches. Google takes that into account, and having a website that is less than mobile friendly will knock you down a few pegs.

Websites that aren’t optimized for mobile viewing will often load much slower on those devices, and your loading speed will affect your SEO. Be sure that all of your content is supported by smartphone and you don’t have anything that makes your site slower to enter, such as an overlay for your email list.

Go Broad

Mid-long and long-tail keywords have been the standard for a long time, but Google’s Hummingbird algorithm is a lot pickier than algorithms past. Hummingbird is a lot smarter, and it wants to make sure your website satisfies both queries. If you’re only employing mid-long and long-tail keywords, you’re squandering an opportunity to utilize broad keywords. Utilizing broad terms gives the new algorithm a better understanding of your content and its context, which will ultimately drive more traffic to your website.

Expressed VS Implied

Expressed links are clickable links that direct to you. Implied links are where your website is mentioned, but there’s nothing for the viewer to click on. These mentions are viewed by Google as an expression of your popularity, and will strengthen your presence. Think of it as positive gossip. Google will see how often people are talking about you, and this will largely weigh on your perceived importance. While you’ve likely only been concerned with expressed links, now is the time to be more concerned with implied links, as Google is using them to measure your credibility and user desire to find you.

Effective Content Marketing

Having a firm foundation is well-crafted SEO is absolutely necessary, however, it doesn’t matter how strong your SEO is if you can’t thoroughly market your content. Your website needs content, and the quality of that content will always take precedence over the quantity of it.

Using keyword statistics to boost the visibility of your content, offering to exchange guest blog posts with other sites in relevant niches, a long index of FAQs, and creating content that reputable and commonly used resources would feel inclined to link to are all effective steps you can take to market your content to its fullest extent.

Learn to Deal with Negative SEO

While you cannot necessarily prevent a malicious SEO campaign against you, there are certain steps you can take to contain the damage and have the offender penalized. Acclimate yourself to Google Webmaster Tools, where you’ll find the required forms to report suspicious activity.

Always monitor your links and statistics to check for any unusual behavior. The sooner you learn, the sooner you can fight back. Google penalties can destroy your website’s ratings, and allowing negative SEO to go unnoticed for an extended period can result in long term consequences that are next to impossible to recover from.

Building Relationships

It’s easy to find tons of places it would be beneficial to place your link. A lot of the times, these opportunities will rise out of guest blog posts. What you may not realize is that you’re far from the only person in your niche who has found these excellent link building opportunities, and everyone else is just as thirsty for them as you are.

Building a solid working relationship with others who are established in your niche will lead to your priority over others who are competing for the same spot. These websites are used to people emailing in droves about guest proposals, and establishing relationships will create an environment where site owner is more inclined to work regularly with you.

Keep At It

Mastering these SEO techniques and continuing to follow industry trends will help you succeed now and in the future. Using out-of-date SEO methods will allow you to fall far, and fall fast. Allowing yourself to fall behind is only allowing your competitors the chance to rise up in your place. Remember that SEO is not a one-and-done project, but an ongoing process that your success depends on. Detail your strategy and get to work.

 

Thanks to Torri Miller for sharing their advice and opinions in this post. Torri Myler is a marketing team member at BankOpening - a UK bank address data resource as well as bank opening and closing times directory. Torri Myler is passionate about SEO and its dynamics and keeps up with the latest trends and changes. You can follow her on Twitter.

 

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Six Methods For Tracking The Activity of Webroomers and Showroomers

Using the right technology is key to optimising multi-channel retail strategy

Understanding the full impact online activity is having on offline sales has become something of a holy grail amongst marketers. Online advertising platforms, whilst bringing far greater measurability for those customers who click and convert online, cannot yet integrate all offline sales that have been influenced by web activity.

It’s certainty a pressing issue. According to a Forrester study, more than 50 percent of U.S. offline retail sales will be influenced by the Internet by 2017; a practice known as webrooming. Those web-influenced sales will also rise to $1.8 trillion, up from $1.2 trillion in 2012 – to put that into perspective, total ecommerce sales alone are set to reach $370 billion by 2017.

Another study also charts the rise of the showroomer: those who browse in-store before making a purchase online. There are multiple reasons why consumers might engage in this activity (like the ease of being able to shop around for the best price, or the convenience of researching products independently before purchasing), all of which require extra effort for marketers who want to make sure people do finally purchase at their online store.

Source: JiWire

Thankfully, there are a growing number of sophisticated techniques that allow us to capture offline data and attribute it correctly at the point-of-sale. And the better an advertiser can track the full customer journey, the more effectively the advertising budget can be allocated.

Here’s an overview of the best techniques for capturing the behaviour of both webroomers and showroomers.

Three Methods For Capturing Webroomers

Those who: research online – purchase offline

Loyalty Schemes

Loyalty or members’ schemes are an ideal strategy for marketers who want to attribute an in-store sale to that user’s previous online interactions with the company.

How does it work?

When an offline sale occurs, it gets scanned onto a loyalty number, or attached to a unique ID. This identifier then connects the purchase back to a PPC ad, or an action taken on the website (provided the user is a member and was logged in at the time). This method can also work for advertisers who email receipts, since this unique identifier can be attached to a sale and tracked online.

Case study

Setting up an online loyalty scheme is much easier and quicker than with physical cards. SaaS based platforms like Sweet Tooth, for example, don’t actually require a card – instead, points get added to a user’s account via POS integrations, making the experience much more convenient for the customer.

Mogl takes a similar approach to online and offline tracking via a cash-back loyalty programme. Say a user is walking past a restaurant, the platform could send an ad to their mobile offering them 15 percent cash back if they visit right away. Since accounts are linked via the customer’s credit or debit card, as soon as the waiter swipes the card, the customer will see a notification on their phone that they’ve just earned 15 percent cash back on their next meal (and the advertiser will see that their online ad converted).

Coupon Codes

Coupons are a great opportunity for retailers who want to advertise online for a discount on in-store sales, and track the results of the campaign.

How does it work?

A unique coupon code gets generated for each of your PPC ads (or for every keyword, if you want more granular data). The customer then uses this code to claim the discount, either over the phone or in-store. Each code that converted gets linked back to the ad to calculate your ROI.

Case study

Meat Pack, a Guatemalan shoe retailer, ran an innovative coupon campaign that offered shoppers a discount in their local store. What made this campaign interesting, was that Meat Pack determined how large their discount would be depending on how much time it took the shopper to physically enter the store. They were offered a 99% discount upon receiving the ad on their mobile, and this reduced by 1% every second, meaning the user would have to run to the nearest store.

Call Tracking

Just like coupons, call tracking software offers retailers the chance to link contact centre sales back to the online activity that inspired the call. According to a report from call tracking provider ResponseTap, 52 percent of marketers say they still don’t have a complete view of how their online and offline marketing activity is driving phone sales.

How does it work?

Dynamic phone numbers are generated for both your website and your PPC ads, meaning each call can be routed back to the source. By linking calls to the online journey, you can see the keywords they used, what pages and clicks inspired a call, which pages they are viewing during the call, and what they do after the call.

Using this data not only helps you track the customer journey, it also means you can improve it in real-time. For example, say a customer is researching a holiday in Italy: that call can be routed directly to the rep best suited to deal with Italian sales. A piece of software known as a “call whisper” feeds the rep data about the customer prior to the call, meaning they immediately understand their requirements.

Three Methods for Capturing Showroomers

Those who: purchase online - research offline

Beacon Technology

For customers who have an account with you online, beacons offer an opportunity to target these people as soon as they walk into your brick-and-mortar store.

How does it work?

Beacons are a low-cost, location-based technology that communicate by Bluetooth with smartphones and other beacon-enabled devices. Purchasing incentives can then be sent to the shopper as they browse the physical store. As well as sending people push notifications in real time, beacons also allow marketers to measure what percentage of their online customer base actually walks through their doors.

