Month: August 2014

Quarter of marketers work 10+ hours a day – report

Post author By Sally Hooton
Post date 29th August 2014
No Comments on Quarter of marketers work 10+ hours a day – report

Almost one in four marketers need to follow the mantra of working smarter, not harder, according to research from AtTask.

AtTask – the provider of cloud-based Enterprise Work Management solutions – has announced the results of a study that looks at a day in the life of a marketer. Among the findings, long hours and lots of disruptions from external sources show that marketers need better structure and tools to get more from their workdays.

The survey found that nearly one in four marketing professionals works ten or more hours on an average day. Thirty-six per cent of respondents said interruptions were a major distraction to their workdays, while more than a third said they spend three to four hours a day on email.

Other key findings from the survey include:

Multitasking machines—Multitasking is the norm, with 41 per cent of marketers saying they frequently multitask in meetings. Not all are proud of it, though—43 per cent of those who said they often multitask also said they do so reluctantly.
Time suckers—40 per cent of marketers blame manual tasks, unexpected projects and rework as primary sources of lost productivity.
Application overload—Opening, closing and switching between applications can cause a big drain on a marketer’s day. Eighty-two per cent of respondents said they typically have at least six different applications or tools open on their desktop.
Lunch break? What’s that?—Desktop meals are standard for marketers, with 56 per cent of respondents saying they eat lunch at their desks. Much smaller numbers of marketers eat in the office break room, outside or at local eateries.
Artists at heart—When asked about what they’d do if not working in marketing, one in three respondents named a career in the arts. Among the specific dream jobs mentioned were writer, singer, actor, designer, floral designer and various facets of fashion and filmmaking. Interestingly, 16 per cent of respondents dreamed of a career shift to a more left-brained field like business, law or engineering.

AtTask chief marketing officer, Joe Staples, Said: “In a fast-paced marketing environment, efficiency is everything.

“This survey validates what we know to be true—that marketers can’t expect mythical extra hours to be added to their workday, even while all of the interruptions and distractions push them into overtime to finish projects. Instead, they need to do more with the time they have, and that can happen with better collaboration, visibility and communication. Marketers lose too much time to problems that could be avoided or resolved with the right structure and tools.”

AtTask partnered with MarketingProfs to conduct the survey online, with almost 800 marketing professionals answering the questions on MarketingProfs’s website. Survey respondents varied in job type, career level and/or leadership position and age.

In the News

Is your email marketing Premier League or more Sunday League?

Post author By Sally Hooton
Post date 29th August 2014
No Comments on Is your email marketing Premier League or more Sunday League?

Recent research identifies key attributes, strategy and structure for the perfect approach.

A recent survey of 1,100 digital marketers points to the email ‘dream-team’ for any company. The Adestra/Econsultancy Email Marketing Industry Census 2014 not only identifies key attributes and structure for the perfect approach, but strategic areas on which to focus when building a team from the ground-up. With email marketing producing the best ROI of any channel, and more sales attributable to it than ever before, getting the approach right is valuable to your business.

Unfortunately, there are many ways to get this approach wrong which leads to lower performance and lower esteem. The majority of emarketers (58%) said their own email campaign results were ‘average’ or ‘poor’. This shows there is significant scope for improvement – and league promotion – for many using this consistently reliable marketing channel.

Heather Hopkins, senior analyst with Econsultancy, said: “While email marketing delivers strong ROI for companies, with the right resources and approach it could contribute even more to the bottom line.

“Email is too often viewed as a cheap channel even though marketers tell us that on average it accounts for over 20% of sales. Putting the right resources behind email campaigns to personalise communications and tailor offers based on advanced segmentation and behavioural targeting, can further improve the results of email marketing.”

So what is the ultimate resource and cost-efficient team structure for an email marketing operation? While it does vary across size and sector, there are common elements that will make campaign return soar. Marketers can use these as a checklist in their quest for reaching the email Premier league . . .

