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Marketers need to focus on the individual in order to grow a rival client base, round-table speakers agree.

Businesses who use a scattergun approach to marketing are set to lose out to those who harness the power of individuals, according to a panel of marketing experts at a round table debate in Glasgow.
 
The development and growth of the internet has created unlimited opportunities for businesses to target new customers but brands must filter this down to the individual to avoid being lost in the crowd.
 
Lawrence Jones, founder and CEO of hosting and colocation firm UKFast, said: “We’ve had a privileged position at the heart of the internet watching how it has grown over the past 15 years. The opportunities for brands to reach their target market are infinite now. The internet is expanding every day, but it’s important to distil that down. The web has created so many awesome prospects, it’s mind-blowing. How any business can ignore them is beyond me.”

Alistair Macneil, managing director at Healthy Websites, is a firm believer of using social media to gain this personal edge.
 
Macneil said: “When you are using something like Facebook, you can actually specifically target the ads to your profile customer. You’re always happy to take a call from someone when it’s something you are interested in and social media is a great way of providing that personal touch to potential clients.

“When you get to that personal design touch – that’s when it starts to become really effective.”
 
However, it’s not only social platforms that provide opportunities for brands to get personal. Stephanie Roxburgh, managing director of Database Direct, argues it can be implemented across all traditional marketing channels too.
 
Roxburgh said: “When you create a targeted piece of mail, whether it’s direct or digital, the response rate is significantly higher if it’s personalised.

“Any element of marketing where there is the ability to filter, we need to filter better – who we send to, what message we send and when we send it. The message needs to be tailored to get a better response.”
 
Matthew Whiteford, managing director at Higher Than Digital Marketing, believes there is great power in SEO when it comes to transferring key messages across to clients.
 
He said: “Companies need to realise how important SEO is and how important it is to shape your key messages to your clients. Right now, SEO is just as important as ever.”
 
The marketing experts gathered at a round table debate held by hosting and colocation firm UKFast in its Glasgow office.
 
Here are their top tips for targeting lead generation:
 

• Capture leads through building new pages and promoting these pages through social media.
• Learn who your customers are and how they want to communicate with you.
• Don’t forget about the marketing mix.
• In 2014, content is still king. We’re calling it education based marketing now. Think long term about your content and what it is you want to present to your potential customers.

Two of the data world’s biggest stars are to be recognised for their outstanding contribution to the profession,

Edwina Dunn and Clive Humby – founders of DunnHumby, the firm that ‘wrote the book’ on supermarket loyalty, now a blueprint for ‘Big Data’ success – are to receive the Professor Derek Holder Lifetime Achievement Award at the IQ Talent Awards on June 18.

Edwina and Clive founded DunnHumby in 1999 and sold it to Tesco in 2011, having developed its world famous Clubcard programme during that time. Under their leadership, DunnHumby grew to more than 1,500 staff working across around 30 countries, ‘touching’ more than 350million consumers globally.

They enabled major brands to engage more meaningfully with their customers and delivered much greater understanding of their audiences. Their new commercial models helped many leading retailers build and drive enormous value from major data assets.

The Second IQ Talent Awards organised by DataIQ, are in association with the Institute of Direct and Digital Marketing (IDM) with all profits going to the IDM Charitable Trust to encourage more numerate graduates into the fast growing world of Big Data. The DataIQ programme of publications, events, research and online aims to meet the need for help, advice and insight from business professionals on all matters data, technology, analytics and governance. Launched in 2011, it now supports a community of more than 4,300 data-driven business professionals from most leading brands.

DataIQ CEO Adrian Gregory said: “Big Data really is big box office and Edwina and Clive are truly A-list stars of the show. Much is being made of how organisations are transforming business performance from the intelligent use of data. It’s really the people behind the scenes making sense of data who are making the difference. I can think of no-one who has made a bigger contribution to the world of data than Edwina and Clive.

“We are delighted they are accepting this important lifetime achievement award in honour of the late Professor Derek Holder, founder of the IDM.”

IDM CEO, Mike Cornwell F IDM added: “At the IDM, we truly believe that excellence and expertise should be publicly recognised, which is why we’re thrilled to support the IQ Talent Awards and to learn that true luminaries of the data world are to be honoured with the coveted Derek Holder Lifetime Achievement Award.”

The IQ Talent Awards gala dinner on board a luxury Thames Liner on June 18 are nearly sold out. A number of premium places on the boat have been reserved for friends of Clive and Edwina so they can join the celebration at close hand. To reserve one of these premium places, click here. http://www.dataiq.co.uk/talent2014/tickets and enter the code priorityvip

With mcommerce now 12% of overall ecommerce sales in the US and 5% in the UK, UK retailers need to improve mobile website optimisation with an emphasis on conversion-driven design to increase revenue

Skava, a major provider of digital commerce, digital marketing, and digital in-store technologies to brands including Staples, GAP and Banana Republic, has announced the results of its annual ‘UK Retailer Mobile Optimisation’ report. The report indicates that despite the surge in mobile traffic, which now accounts for nearly 20% of all e-commerce traffic, a quarter of the top 100 UK retailers have yet to optimise their e-commerce websites for mobile devices.