Case study

House of Fraser introduced beacon-equipped mannequins to its Aberdeen store, which activated as soon as a customer walked within 50 metres. Push notifications were then sent out to their mobile with information about the clothes the mannequin was wearing, the price, and links to the product pages on the website.

Wi-Fi

Offering Wi-Fi in-store doesn’t just create an incentive for people to shop with you, it also allows you to collect data about people’s offline shopping habits and attribute it to an online purchase.

Source: JiWire

How does it work?

The wireless card in people’s smartphones is detectable by in-store routers. This means that once a customer enters the store with Wi-Fi turned on, the router creates a unique ID number for that device which can be used it to keep track of people as they browse. Also, since customers need an email address to log in, this can be used to identify them online after they leave.

Case study

Nomi is an application that uses Wi-Fi to track customers’ behaviour in a store, but goes one step further by matching a phone with an individual. As soon as a shopper has volunteered some personal information, either by downloading a retailer’s app or providing an email address when using in-store Wi-Fi, Nomi pulls up a profile of that customer. The store can now use this profile to offer personalised recommendation based on purchase history and in-store habits.

QR Codes

QR (Quick Response) codes are essentially a unique barcode that gets added to product packaging, pamphlets, and other in-store print media, allowing you to track how offline marketing activity is affecting your online sales.

How does it work?

The QR code contains an incentive which the customer scans on their mobile to get a hold of. This then performs a desired action, like taking the user to a web page, taking them to an app or loyalty sign up page, or offering them a discount on a product within the ecommerce store.

It’s also good practice to add tracking to your QR codes so you can see exactly which offline source is generating the most customers. UTM parameters appended to the URL mean you can track the QR campaign in Google Analytics. However, be sure to add a URL shortener like Bitly, otherwise the code can end up being too dense and hard to scan. Once done, you can easily create QR codes for your campaign through sites like QR Code Generator (free) or Kaywa.

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Brand Stories: How Fashion Brands Are Finding International Success

UK Fashion brands see opportunity in expanding into the US Market

US businesses have long eyed up opportunities in the buoyant UK retail market with brands typically establishing a presence in the UK as a launchpad into Europe. Now a large number of British retail brands are heading back in the opposite direction.

In many cases, these ventures have met with considerable success. The upscale retailer Boden, for instance, expects US sales to overtake those of its home market within a few years.

It’s very clear, however, when it comes to relocating a brand across the Atlantic, American and British audiences shouldn’t be approached as a homogenous group even though the language is shared. Consumers on both sides of the Atlantic will respond best to localised and personalised content strategies.

Buzzfeed, for example, one of the web’s biggest and most influential content hubs, has editorial teams in both regions. They find that their US audiences respond to cute and sincere content such as the popular “photos that will restore your faith in humanity” series, whereas audiences in the UK are less likely to engage with this type of content and respond better to self-deprecating humour and witticisms.

The US itself is not a homogenous entity as far as language and fashions go and it’s usual to distinguish the difference between the East and West coasts which have obvious regional variations in climate which influence the apparel market.

Boden’s smart yet relaxed clothing style has found favour on the laid back West coast, where it does particularly well in California. Another brand that seems to have appeal in California is Sweaty Betty, a UK women’s activewear brand. Sweaty Betty’s trendy and stylish kit fits in well with the local trend for wearing gym wear all day as part of an active lifestyle.

Despite strong local competition in the sector from the likes of Lululemon, Sweaty Betty has expanded from a purely online presence to a small number of stores in the US and has noticed localised tastes in clothing, claiming that Brits tend to be keener on prints whilst more conservative New Yorkers stick to black.

Selling Brand Britain

Most people are aware of the general differences in language between the UK and the States and unsurprisingly, there are many regional languages and cultural differences across the various North American states.

Tweeters in Detroit like to use use the term IKR (“I know, right?”) far more regularly than those based in other cities, whereas New Yorkers are far more likely to use the slang term ‘suttin’ (phonetic spelling for ‘something’) than a person from anywhere else in the States.

Understanding these subtleties can be difficult for an outsider which is why brands such as Boden and Jack Wills have decided to stick firmly to their Brand Britain roots rather than trying to localise their content too heavily. Whilst this won’t work for every brand, deliberately avoiding localisation is one strategy that can work.

Johnny Boden, who founded the Boden brand, once claimed that there is no longer much of a difference in fashion between New York, Paris, Milan and London. When Boden first ventured into the US market it did so confident that it would find buyers with the same values as its family-focused middle class fan base in the UK. The pictures on the US version of the website featured images obviously taken in the rainy UK and the company made a point of emphasising its British heritage.

Boden claims that its Britishness is a major part of its brand identity. For this reason, the localisation of its print catalogue has been fairly minimal and confined to changing ‘trousers’ to ‘pants’. According to Boden, one especially bold decision was made to deliberately avoid localising the prices from sterling to dollars, but instead referring customers to the US website for sales.

The Duchess’s new clothes

Exploring the stories of UK fashion businesses venturing over to the States, it’s really striking how often royalty seem to get involved in promoting UK apparel brands abroad.

Whilst the Duchess of Cambridge may be seen as a conservative dresser in her home market, over in the States she’s viewed as a fashion icon. Boden has attributed some of its success in the States to admiration for this royal clothing ambassador.

Going in the other direction, Michelle Obama has raised the prominence of popular premium brands such as J Crew in the UK by appearing in British Vogue and countless well-dressed lists, and she is rumoured to have requested a Boden catalogue in 2009.

Social media in the localisation mix

It’s now common for Instagram to form an important part of the marketing localisation mix. Brandy Melville, for example, is an Italian retailer who has localised teenage apparel for the US market using social media.

The brand’s use of focus groups from the relevant teen age group means it seems to really understand what this age group finds desirable.

This small brand has made great use of Instagram to localise itself using a mix of models and teens from its focus group. Giving these brand ambassadors free reign in terms of how they present the clothes on social media means the brand has found a way to speak to its target audience in their own language and avoided some of the clichéd marketing approaches brands are often guilty of on social media.

Instagram might be an entirely visual medium, but for fashion brands getting this visual ‘tone of voice’ right is critical. While Boden might use non-localised images of women tending rose gardens in Norfolk in their US print catalogue, it’s a very deliberate move.

Talking about the high street and main street

Hotter shoes is a successful comfort footwear business that’s also growing internationally. After pursuing steady growth in the UK for 50 years via investment in technology and an emphasis on designing for comfort, the company ventured to the States in 2010.

Hotter’s digital presence is similar in both markets with a few minor differences. While the UK site talks about sale items and holidays, the US site refers to ‘last chance’ purchases and vacations. In the UK it’s “hassle free returns” but the US site uses a more formal “100% happy guarantee”. Lace-up sneakers are more prevalent on the US site, perhaps to reflect the local style tastes.

But it’s when you look at the sizing guide that the differences really emerge. The UK site promises to help you find the right fit of shoe and the US site place much more emphasis on service and convenience. On the UK site, the customer helpline number isn’t featured on the sizing page but on the US site this is much more prominent.

Adapting to local market expectations in terms of service is important for brands venturing overseas, especially if you’re a less-known brand which needs to reassure its customers that it can meet their expectations.

The US and UK have successfully been swapping clothing brands for many years. British brands are in the early stages of developing growth plans in the US, using a careful combination of localised language and British terminology which will differentiate them and appeal to the regional US customer.

Image Credits: anneheathen and Tim Simpson

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Top Tips on international marketing for Ecommerce sites

How to go international with your ecommence

Ecommerce opens up a world of opportunities (pardon the pun). Being based online rather than in a physical location means you potentially have access to vast amounts of customers. You are restricted only by the number of countries you can deliver to; in theory any one of the three billion global Internet users can access your site and thus could potentially be converted.