1. A dedicated team

Having human resource dedicated to email marketing, irrespective of size of team or level of dedication, makes email marketing a more effective tool. Companies with teams dedicated to email marketing had the highest proportion of companies rating their email efforts as ‘good’ or ‘excellent’ at 83%.

2. Understand and use the functionality available in your email system

Email ROI increases when the use of email functionality increases. Nearly a fifth (17%) of companies using up to a quarter of their email functionality described their ROI from email as poor. However, of the companies using more than three-quarters of their email system functionality, 37% rated their email ROI as excellent, an eight per cent increase on last year.

3. Focus on strategy/optimisation/reporting

Company marketers spend the least time on optimising and most on design – nearly two-thirds (63%) are spending more than two hours on design and content for a typical campaign, with around quarter as many (17%) spending at least two hours on optimisation. In order for companies to improve their likelihood of success with email marketing, for example spending time on optimisation, automation, segmentation and other areas where performance can be improved, companies need to spend proportionately less time on the creative elements of their campaigns.

4. Focus on making automation work

Marketers understand the benefits of automation, such as increased relevancy and customer engagement, but today few are using triggers to send automated emails. It’s perhaps no wonder that success is limited – 49% say implementation has been unsuccessful. But it’s not just about buying the technology, the main challenge to automation is lack of budget/time – ironically, you need to invest time to save time.

5. Use more email marketing best practices

Get the basics right and the ROI will follow. More segmentation, better list cleansing, content personalisation, and CRM integration are all proven to help deliver results. For example, more than three-quarters (77%) of companies using advanced segmentation rated email as ‘excellent’ or ‘good’, 8% more than companies doing just basic segmentation.

6. Don’t forget mobile

While 2013 saw big growth for mobile optimisation, lack of time is preventing further progress. Today 47% optimise email campaigns for mobile devices, therefore most are not, and 61% have a ‘basic’ or ‘non-existent’ mobile strategy. While the trend is encouraging, there’s still a long way to go.

7. Look to the future

Successful marketers cannot stand still and need a clear focus on where they are going. Nearly two-thirds of companies would like to improve their personalisation (64%), marketing automation (64%) and segmentation (62%). And the top area to really focus on in 2014 is email strategy.

8. Match your team to your email platform

Team structure also depends on a company’s email provider – and matching your team to maximise use of the platform. Companies may consider bringing in marketing technologists alongside traditional marketers if their ESP doesn’t have the support to offer help and guidance. And total cost of ownership should be considered, as ROI can be negatively affected if spend on additional support packages is required.

Uncategorised

Enduring brands: avoiding the brand obsolescence trap

Post author By Sally Hooton
Post date 28th August 2014
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Adrian Collins explains why some brands’ designs enjoy longevity and others fade into obscurity.

When, back in 2000, we designed the MiniCheddars packaging, we had little idea that it would be such an enduring design. Where other food brands have allowed their brand equity to dissipate in an ongoing process of design and redesign, MiniCheddars has barely changed at all.

It remains the same bright, recognisable, appealing package that it was 15 years ago. And that has produced rewards for owners McVities, who have enjoyed ongoing sales success with the product. It has diversified flavours but kept the packaging consistent, and it has remained a consistent performer with little or no advertising support..

How many food brands can make the same claim? Think of a product, and then try to remember how it looked 15 years ago. Almost certainly it will have been through so many evolutions – or even complete overhauls – that the packaging it wore at the start of this century is almost unrecognisable from that it currently uses – just 15 years later.

Tinkering disasters

Consider some famous examples. The most notorious is of course Coca-Cola’s 1985 attempt to rebrand Coca-Cola Classic as New Coke. More recently, in 2009 PepsiCo tried to overhaul an established design of Tropicana, phasing out the well-known orange with a straw in it. After a month of complaints and a 20 per cent drop in sales, PepsiCo announced that it would bring the old carton back. It was a mistake that was reputed to have cost $100m.

In the snacks world, also in 2009, Kraft held a competition to rename Australian icon Vegemite. The resulting name – iSnack 2.0 – was nothing if not a surprise, but what was more even more remarkable was that Kraft agreed to go through with the change. It lasted a full five days.