But expanding into markets in new countries comes with a whole host of issues and although the opportunity is huge, the barriers can be tricky to overcome. Half of the Smart Insights team attended this years eCommerce expo this year, and I was there taking notes in the many talks on internationalising your ecommerce so I can pass on the best of that advice from industry experts onto you. So thanks to Miles Paterson (Global-e), Judith McElhinney (UK trade & Investment), Oliver Platts (Johnstons of Elgin), Paul Goldstien (Google), and Bianca Mercer (Aurora Fashion Group) for their insights in their talks.

For more tips and slidedecks from retailers grappling with the localisation channel I also recommend this post on International Ecommerce best practices.

Massive potential

A key theme that speakers kept coming back to when talking about international ecommerce were the shear scale of the opportunity it presented. This is important to keep in mind to get buy in for the project of adapting your site and logistical set up to be able to handle international orders. I don’t want to overload you with stats, but these few help to illustrate just how big the potential of international marketing is:
• PayPall Predicts 24% increase in international online commerce by 2017. This amounts to a massive £300 billion increase!
• The UK is the third biggest market for shoppers purchasing cross border. This is behind only the US and China.
• 82% of the Israeli ecommerce market is cross border buyers- This shows how much international ecommerce could grow.
• Accenture predicted that cross border online purchases would increase from 25% of global ecommerce sales to 50% by 2020. Doubling in just five years!

Location, Location, Location

Different speakers had different thoughts on which markets should be targeted. Miles Patterson form Global-e pointed out that most UK e-retailers tend to focus on UK language markets and the EU. This may not always be the best strategy. Reliance on the EU is a problem for UK e-retailers right now because of the current weakness of the Euro. He pointed to the massive opportunities for brands to increase ecommerce sales in Latin American countries, Japan and other emerging markets. China was also frequently mentioned, as it is after all the largest market in the world in terms of people (and will be for purchasing power within a few years).

Other speakers were more pragmatic and sceptical of the opportunities of these emerging markets. They advised that rather than coming up with a plan to ‘target’ certain markets and investing a big sum into creating local version of the website, translating pages and offering delivery options, the best way is to look at where traffic is currently coming from and use that as a basis for expansion. For example if you are UK based and currently offer delivery to France, Spain, Germany, Italy the Benelux and the US, but find you also get large amounts of web traffic from Canada and Israel, then you should consider investing in the logical capabilities to allow you to offer people in those countries to buy your goods. Similarly if you currently haven next to no web traffic from China, that may mean it is not the market for you (the Chinese market is notoriously hard to crack) and it may not be best in invest in being able to make sales there.

A good tool to use when conduct this market research is Google's ‘Global Market Finder’. It is a tool similar to Google’s keyword research tool, that lets you find relative opportunity in different markets by seeing who is searching certain keywords and how much they cost to run search ads on. For example if you sell iPhone cases with Lemmings on, you may find that large numbers of people in India are searching for that but it costs relatively little to set up a PPC search listing on that keyword, meaning you could potentially make a large profit.

Hurdles to overcome

If international ecommerce sales were easy, everyone would be doing them. There remain many major obstacles to a successful international ecommerce strategy, and you will have to take account of these when planning how to sell your products in new markets.

Paypall polled thosands of their customers asking what are the biggest barriers to them making cross border purchases. The top issues given by customers were to do with delivery. The number one issue was delivery cost and the 2nd was delivery time.

Import duty tax is also a nasty surprise for many cross border customers, and this can put customers off. One way around this is to use the VAT margin (VAT only has to be paid on goods sold in your home market) to subsidise delivery costs and pay import taxes. All speakers stressed the importance of being upfront with customers regarding import taxes, as it is better to let them know in advance rather than leave customers with a nasty surprise in store. Letting them pay import taxes with the purchase is useful, because otherwise they will often be an additional handling fees for customers to pay.

Being unsure about international returns policy is also a big reason why customers are put off making orders internationally. This can be reduced by being upfront with customers about the returns policy and in an ideal case offering local points to return goods to, so customers don’t have to organise to have their goods shipped across the globe to be returned.

Having the option to pay using local currencies also helps remove barriers to cross-border sales. When given the option to pay in their local currency 99% of customers do so- so it is clearly preferred! It is also always worth doing your research regarding the payment methods you should attract. For example 2/3rds of e-commerce purchases in Portugal are made using a service called Multibanco. If you don’t have an option for your Portuguese customers to pay using this service you could be seriously missing out.

Surmounting the obstacles

Once you have correctly identified the obstacles to growing your international ecommerce sales you can start working out how to overcome them. The speakers at ecommerce expo had plenty of interesting ideas on how to do so.

Location specific pop ups

If you don’t have fully localised versions of your site for different markets, a low-cost way of increasing conversions from non-home markets is to have location specific pop ups set up to trigger whenever someone from a foreign market lands on your page. These can inform them that they can buy goods from the site and are upfront about currency options and delivery costs. These can increase conversion rates considerably, as some people may see that the site is not based in their country and assume they won’t be able to purchase from it without bothering to check.

Translated websites

Having full versions of the website translated into a range of languages is obviously the ultimate goal if you are planning on building a major global presence. However this is very expensive and time-consuming, and thus may not be an option for your business. Many of your customers may also be able to speak English even though they are not from a country where English is the first language. For example if you don’t have a Dutch version of your website this won’t stop you making sales in the Netherlands given that 90% of Dutch people can speak English. A good option in this case is to keep the majority of the website as it is, because to translate it all would be very expensive, but have the payment page in their local language, as this will encourage them to purchase because it will be more familiar and appear more local. Because payment pages are generally not too content heavy, it should be relatively cheap to have it translated into many different languages.

Multiple Shipping options

Shipping costs or delivery time is a big reason why people are put off making international purchases. However offering different shipping options can help mitigate this. Offering cheaper options that may take a while to arrive won’t put off those that are looking to make savings but aren’t too worried about timing, whilst having more expensive delivery options will allow conversions from those that are time poor but cash rich. If shipping it a major problem for your customers it may be worth subsiding the shipping costs via the extra margin you make by not paying VAT as previously discussed.

Use eMarketplaces

eMarketplaces such as Etsy or Ebay are responsible for a lot of international ecommerce traffic, so getting your products onto such platforms can be an excellent way to boost sales. It is predicted by 2020 40% of all ecommerce will take place on the major emarketplaces, compared to 15% today.

Localise your marketing

When running ad campaigns in foreign markets to promote your ecommerce site, make sure that the marketing reflects that particular market. Creating localised and translated landing pages is good first step. Having people from that market appear in the imagery used by the marketing campaign is also a good idea, otherwise people may be inclined to not think it is applicable to them.

Summary

The opportunity of marketing internationally is massive, but it is no panacea, and nor is it easy. Make sure to have optimised your efforts in your home market first rather than expanding before your own house is in order. If your present ecommerce business is struggling then don’t look to international sales to save it, focus on your home market first then build outwards. If you have already built a thriving ecommerce business and want to expand further then you can potentially make huge gains, but be aware of the obstacles. Be up front with your customers and never try to pull the wool over their eyes. If you can, offer translated landing pages and payment pages, and research each market to see what types of payment options customers are likely to want. More than anything else, research which areas are looking at your products and concentrate on them, don’t be tempted to try to roll out to big markets that you are totally unknown in, instead go for the low hanging fruit first of markets where people are already searching for you.

Image credits: Nicolas Raymond and chris nyce

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Making Marketing Goals more digestible

How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time

“How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.”

You’ve probably heard this expression before. The “elephant” is the project, or goal, which is so large and challenging that you feel totally overwhelmed by it, and can’t even see where to start.

The advice is not to tackle it all at once, but to start with small steps. Take enough of them, and before you know it, you will have made serious progress – and no longer feel so overwhelmed.

For many business owners, online marketing is that elephant.

All those social media platforms….. So much to learn and understand …. Such an investment of time and money required…..

Where do you even begin? How do you make serious progress?

It can be totally paralysing.

In three months’ time, I guarantee that businesses across the world will make their New Year’s Resolution to “get on top of online marketing / make this the year we break through on social media / get to grips with LinkedIn.”

I don’t know about you, but those ambitious, broad New Years’ resolutions never work for me.

They’re the equivalent of trying to eat an elephant in one go.

So here’s what I recommend you do instead.

We are now well into the 4th quarter of 2015.

Set your business two relatively modest online marketing goals for the last day of December. Perhaps you want to get started on, or grow your audience on, a particular platform; Maybe you want to start blogging regularly. Or maybe you want to increase the conversions on your online advertising.

Then draw up a three-month plan.

Each week, schedule one activity that will get you closer to your goal.

Take a bite out of that elephant.

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These simple templates show how you can manage continuous improvements to your marketing and 'always-on' digital marketing by focusing on defined activities across the Smart Insights RACE customer lifecycle..

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I find that this incremental approach works brilliantly for us here at Brainstorm. Working in three-month chunks is far more manageable than working a year ahead.

We have a three-month plan not only for our marketing, but for our overall business development.

I even know people who have three-month plans for their personal lives, taking a structured approach to their own personal / family development!

So -- What’s in your three-month online marketing plan?.

Miriam Shaviv is author of the What's Holding Back Your Online Marketing? Checklist and the Boomerang Method Cheat Sheet. She is director of content at Brainstorm Digital, which engineers online sales funnels that deliver enquiries, leads and sales. You can follow her on Twitter or connect on LinkedIn.

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Study: Only 3% of Facebook’s newsfeed is promoted content, but 10% of Page posts are Promotions as Facebook moves to ‘Pay to Play’

New insights reveal the importance of different Facebook newsfeed served to users

This new research from Social Bakers about the composition of posts on the Facebook newsfeed reveals that surprisingly little of the what people see is promoted content. In total, only 3% of the posts people see in their newsfeeds are promoted, although, as we might expect, the vast majority of posts are from users friends - as that tends to be the content users find most engaging.

Here's our summary of some of the key insights from the research:

User posts Vs Page posts

The research shows that user posts make up the vast majority of posts that people see in their newsfeeds, whilst page posts make a roughly a quarter. People use Facebook to keep up with their friends and interact with them, so this is hardly surprising.

Engagement varies by category

This chart shows that media organisations are doing extremely well when it comes to generating engagement on Facebook. But interestingly there is potential here for all manner of businesses. Brands rate better than entertainment and sport, which are hardly unpopular categories for social media users. Many brands are thus clearly doing very well from Facebook, so make sure to optmise your own Facebook marketing efforts, lest you be missing out to the competition.

Organic Vs Promoted

We are consistently told that Facebook has become 'pay to play' - that you can't really get any traction without paying to boost your posts. It certainly can feel like an uphill struggle getting your posts seen by large numbers on Facebook when organic page reach is so low, but that doesn't mean it is impossible. Pages with very high levels of engagement still get their posts served to large percentages of their audiences without having to pay. Only one in ten posts from pages in the average person's newsfeed are promoted posts, the rest have got there via organic page reach. This is not to say paying to promote posts isn't effective, but rather than if you have excellent and very shareable content, then it can still get through to your followers without you having to pay for it.

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A new source for an emotional connection to your brand

Using lotteries as a marketing tool

Suppose you’re the new director of customer experience at British Airways looking to build a stronger emotional connection with your brand. How do you do it?

If you’ve been told once, you’ve been told a thousand times: Consistently offer a fun and enjoyable experience. Easier said than done, right? What’s new, unique, and appealing that’s low cost, drives traffic, and improves sales conversions and relationships…and hasn’t been done already by your competitors?

The advantages of lotteries

Believe it or not, some marketers are starting to think about offering entry into official nationally run lotteries. When it conforms to rules and legalities, giving away lottery tickets as promotional gifts can make a lot of sense. In fact, it’s surprising that more marketers haven’t figured out their potential to make an emotional connection with customers and prospects, and incorporated them into their plans.

People love the opportunity to win, and that’s certainly a key element for making such promotions an appealing marketing tool. But more importantly, they offer a very real and tangible experience, and that’s where the world of marketing is headed. More and more, consumers, and especially millennials, are attracted to “experiences” when they shop.

Because lotteries are games and games are fun, they have the potential to provide a very unique experience. Add the potential to win free money, and they become an incredibly powerful marketing tool.

For marketers, the unique advantage is being able to deliver each ticket as a free gift with a customized message – repeatedly over a year – to an audience that’s looking forward to and anticipating the email. Additionally, because the brand is associated with a fun experience including the potential to win there’s a significant opportunity to engage with the customer or prospect, helping the brand build an emotional connection and a fun relationship over the longer-term.

While lotteries have been underutilized in marketing, recent programs have begun to show how they can be leveraged as promotional platforms to attract and retain audiences. One especially interesting initiative is bringing together some of the biggest lotteries from across the globe – including Euro Millions – and rolling them into a free Big5 Lotteries ticket that can engage customers and prospects for an entire year.

Does it work and will consumers go for it?

In a recent survey that asked over 100 people to choose between two very similar businesses (e.g. clothing retailers, restaurant franchises, etc.) where one offered a free chance to join a lottery, everyone picked the brand with the lottery participation.

Mad Men’s Don Draper said it best: “You are the product. You - feeling something. That’s what sells.” People crave experiences that make them feel. Too many messages they receive – especially digitally – leave them feeling nothing. Those messages are deleted and forgotten because there’s no emotional connection. Offer them a free lottery gift that’s delivered directly to them regularly, and you give them excitement. Something to anticipate. Make that emotional connection part of your ongoing marketing message and chances are they’ll feel good about both. Don Draper was right. Fifty years later, in a digital world, the playing field may have changed, but the rules are still the same.  

Thanks to Michael Smith for sharing their advice and opinions in this post. Michael Smith is President and CEO of Linx, a strategic marketing agency. He has helped clients across the globe build market share through a marriage of marketing and strategy, and can be reached at michael.smith AT linx.com.

Image credits: Umberto Salvagnin and Ally Aubry

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International Marketing means localisation

Your international marketing strategy must prioritise website localisation

The first objective of most direct-response digital marketing campaigns, be they social, email, banner ads or PPC/Adwords, is to drive clicks to the website. The website is the ultimate destination, and the place where you convert visitors into leads or paying customers. This is as true for international marketing as it is for marketing in your own country, so when expanding internationally, you need to make sure that your website will work equally as well in different countries as it does in your home market.

Why fully localise your website?

You may not think you need to localise your website, particularly if you offer services in a field where most of your customers speak English even if it isn’t their first language. However this assumption may be costing you dearly. Studies have repeatedly proven the need for localised websites. For example:

• 55% of global customers said they only buy products from website that provide them with information in their own language
• 51% of businesses buyers would rather buy a product from a site with poor-quality localisation than from a site that only has content in English.
• 56% of consumers said the ability to obtain information in their own language is even more important that price.

Of course, it won't be practical to localise every site simultaneously in most cases, so you have to prioritise by audience or marketing importance; a three tier approach is common. For each site you then need to consider these issues.

Get the basics right: Domains and URLs

Selecting a domain may seem simple, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t put considerable thought into what domain you use.