Causes of the tinkering

Why does this happen? The first reason, and most important, is that packaging matters. It is the opportunity a brand has to make a connection with a consumer at the point of purchase. Poor products with great packaging can succeed and great products with poor packaging can succeed.

However, it can be too easy to do. A brand manager knows he or she will be in post for two to three years. They want to make their mark in that time, and there are few levers at their disposal that are as quick, affordable, and often effective as packaging design. We can cite a long list of brands that have spent £100,000 with us and seen a profit surge in the millions of pounds. What brand manager does not want that on their CV?

It should be noted that this enthusiasm for packaging evolution and revolution is by no means confined to those brand managers. Branding and design consultancies have a significant vested interest in persuading their clients that the design they did two years ago would benefit from an update.

Designing for brand longevity

It is far better to develop a look and feel that looks fresh and contemporary from the outset and, crucially, remains so for many years. Take Copella. When we began working with Copella in 2004 it was a £5m brand looking for an enduring packaging design that would take its sales to the next level and help it establish its place in the PepsiCo stable.

We placed a solid block of distinctive green across the centre of every Copella bottle. Not only does the strong presence of a distinctive brand signifier help it to get noticed and tried, once consumers have tried and loved the product they can easily find it again. Having located the brand it is then relatively simple to shop within the brand for the specific variant.

Today, Copella turns over more than £40m a year; it has never advertised on television. Crucially, Copella has one of the highest repeat purchase rates of any product in the PepsiCo range.

Clearly, brand longevity is about more than avoiding disaster. By creating a brand that endures, FMCG products can reduce consultancy spend, build long-term brand recognition and awareness, protect margins, and achieve astonishing return on investment in branding and design services.

Adrian Collins is MD, Ziggurat Brands – an identity and innovation consultancy.

In the News UK USA

It will soon be Christmas! Are you ready?

Post author By Sally Hooton
Post date 27th August 2014
No Comments on It will soon be Christmas! Are you ready?

How to prepare for Christmas as consumers grow tired of poor online retail experience

For retailersm Christmas is just around the corner. IBM has released its annual guide for how UK online businesses should prepare for the shopping season. Based on IBM Digital Analytics Benchmark, the report provides a detailed analysis of the Christmas 2013 season and includes figures for online retail leading up to March 2014. The report is available here.

James Lovell, Smarter Commerce retail consultant, Europe, IBM, said: “While online retail is undeniably growing, the average amount people are spending remains flat and the number of items they are buying per transaction is actually decreasing.

“What’s more, attention metrics show consumers have no patience for underwhelming retail experiences. If websites are not optimised for mobile, for example, shoppers will quickly give up trying to browse. Retailers need to understand consumer shopping ‘journeys’ – that is, gain a clear understanding of which technologies they are using, how and when they are using them and how these merge with the store.”

So what should retailers prepare for this year and how can they prepare? What are the key shopping trends and the channels retailers should be paying attention to as they gear up for Christmas and New Year 2014? Is it worth paying attention to social? The report reveals:

Online retail spending rose 11.8 per cent in the last quarter of 2013. Over the same Christmas shopping season, Cyber Monday (2 Dec) and Black Friday (29 Nov) emerged as strong buying days in the UK, mirroring the US trend for key shopping days before Christmas.
Despite Android having a majority of the UK mobile market, sales via Apple devices are higher (sales via iPads and iPhones accounted for 26.9 percent of site sales in March 2014). As mobile grows, retailers need to pay close attention to how their websites perform on different devices.
Social channels remain a low source of traffic, with just 0.5 percent of visitors arriving from Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube and other social channels in March 2014, and accounting for 0.1 percent of sales.

In the News UK USA

It will soon be Christmas! Are you ready?

Post author By Sally Hooton
Post date 26th August 2014
No Comments on It will soon be Christmas! Are you ready?