If you already have a successful brand name, it makes sense to use it in your domain name when expanding abroad. However, you should make sure your domain will be received well by asking native language speakers and conducting market research in the target country, to avoid any hilarious faux pas that could result from your brand name based URL meaning something very different in another language. For example Nokia’s ‘Lumina’ smart phones translates to slang word for prostitute in Spanish. Who knows what your brand name might mean in other languages?

There are also several different ways of structuring your URLs to serve different versions of your website to visitors from different locations. These have different pros and cons; so will need consideration before you decide which way to implement it. For more information on structuring URLs see here.

Don’t forget the law

The European court overturning the safe-harbour agreement between the US and Europe recently has put laws governing data transfers into the spotlight. However many countries have various laws requiring companies to store data on their customers within the host country, so if you are collecting data on your customers and storing it back home on your company servers, you could be breaking the law and will be leaving yourself open to big fines. Here is a by no means exhaustive list of countries that require data collected on their citizens to be stored within their country:

• Russia
• China
• Vietnam
• European Union- requires companies to comply with the GDPR.

The EU does allow data transfers but only if the companies involved abide by their stringent rules.

International SEO

The search engine being used defines the rules of search engine optimisation. In Anglophone markets, Google tends to dominate, so that is the platform most SEO experts try to optimise websites for. However whilst Google does get 67% of global search traffic, it doesn’t dominate in certain markets. The most obvious in China, where Baidu gets 70% of search traffic compared to a paltry 10% for Google. Yandex has a 40% chunk of the Russian Market, whilst Yahoo! Japan (a separate company to Yahoo!) has just over half of the Japanese search market. Optimising your content for these search channels requires expert knowledge, so make sure to research the market share of different search engines in the market you are targeting so you don’t waste time optimising for search engines that have insignificant shares of the local search market.

These are just some of the factors you should consider when building localised versions of your site for your international marketing campaign. To get more information on website localisation, see our expert guide.

Download Expert Member resource – Website Localisation guide

A best practices briefing for marketers and managers showing how to drive awareness and sales through content localisation and international SEO.

Access the Website Localisation guide

Image credits:  Torkild Retvedt,  Bruno Cordioli

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Which are the most effective advertising formats today?

New research by Nielsen shows the ad formats which are most and least trusted by consumers.

Trust is a hugely important factor in advertising success. If you don’t trust someone, you generally don’t take their advice, wheras if someone recommends something and you trust their judgement, you are far more likely to do it. If everyone trusted all advertising formats 100% then we'd all be getting ripped off by people using advertising for nefarious means. In reality, trust matters a lot, and this research shows that we trust some advertising formats much more than others. For example, emails signed up for are trusted approximately twice as much as text ads on mobile phones.

Recent trends

The majority of advertising channels have seen their trust decline somewhat over the last two years, although there are some silver linings for some digital ad formats. Ads on mobiles and ads on social networks both saw their levels of trust increase slightly, although admittedly this is from rather a low base.

Editorial content

Editorial content saw a major drop, which is probably due to a trend towards native advertising, where ads are made to look like actual articles, so as to draw clicks from those who wouldn’t usually click on them. When advertisers are abusing this trend and not actually creating quality content then it drags down the trust of the medium over all.

Below is a screenshot from the Telegraph’s (a major British Newspaper) website. It is the first thing that appears when a reader has finished reading an article, and is designed to appear the same as the other stories from the telegraph which also appear at the end of articles. However they are actually adverts.

Email Marketing

'Email’s signed up for' also saw a significant drop, although it remains the 3^rd most trusted source in the UK. This may be because email marketers are overusing the medium and sending out too many emails. Audiences become saturated when they receive so many messages they stop being useful. It may also be that so many businesses are attracted to using email marketing because it is trusted and effective. This means it’s effectiveness is being diluted as more and more companies, even the less trustworthy ones, attempt to capitalise on the effectiveness of the medium.

TV vs Websites

TV ads saw a decline of 5% on previous years, but maintain the trust of a respectable 56% of UK consumers. Trust in company websites declined at a lower rate of 2%, meaning that 52% of UK consumers trust them. Company websites are an important medium to showcase one’s brand and offering, and as the destination of many other marketing campaigns should be optimised for retention and conversion. Interestingly, if these present trends continue, company website will overtake TV ads for trust within two years.

Digital advertising

Digital ads tended to gain slightly or at least not loose out when it comes to trust. Online banner ads and online video ads saw the level of trust remain the same as in previous years (no mean feat when the over-all trend is for more sceptical customers) and ads on social networks and mobiles saw a slight increase of 1% and 3% respectively. So now you know the trends, but what of the absolute levels of trust we are currently seeing in the advertising industry?

Personal recommendations are on top, which makes sense given a friend is far more likely to offer an unbiased recommendation based on merit than a company’s advert who’s purpose is to sell products and increase revenue. Emails signed up for are a highly trusted source of marketing, so organically growing your email list is a good idea. Editorial content also ranks quite highly, which means content marketing is clearly an effective medium and should be planned, managed and optimised to get the best possible results.

Digital media often don’t rate too well on this list because they are relatively new mediums and online banner ads in particular are often deliberately misleading in an attempt to generate clicks. Marketers should use this list not only to select advertising mediums that currently enjoy high levels of trust, but also to consider how they can make their content on less trustworthy channels appear trustworthy. Making big promises that can’t be delivered probably will fail to deliver results because costumers are used to it and will phase out such messages. Honesty pays in all advertising mediums.

Of course, it's worth bearing in mind that these are only consumer reported behaviours rather than their actual behaviour. So it's also needed to compare these insights against actual ad format and media effectiveness as reported by analytics or marketers.

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How to get started with Digital Marketing in China

How to start planning your Chinese market strategy

China: it's the market everyone wants a piece of.  With over 1.5 billion people, your target market is here, even if you aren’t. But, entering the market doesn’t make it just start raining money.

Chinese consumers are bombarded by businesses that want them, both homegrown and foreign.  For your business to get a piece of the pie, you need to come in with a well thought out, meticulously researched plan.

No one is saying it's easy.  But any demographics report will tell you how much your bottom line could benefit.

These 8 tips will get you heading in the right direction and ready for marketing to a Chinese audience.

Do Your Research:

The analytics tools at your disposal in this market are the things you could only dream of in the rest of the world.  Want a cross section of any brand's TMall/Taobao search volume, customer spending, location, etc, etc., etc.?  You can have it with a personal account.  You can even share what you find on social media platforms. Imagine your ability to strategize with the options for businesses.

Plus, if your target market shops on marketplaces like TMall and JD.com, why take the time to develop an eCommerce app? Focus your efforts and optimize your store there instead.

Use the information available about hobbies, spending level, and geographic location to understand your shoppers and craft brand stories that will entertain and engage them. That’s how your company will come out ahead of other entrants.

Dior consumers’ age & gender on TMall/Taobao: 2011-2015

Be Mobile

Mobile use in China, particularly in terms of eCommerce and social media, makes a lot of other markets look like they're trapped in the 1990's.

Double 11, the major e-shopping holiday in the country, did over US $9 billion GMV in 24 hours.  Over 40% of that was mobile.

WeChat, the major player in the social scene, had 600 million active accounts in Q2 2015.  25% of those people check the app over 30 times a day. (source) Even in B2B, the app’s penetration rate (north of 95%) makes it an easy way to do repeat sales and CRM.

In short, if you're not mobile-friendly or ready to jump into the wide world of WeChat, make it a priority.

A screenshot of the Starbucks Official WeChat page, where they take advantage of the built-in pinned menu options, which can support multiple languages.

Baidu is not Google.  WeChat is not Whatsapp.

It's a mistake to try and think of these platforms as "the Chinese Twitter/Facebook/Instagram/Whatsapp" or "the Chinese Google".  Perhaps at one point it was true, but now they have come into their own.