How to prepare for Christmas as consumers grow tired of poor online retail experience

Online retail spending rose 11.8 per cent in the last quarter of 2013. Over the same Christmas shopping season, Cyber Monday (2 Dec) and Black Friday (29 Nov) emerged as strong buying days in the UK, mirroring the US trend for key shopping days before Christmas.
Despite Android having a majority of the UK mobile market, sales via Apple devices are higher (sales via iPads and iPhones accounted for 26.9 percent of site sales in March 2014). As mobile grows, retailers need to pay close attention to how their websites perform on different devices.
Social channels remain a low source of traffic, with just 0.5 percent of visitors arriving from Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube and other social channels in March 2014, and accounting for 0.1 percent of sales.

Uncategorised

Five steps to telling your product story better

Post author By Sally Hooton
Post date 26th August 2014
No Comments on Five steps to telling your product story better

Dana Drissel (pictured) explains how best to demonstrate large, complex products.

When trying to communicate a complex product story articulating your differentiation is key, but often times it’s just not enough. Here are five steps that help your company tell their product story loud and clear.

1.    Hands-on Customer Engagement
2.    Visually Showing How the Product Works
3.    Non-Linear Personalisation
4.    Crib Notes
5.    Supersize It

Hands-on customer engagement
Did you know that interactivity can increases product knowledge retention by up to 75%? It’s true. Giving prospects a hands-on sensory experience allows them to explore product features that are the most important to them in a way that they’ll remember.

That said, getting your products into the hands of your prospects is much easier said than done. Products (specifically in the telecom, medical or industrial industries) are often large, fragile, expensive, hard to obtain and difficult to ship. Even at trade shows, companies are often bringing just their flagship products and/or just a ‘shell’ of their product to avoid damage during transport.

Consider using virtual 3D Product Models (that look and behave just like the actual products) on touch screens appliances at trade shows, or on mobile devices for remote sales meetings. Doing so will ensure products are available at every sales encounter and that customers can engage and navigate products as desired.

Visually showing how the product works
A lot of products look similar (eg. grey boxes) from the outside, but showing the uniqueness of what’s happening within your product and what makes it different from the competition is how you’ll win the deal.

Your brain processes visual information 60,000 times faster than text. So, whether you have 60 seconds of your prospect’s attention in a trade show booth, or 30 minutes in an actual face-to-face sales meeting, visual representations of product workflow and network infrastructures will not only help overcome language barriers but assist in quickly and effectively communicating how your product works. Oh, and don’t forget that more than 65% of people are visual learners.

Non-linear personalisation
Personalisation is paramount! There is no substitute for being able to look someone in the eye, shake his or her hand, and give a full presentation of any relevant aspect of your entire product portfolio at a moment’s notice.

To avoid ‘one-size-fits-all’ marketing, you need the ability to tailor the product demonstration to the needs and interests of each prospect, making their purchasing experience feel specific to their individual business challenges. By creating non-linear, user-driven product demonstrations, the prospect can control their own experience, exploring the product and messages in a sequence and level of detail that they feel are most appropriate to their needs.

Tools such as videos do the talking for you and put the sales demonstration on autopilot, creating a forgettable experience and inhibiting a true conversation with your customer. Putting your customer in the driver’s seat better highlights their interests for your sales representative, enabling them to tailor the discussion to best solve the customer’s business challenges.

Crib notes
Crib notes aren’t for cheaters – they’re for those of us who just need a little extra help! Even the most knowledgeable sales reps need crib notes now and then!

As corporate strategies shift and organisations become acquired, the product marketing mix changes and sales people must quickly accommodate. The majority of sales reps no longer sell just one product to one audience, they sale numerous products to dozens of different recipients, within very complex buying cycles.

And here’s the rub, when several products are marketed by the same sales force, it becomes impossible and impractical for them to know the unique features and benefits of EVERY product within the portfolio. This results in a generalized selling pitch, making the sales experiences less than stellar.

Use small crib notes that help sales navigate thought the demonstration like a product expert. Quick reference points like information hot spots on products, supporting marketing messages and videos will help quickly and concisely communicate the differentiation of each product.