WeChat is a messaging platform that is completely private.  If you see a photo or video shared by a friend and comment, only people friends with both of you will see that interaction.  Everyone else sees just the photo.  For businesses, official accounts can send out photos, articles, videos, games, audio messages, and chat with followers--all through a private conversation with each person. Businesses can also accept payment and do customer service directly through the app.

With Baidu, SEO is a completely different beast.  The way the first page is structured is so unnatural that a heat map of will show users habitually clicking next page to find organically high-ranking content.  What shows up instead?  Baidu Answers, Baidu Baike (an encyclopedia), Baidu Shopping, paid ads, etc. Very un-Google.

A screenshot of Baidu, highlighting the Brand Zone. Both the top results and the right sidebar are in the zone

Email is dead.  Long live video.

While we're at it, apps are dead too.  Long live stories.

The only kind of companies that see any kind of open rate for email campaigns are B2B, and even then it is far lower than what you get elsewhere.  And Chinese users don't often download a company-specific app, especially if that company can be found on TMall or WeChat.  You have to find new ways to engage.

Chinese consumers want content-driven campaigns.  Baidu wants content-driven search.  When you come to China, expect to devote resources not just to translating what you have, but creating new content with extra emphasis on your company's story.  Spend time crafting a story that sets you apart and expressing it both verbally and visually.

Video is the new king.  Everywhere from WeChat to TMall, pages with video are not only getting more clicks, they get more conversions. Why? The story drives brand recognition which helps page viewers engage the first time they see it and remember the next time they get to a product search engine like TMall.

Screenshot of a video on a Tmall Global store selling baby formula

Learn to swing the B.A.T.

It stands for Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent--the big three.  And it also has a lot to with with why apps are dead.  Each of those companies has a widely used app and in some cases, an app store, with Baidu's being the biggest.  None list the apps of the others in their stores, which means most mobile users have more than one app store downloaded.  Second, Baidu doesn't index WeChat content or Alibaba shopping results.  Third, WeChat (the app that's always had a built-in QR scanner) won't scan Alibaba QR codes (or vice versa).

They don't interact with each other, but consumers interact with them all, which means you have to too.

In order to successfully market in this environment, you have to get content on all three and manage them all independently.  It also includes their different payment methods.

The Alibaba QR code from the Starbucks TMall homepage

Don't be afraid to take things offline

We are all digital marketers, but the O2O sector in China is growing.  In services, travel in particular, it's an obvious solution. Buy online, claim later. Other services, like B2B service providers, event managers, and educational professionals can implement similar systems and reap the rewards of creating convenience for their clients.

As a digital marketer, think of this option as an extension of your social media presence.  Because, on WeChat, it is.  There is no difference for your followers between the account that advertises the deal, the account they pay, and the account that shares the event photos afterwards.

You can use the same ideas on a standard eCommmerce site, like censh.com. They offer real-time chat with employees, categorized by store.

Communicate

We've talked about the need to create content to drive your marketing in China.  This tip is a little different, but not following it will definitely cost you sales.

Make sure you have a team available to chat with customers.  Contact forms?  You'll get almost no responses.  Chat buttons and callback systems?  Customers will call and chat, asking questions sometimes for 20 minutes or more before committing to a purchase.  Your customer care team is the difference between them buying and walking away.  It's vital.

Not as vital, but still important, are KOL's.  They're often frowned upon, if not downright abandoned, by a lot of marketers outside this country.  In China, they matter.  Take uber-famous actress Fan Bing Bing.  According to Ad Age, at one point Xinhua news estimated she had over 50 endorsement deals.  With numbers that high, she has to be making a difference for the brands she represents.

The homepage of L'Oreal's TMall store, September 2015

Get help if you need it

There's a reason people spend their lives studying and working in China.  It's got a steep learning curve and success requires a depth and breadth of knowledge that is unparalleled in other global regions.

If your company doesn't have the capabilities to research, understand, plan, and execute a marketing strategy in China, get help.  Not just with finding the numbers, often in tools that only have a Mandarin language UI, but with converting them into coherent strategies.

Let’s go through an in-depth strategic example. Every year, online sales drop across industries in February because of Chinese New Year, when people return home and see their families. Gifts aren’t a typical part of this tradition, with the exception of hongbao, red envelopes filled with cash. So, it isn’t an ideal month to open a store. It may, however, be a good time to try and capitalize on the electronic hongbao trend and WeChat usage by offering electronic gift cards you can get through an in-app game or a lottery. That’s what Tencent and Alibaba did this year.

Thanks to Elizabeth Chick for sharing their advice and opinions in this post. Elizabeth Chick is a Marketing Specialist of BySoft China. They are experts in the Chinese Market, with offices in Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Hong Kong. They speak Chinese, Shanghainese, English and French! You can follow them on Twitter or LinkedIn.

 

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Debate: “Digital Marketing is the most ridiculous term I’ve ever heard”

PepsiCo Exec Mr. Jakeman called digital marketing the "most ridiculous term I've ever heard”. Smart Insights' Dave Chaffey says it’s still a useful term. Smart Insights members debate who is right.

PepsiCo Exec Mr. Jakeman recently called digital marketing the "most ridiculous term I've ever heard." He added:

"There is no such thing as digital marketing. There is marketing - most of which happens to be digital."

Speaking at the recent US Association of National Advertising's annual "Masters of Marketing" conference, he urged marketers to create digital cultures, not digital departments. He went on to say that "We 'ghettoize' digital as though it's the life raft tethered to the big ocean liner. And we have to move on from that".

We think his arguments have some merits, after all, creating digital cultures rather than creating silos is something we’ve advocated for some time. Indeed Dave Chaffey's post on the latest trends in marketing, discussed similar sentiment, for example, Amanda Rendle of HSBC Commercial 'banning the term digital' in her team and  Jeff Dodds, the Chief Executive of Tele 2 Netherlands and previously CMO for Virgin Media making similar comments:

"To talk about digital as some kind of separate entity is to not understand it. Our lives ARE digital is not a thing, it is simply a more flexible, response and efficient way to do business."

But we have also disagreed with the idea that digital marketing is an inherently ridiculous term, as it still is useful, especially for organisations still in the process of embracing digital through digital transformation and developing digital skills. We think the relevance of the term depends on 'digital marketing' maturity within an organisation. To boost the contribution from digital channels you need to create a separate, but integrated plan to make the case for more investment in digital. As digital marketing becomes part of 'marketing as usual' the digital marketing team structure and skills will evolve until digital marketing skills and processes are integrated throughout the marketing organisation.

The reality is, that with the increased usage of digital media and tech by consumers, marketing teams need specialist digital skills to reach and engage them digitally. As our recent Developing Digital Skills report showed, many marketers are now spending > 50% of their time on digital marketing activities and two of the three top job roles in marketing are digital!

The showdown: Jakeman Vs Chaffey

Our CEO Dr Dave Chaffey argued in the trends post mentioned above that the term ‘digital marketing’ will still serve a purpose for several years yet:

“Thing is, Marketing using digital media and tech requires specialist skills which many 'traditional marketers' still don't have. That's why the most popular marketing jobs now are specialist digital roles.

Eventually, there will be just marketing jobs - but I foresee specialist digital marketing jobs for the next 5, 10, ?? years since their will always be 'offline media' until Print eventually disappears”

Your views - what our members had to say:

We asked our members on our LinkedIn Group what they thought about the PepsiCo Execs views on digital marketing, and we got great feedback from both sides of the argument - with 20 comments showing that the quote 'touched a nerve'. Here's a flavour of some of the views.

Truin Chapman strongly believes that digital marketing shouldn’t be a separate term, and needs to be a part of the culture of the organisation rather than a department silo. He argued:

“Times have changed and 'Marketing' is primarily digital now.. just get it!”