Supersize it
Similar to McDonalds, you want to give your prospects the ability to ‘Supersize’ their orders. How many times have you heard a server ask, “would you like fries with that?” Having the sales and marketing tools to communicate the benefits of one product is good, but having the ability to clearly show and articulate the value of add-ons or multiple product configurations is even better!

Dana Drissel is senior director of marketing at Kaon Interactive.

Uncategorised

Lead Gen Summit 2014

This year’s Summit is designed specifically for marketers interested in learning how to efficiently increase the quantity and quality of their sales lead pipelines. Topics will include

Lead generation, scoring and nurturing
Content, inbound and social media marketing
Conversion optimization, automation, analytics and strategy

More details about the event are here.

In the News UK

Coupon redemption – UK figures treble in nearly a decade

Post author By Sally Hooton
Post date 22nd August 2014
No Comments on Coupon redemption – UK figures treble in nearly a decade

Retailers drive 33 per cent increase.

The number of coupons redeemed in the UK has reached 365 million redemptions in the first half of 2014, according to Valassis.

Findings released by the UK’s coupon experts show that the number of coupons redeemed from January to June this year is 33 per cent higher than the same period last year, and 11 per cent higher than the second half of 2013. The first half of 2013 saw 275 million coupons redeemed and 328 million redeemed in the second half of the year.

The rise in coupon redemption is driven predominantly by retailers, with 43 per cent more retailer-issued coupon redemptions in the first half of this year than in the same period in 2013. This contrasts with manufacturer-issued coupons which, despite a sharp growth over the past 18 months, were flat in the first half of 2014.

Overall, the number of coupons redeemed by UK consumers has more than trebled since 2006, from 109 million in the first half of 2006 to 365 million just eight years later.

Charles D’Oyly, managing director of Valassis, said: “Many supermarket shopping trips are now driven by savings behaviour, and coupons form a key part of this with consumers searching for the best discounts before they set foot in store. This often means that supermarket choice is determined by the most attractive and relevant offers.

“Retailers are acutely aware of this, with coupons playing a key role in their promotional strategy in a bid to attract shoppers to their stores and give them the competitive advantage.”

Hitting the road: how to cure the crisis in UK commercial banking

Post author By Sally Hooton
Post date 21st August 2014
No Comments on Hitting the road: how to cure the crisis in UK commercial banking

Henry Braithwaite (pictured) discusses business investment.

In February, the Bank of England reported a 2.1% annual fall in bank lending to businesses of all sizes. This is not a headline-grabbing collapse in commercial lending, but rather a slow and steady decline that is now in danger of leaving UK businesses without the resources to invest and so maintain our nascent economic recovery. This is an issue not only for commercial banks, but for the UK as a whole. It cannot be ignored any longer.

Collapse of trust

Indeed the Chancellor is so worried about this lack of business investment that, back in January, he called senior executives at the UK’s largest companies to the Treasury and urged them to stop sitting on their hands and start investing. The crisis hit the headlines again in June when Business Secretary Vince Cable attacked the Bank of England for blocking reforms which would make it easier for banks to lend to business

Momentum is building behind the issue, but there will be no easy solution. The root cause of the crisis is not that banks are unable or unwilling to lend to businesses. For many months now, banks have had the capital to lend and the incentive to lend it, and they have been willing to offer significant loans to businesses at reasonable rates.

The reluctance to engage is largely on the part of the businesses themselves, especially smaller businesses. Five years is simply not long enough to forget the experiences of the Great Financial Crisis when good, solid businesses had lines of credit withdrawn almost overnight, forcing many of them out of business. These memories, combined with the emergence of alternative funding models, have left many company directors reluctant to trust banks as a reliable source of long-term investment.

As Spencer Dale, the Bank of England’s chief economist, told a CBI gathering last December: “Many companies were let down by their banks during the financial crisis, and I fear that many will be reluctant to return to a business model which relies on their banks providing liquidity and support in times of need.”