Debbie Thomas also chimed in that digital should not be a separate department, stating that:

“Digital has disrupted the marketing industry, but all channels still rely on each other to be effective! Digital is not a department it's a part of the strategy.”

Shaun Muscat came in on Dave’s site of the debate, that it does still make sense as term because it requires specialist knowledge. He said that:

“I agree, ultimately it's marketing, but done through an additional channel, a digital channel. A channel, as Dave Chaffey rightly remarked, that requires specialised knowledge. Throughout history we've been adding new marketing channels such as TV, radio, print etc, so I don't see how digital should be different, it's just another medium to add in our marketing toolbox.”

Martin Shone also weighed in on Dave's side of the debate, but rightly pointed out that the lines are becoming blurred:

“Coming from a digital background I'm obliged to agree with Dave C. that specialist skills are required to understand some of the nuances of digital spaces and what is possible. Many companies rely on digital agencies to guide them through the maze while others have seen internal web teams expand to fill the gaps (and let's not mention those whose online efforts are still being jealously guarded by IT...). In my experience both of these still tend largely to be a weapon in the armoury of a traditional marketer.

However, most marketing roles I see advertised now have a degree of digital knowledge required, even if it's just having an understanding of social media. I've definitely seen a blurring of the lines in my company over the last couple of years, and there is an expectation that marketers should have, or be prepared to acquire, digital skills, but, at the moment, only to close the knowledge gap.

I think it will be difficult in the short to medium term, no matter how many guides or white papers are consumed for the price of an email address, for traditional marketers to gain enough understanding of some skill sets such as UX, APIs, metrics etc, to negate the benefits of a specialist 'team'.

Or maybe I'm just annoyed that the skill set I've acquired over many years is losing some of its kudos... ;)”

Melody Tune put her cards on the table and completely disagreed with Mr. Jakeman’s comments, arguing that:

Digital Marketing is a whole different animal. A different species than traditional marketing. 17 years working as a digital marketer in corporate in which marketing teams did not understand the technology and would make decisions based on illogical findings. Sorry I disagree!

Most of our members seem to agree with the idea that digital shouldn’t be a separate department and instead needs to permeate the whole organisation. Christopher Naylor thought that:

“A culture of digital activity needs to be weaved into marketing departments rather than being a stand alone entity.

Traditional marketing techniques will not disappear but forward 'digital generation' thinkers need to help to incorporate old and new rather than drive a wedge between the two.” Whilst Recbecca Donohue made the similar point: ‘I agree with him to a degree. You can't have a stand-alone digital division in my opinion. It needs to be interwoven into all marketing activity.

Traditional can (and should) influence digital and vice versa. Learnings can be deemed from one to drive results elsewhere in the mix.”

There seems to be a general consensus that digital marketing is still a useful marketing term because traditional marketing hasn’t quite caught up, but that doesn’t mean digital should be separate organizationally and not part of the whole company's culture. That said, coining the term ‘traditional marketer' opens up a whole new can of worms. Edward Michael Rhodes had this to say about it:

“If the term "Traditional Marketer" in 2015 imply a profession that does not acknowledge and recognize the importance and significance of Digital Communications. And by extension, the skills/expertise needed to successfully analyze, plan and execute winning digital strategies - then, I would have to conclude this term, "Traditional Marketer" is the most ridiculous I have ever heard.”

Whatever type of marketer you are, we certainly think it is ridiculous if you choose to ignore digital! What are your thoughts on this debate? Let us know!

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6 ways to increase conversions with Geo-targeting

When used effectively, Personalisation based on Geo-targeting can be a powerful way to increase your conversion rate

People arrive at your website from a variety of different locations. This means they will have different nationalities, languages, currencies, climates and even cultural expectations. Geographic targeting allows a website to render content that is personalized to the location of the visitor. In other words, it determines the exact locality of your visitor, and then dynamically tailors the content on your website to be more meaningful to that shopper. The benefits of this are immense.

Below are just a few examples of how geo-targeting can improve the visitor experience for your Ecommerce site.

1. Display Products Relevant to the Local Climate and Culture

Altering the type of products displayed depending on where the customer is from is a technique widely used by many online retailers.

For example, take a clothing store that delivers to customers in the USA. Because the country spans so widely, it can experience two types of climates at once. The North may be cold while the South is hot. In that case, you may want to display sweaters for northerners while showing beachwear for southerners. Or perhaps it is raining on the East coast so you decide to show umbrellas to visitors from that region.

Meanwhile, a sports store chain might want to highlight products with the home team's emblem. Weather and physical location can be great cues to drive more relevant promotions right from the beginning of a visit.

Petzl, a USA-based home and garden retailer, created a geo-targeting rule that promotes products according to the visitor’s regional environment. In the example below, you can see that visitors from the Colorado area are presented with a product which prevents a northern type of insect infestation while visitors from Florida are presented with a southern one.

2. Define Promotions Geographically

You can also offer special promotions segmented by region. For example, offer back to school specials in September for North American and European visitors and in January for those from Australia.

Below is an example of a promotion limited to Ottawa area residents.

  3. Display Weather Related Promotions

Local weather can often drives sales of certain products. eRetailers can take advantage of this trend by offering special weather-related promotions. Below are some examples.

Pantene geo-targets ads for its shampoos and conditioners to fit the type of weather and resulting hair conditions. If the reader shows interest, it helps them find a store nearby that sells the product.

Money transfers often spike following natural disasters. After the flooding in Manila last year, Western Union offered US residents a no-fee coupon for transfers to the Philippines.

Before hurricanes, affected residents usually stock up on emergency supplies such as batteries and flashlights – so these products can be highlighted in these areas. But you don’t need to wait for extreme weather to take advantage of the meteorological conditions. It can be as simple promoting umbrellas on a rainy day.

 Be careful not to use disaster-related ads insensitively. American Apparel generated an overwhelmingly negative reaction on the Twittersphere when it geo-targeted a clothing sale at people affected by Hurricane Sandy

4. Provide Localized Shipping Offers 

Shipping costs are a key factor in determining whether a customer converts. The location of your distribution centers may greatly affect shipping times and rates. Use geo-targeting to display shipping offers customized to the location of the visitor.

Example: Customized Free Shipping Offers

Here is a personalized free shipping offer – one is for visitors from Maine and another for visitors from Philadelphia. They are be triggered specifically for people from those areas.

This ad encourages Canadians to buy over the border in the USA by offering free shipping.

Localized Deadline Guarantees

You can also guarantee delivery by a specific date, depending on region. This is especially important for holiday shoppers. Below is an example of a delivery guarantee by Christmas, customized by area. For South Australia residents – if they order before Dec. 17^th. For Sydney residents – if they order by Dec. 22.

5. Show Only Applicable Taxes

Tax rates vary by area or may even not apply. Altering tax rates can be a major factor in driving international sales or even between states and provinces. You only have seconds to convince a visitor to make a purchase. If a visitor to your site is entitled to purchase the product tax free – let them know about it.

6. Display the Closest Physical Stores

Does your retail business have physical locations? Instead of making your visitors search a long list for stores in their area, automatically display the contact details of the stores closest to them.

Does It Work?

When an Australian ecommerce site started shipping to New Zealand, visitors from that country were shown the banner below. In general, it's difficult to measure the direct effects of personalization. The only way to do it effectively is via A/B testing of the personalization rule. Here testing revealed that visitors from New Zealand who saw the banner converted at 5%, whereas visitors that didn't converted at 1%.

Conclusion

By personalizing your site's content to suit your visitor's location, climate and culture you can significantly increase conversions. Ways to do this include: displaying products relevant to the local climate, defining promotions geographically, offering weather related deals, proving localized shipping offers, showing only applicable taxes and automatically displaying details of the closest physical stores. Try some of these ideas on your own site and you are certain to benefit.