Towards a solution

In recent months, various experts have proposed a host of solutions to this impasse. In a speech at the City Week event in London on April 22, 2013, Douglas Flint, HSBC Group Chairman, argued that financial institutions need to define and enforce the right values in terms of behaviour to improve the sustainability of the financial system and demonstrate its social value.

Others have proposed more technical solutions such as caps to bankers’ pay or the G20’s comprehensive financial reforms. These are valid suggestions, but on the ground, right here and now, commercial banks need a more immediate solution. We have worked with one commercial bank that has decided to simply take matters into its own hands and get out and meet its customers.

They believe that this will begin to restore the trust that is so essential to a commercial banking relationship, and so start to return revenue growth that part of its business. It is an important story as it may point a way forward for other commercial banks in the UK.

One bank’s answer

Our client is a regional division of the commercial banking arm of one of the leading high street banks. The central marketing function was keen for regional managers to get out and meet potential customers, and so asked us to work with this region in a test pilot scheme which, if successful, would be rolled out to other regions.

The regional team was at first highly sceptical about the involvement of a telemarketing agency. They had tried it before with a different agency and had been sent out on meetings which were not fully qualified and so not only wasted their time but also reflected poorly on the bank.

Yet, since then they had been attempting to set their own new business meetings with very limited success. It was an activity few of them were trained in or had much experience of, and one that even fewer enjoyed doing. Understandably they focused on existing clients, and so were doing little to get out and engage with local businesses and start rebuilding the relationship of trust.

So, when we talked to them about how we approach our calls, and the way we give clients access to recordings of our conversations with people they are due to meet so they can be certain there is a genuine opportunity there, and be fully briefed before the meeting, they began to see how outsourcing B2B telemarketing could really work.

200% return on investment

It certainly did work. The leads that MarketMakers generated overall gave a 200% return on the investment made by the bank. This came through a combination of quick wins and longer term prospects, but crucially the bank was out talking to businesses, convincing them that it could be trusted again.

The pilot was rolled out across that bank, and it is now reaping the benefits nationally. It is a model which in the coming months and years we may see more and more commercial banks adopting. The cost of inaction, and the potential rewards for action, are simply too great to ignore any longer.

Henry Braithwaite is operations director, MarketMakers

In the News UK

More than a third of UK consumers choose online financial advisors over face-to-face

Post author By Sally Hooton
Post date 19th August 2014
No Comments on More than a third of UK consumers choose online financial advisors over face-to-face

New research has revealed an increase in the number of people choosing to search online for wealth product providers rather than seek advice from an independent financial adviser.

The research, commissioned by Equifax, asked UK consumers with savings and investments and who are aware of the changes in adviser charges as a result of the Retail Distribution Review (RDR), whether they have changed the way they use financial advisers in the last 12 months. More than a third (36%) said they now conduct their own research of wealth product providers, compared to 27% in 2012.

Of the third who say they are now researching providers online, more than half (56%) are women, which illustrates the importance for wealth product providers to employ appropriate and relevant marketing techniques when targeting this demographic.

Paul Birks, decisions solutions director, Equifax, said: “Our research strongly suggests that, as more consumers search for products and advice direct, this creates a great opportunity for wealth and investment product providers.

“However, to capitalise on this, they need to be able to access accurate insight into their customers, including having a greater understanding of their needs and when and why they are most likely to purchase wealth and investment products in the future.”

“Armed with actual purchasing activity, providers can create effective and highly targeted direct to consumer campaigns, thereby achieving the best ROI”, continued Birks. “Using Equifax Investor Insights can help providers go some way to meeting their ‘Know Your Customer’ and ‘Treating Customers Fairly’ regulatory requirements.”

Based on more than £345 billion of actual investment sales data shared by wealth and investment providers through the Equifax operated Touchstone Data Exchange, Equifax Investor Insights provides the value and frequency of investment product purchases. By including insight such as age, risk and products held, providers gain a more accurate understanding of their clients.