Thanks to Simon Peirson for sharing their advice and opinions in this post. Simon Peirson is U.K. Country Manager at Barilliance You can follow him on Twitter or connect on LinkedIn.

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Do you have a Digital Marketing Testing Strategy in place? Many European companies don’t

New research reveals low-adoption of testing and recommends best practices for People, Processes and Tools

Getting the most from Digital marketing is increasingly about testing since marketing is increasingly becoming a science, driven by data. Gone are the days when an ad campaign involved developing a great ad, buying some pages in a magazine and maybe some TV time for the larger organisations and waiting to see if a bump in sales. Advertisers are now using vast amounts of data to prove their campaign ROI through 'in-flight' testing and marketers are now optimising their sites conversion rates. These types of optimisation are essential so that the investments in new IT infrastructure, marketing automation software, content and web design are paying off. Yet this new research from PAC reveals that only 18 per cent of European businesses have a digital testing strategy in place.

The study, supported by Accenture, HP, TestPlant, Applause and Worksoft, found that 26% of organizations in the region have formulated a digital testing strategy but have not yet implemented it. A further 35% plan to develop a digital testing strategy in the next year.

PAC interviewed senior IT and testing executives at 200 large businesses (Over 500 employees) in Europe, as part of the study.

Multi-channel testing a challenge

The biggest obstacle in implementing digital testing strategies is in taking a consistent approach to testing across multiple channels of engagement, an issue cited by almost half of all participants. To paraphrase the late, great, Notorious B.I.G; Mo' channels, Mo' problems.

The second biggest issue, unsurprisingly is that of integrating digital into legacy systems, which was regarded as a ‘primary’ challenge by 39% of participants.

Differences in digital testing adoption across Europe

There is currently a major divergence in how advanced large businesses in Europe are when it comes to digital testing. The Nordics lead in many ways, as 88% currently monitor end users experience and get user feedback, whilst France lags behind with just 23% doing so. The UK is slightly above average for the continent, with one-quarter businesses having implemented their digital testing strategy, yet there is still a long way to go. Only 34% of UK companies test digital apps in production, compared to a rate of 65% in Germany.

Failing to plan is planning to fail, and it is clear more companies across Europe need to put digital testing strategies in place and implement them in full. It is important to ensure you have the right team and processes in place.

For more research on testing strategy for digital marketing, view the full report from PAC.

 

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Five golden rules when localising for international ecommerce

Understanding what local customers really expect when purchasing from an ecommerce site is an essential factor for success when it comes to international ecommerce expansion.

Failing to properly localise a website to be in line with local conventions will not only impact how users perceive a brand and feel about using a website, but ultimately effect how likely they are to buy from it at all.

Did you know that German customers expect a wide range of payment options to be available including bank transfer, direct debit and invoice for payment after they receive an order?

Did you also know that Japanese customers require input fields for two different scripts when entering their name? Or that French users expect SEPA (single euro payments area) compliant payment options when inputting bank details?

Oban Digital has reviewed a number of sites over several ecommerce marketplaces, including Japan, Canada, France, Germany, Australia and the UK to assess how successfully in-market websites (both international and home-grown) were meeting the needs and expectations of local users.

Conducted by native speaking experts based in-country, we’ve reviewed everything from labelling convention and local UX preferences through to payment processes and the delivery options available.

The results across these different countries were varied and often surprising, with important differences between each and every market, even where the same language was spoken.

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The recommendations, while specific to these particular regions, are important to consider when planning international expansion (or improvement of existing offerings) within any market. The value of researching the opinions of local people, and making informed changes according to their needs cannot be underestimated.

We’ve summarised our work into five handy golden rules for you to consider.

1) Be clear on local laws and regulations

From having an Impressum page in Germany to displaying prices including GST (goods and services tax) for Australia, understanding and complying with local laws and regulations for each market you enter is essential.

At best not following these rules will mean you may lose out on purchases due to not appearing trustworthy and at worst failing to comply can result in hefty fines.

For example, Boden.de complies with German law and displays their Impressum page which is linked to within the website footer site-wide.

Impressum is a Latin term meaning printed. The closest English terms would be 'site notice' or 'legal notices'. However simply switching the name of an existing page to Impressum will not necessarily suffice, the page must contain a set of defined details to count.

2) Ensure sizes and measurements are properly converted

This rule sounds basic but a surprising number of the websites we reviewed did not convert their clothing, furniture and fabric measurements to the local system for every country in which they operate. This was especially true of marketplace websites where users list their own items such as Amazon and eBay.

Where sizes can’t be changed by market, at least include a size conversion table or link to a conversion table to ensure users don’t feel alienated and abandon their purchase.

Ikea shows good attention to detail with their localisation which displays measurements of fabric in yards for US and metres for Canada and the UK:

3) Labelling and language

Ensuring that labelling and general use of language throughout local versions of a website have been tailored effectively is important. Non-localised category headers can hinder customers locating their desired product and literal translations of text often make the tone of voice sound unnatural or even nonsensical to local users.

Even when the same language is adopted across regions, ensuring that spellings have been adapted to regional customs is important for brand perception and familiarity.

Even seemingly insignificant terminology accumulates to shape the overall user experience for customers. in each market you must decide whether you use ‘basket’ or ‘cart’, call items ‘shipped’ or ‘dispatched’ and decide whether to provide a ‘favourites list’ or ‘save an item for later’ option.

Many popular ecommerce players miss localisation on category labelling. See below the Americanised spelling of jewellery on the Canadian version of the Aldo website:

4) Payment methods and delivery options

Offering all of the expected local payment methods and delivery options is a critical ingredient to successful in-region purchases, yet there are a surprising number of websites that fall short when it comes to catering for international purchasing requirements.

In addition to including all relevant credit and debit card options, it is important to be aware that some markets expect to be able to pay in different ways such as direct debit, cash upon delivery of an item or even by invoice after they have received it.

Here Clarks’ German website has localised to include German-specific payment methods including elektronisches lastschriftverfahren (direct debit) and online balance transfer.

5) Don’t underestimate the importance of ‘feeling’ local

All of the points above form part of the overarching need to create a familiar and local ‘feel’ to your international websites in order to make customers feel confident enough to purchase.

Different businesses employ different methods of doing this. eBay welcomes Australian customers with a playful ‘G’day!’ and Amazon’s international sites use the homepages to promote products relating to local seasonal events and celebrations.

Where concerns regarding the cost and time of shipping might make international users hesitant, explicitly tailoring your website to 'feel local' will help reassure global customers.

The bottom line

Conducting research to understand local ecommerce convention in each market is essential as is getting in-market users to test your website. It provides invaluable feedback on how it really feels to use as a local customer.

A/B testing different variations of your website, to see which version gains the best traction from in-market users will validate any recommendations made. And finally remember, no two markets are ever the same.

Ecommerce Club Working Lunch-  Edinburgh & Dublin

The Ecommerce Club would like to invite you to our next Ecommerce Club Working Lunch Taking place on Tuesday 27th October in Edinburgh at Scottish Enterprise, Edinburgh, Mixing Digital’s Ecommerce Club working lunch allows you to network with fellow Scottish retailers and to hear about the latest trends in  e-commerce

There is another working lunch taking place in Dublin on Tuesday 24th November.

This lunch is supported by our founding partners Demandware, Salesforce, Certona, OneHydra / Greenlight, NMP, BORN and UKFast and by our regional partner the IIA.

Please note that this event is for retailers only, vendors will not be allowed to participate on this occasion. Register for your place here

Thanks to Chloë McKenna for sharing their advice and opinions in this post. Chloë McKenna is an International Digital Strategist at Oban Digital. You can follow her on Twitter or connect on LinkedIn.

Photo credits:

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

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