Although, this is a 26% increase on the 50% of UK retailers who had optimised for mobile by March 2013, UK retailers still lag behind the US, where 100% of the top US retailers have optimised. To view last year’s report, click here. 

According to eMarketer’s latest forecasts , worldwide business-to-consumer (B2C) ecommerce sales will increase by 20.1% in 2014, reaching $1.500trillion.

In the US, 12% of overall ecommerce revenue is now made up of mcommerce sales, according to BI Intelligence.

The major UK mobile retailer Argos received £400m in mcommerce sales, accounting for 10% of their overall online sales. However, on average the top 20 UK retailers have 5% of revenue coming from mcommerce according to the 2013 Internet Retailer Global Mobile 500.

Arish Ali, Skava CEO and co-founder, said: “In Europe, some retailers are still arguing the importance of mobile as a significant source of revenue, yet leading UK retailer Argos generated £400 million in mccomerce last year, accounting for 10% of overall ecommerce revenue. The increase in ecommerce revenue overall is masking the loss of revenue through poorly converting mobile websites.

“Simply creating a mobile website is no longer efficient, but retailers must build mobile optimised websites with a conversion-first approach. The launch of a mobile website is not the end of a retailer’s mobile strategy, but just the beginning. Like e-commerce websites before them, they require constant updates based on analysis of user behaviour to create a seamless shopping experience.”

In the 2013 Mobile 500 report published by Internet Retailer, only 20 UK retailers made the list. But these leading UK retailers saw an average of 2% on mobile compared to 4.3% on desktop.

“Mobile is the fastest growing sector of ecommerce, yet our data shows that retailers have still to adapt to the changing landscape,” added Paul Morrison, UK country manager, Skava. “Mcommerce has increased 78% in the last year and the innovative retailers which have moved beyond their first-generation Œstatic site scraped’ to a conversion-driven design are reaping the rewards.”

To highlight the financial implications for retailer’s not optimising their websites for mobile, Skava developed the SkavaONE Calculator. By using a retailer’s average order value (AOV), traffic and conversion rates from all platforms, the SkavaONE Calculator rapidly informs retail executives on the serious long-term financial implications for retailers with under-performing mobile commerce experiences.

It’s not just post and parcels that DHL Global is good at, as a 16-month-old male giraffe called Jengo (pictured) can verify.

He was safely transported more than 3,000km to a new home, thanks to DHL Global Forwarding, which assisted in the relocation from Liege, Belgium, to the Ramat Gan Safari in Tel Aviv, Israel.

Jengo was moved via DHL’s international cargo network and arrived safe and healthy in Tel Aviv on Thursday May 22. He will join his respective new herd at the Zoological Center Tel Aviv for a breeding program.

Rafi Rozalis, CEO DHL Global Forwarding Israel, said: “We are committed to supporting conservation and environmental causes around the world. Jengo’s journey is a further opportunity for this and we are glad to have helped Ramat Gan Safari in their mission. Having in mind the requirements for transporting the tallest terrestrial animal on earth, it also gives us the chance to show that we can handle even the most unusual cargo transport.”

In co-operation with Ramat Gan Safari, DHL used a special crate (pictured)  for the transportation of Jengo. The giraffe was flown on a Boeing 747-400 cargo aircraft operated by the Israeli airline El Al and was accompanied by a team of animal keepers and veterinary physicians to secure health and safety at all times. Besides the safety team, the aircraft also took along a daily amount of food supply, weighing approximately 100 kilograms.

Jengo will join a herd of seven giraffes for a breeding program at Ramat Gan Safari. Giraffes are classified as ‘Least Concern’ by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, although some subspecies are classified as endangered. The Ramat Gan Safari takes care of the largest collection of wildlife in the Middle East. Besides the safari area, visitors have also access to a modern outdoor zoo.

Business Intelligence specialist IT Performs (ITP) is looking for digital marketing teams to take part in trials for a new customer insight tool which can predict the lifetime value of customers.

In association with SAP’s Co-innovation Lab and HANA Partner Engineering teams, IT Performs will be starting beta-tests for Kairos, a breakthrough Customer Value Analytics Platform this summer.

Designed specifically for marketers looking to enhance and evaluate their digital strategies, the cloud-based software will collect and automatically analyse multiple sources of customer-related data, in real time. By predicting the lifetime value of each customer, Kairos offers unprecedented genuine insight into customer behaviour that will help clients understand their customers’ needs so they can offer more relevant products and services, making them more competitive and profitable.

Glen Westlake (pictured), co-creator of Kairos, said: “Using Kairos, our clients will get a simple analytics platform to help track customer value over time using best practice profit and loyalty models. These can be used to influence the focus and level of investments into marketing and customer service and predict the impact on different customer segments. Kairos guides the most appropriate customer retention and acquisition actions necessary to meet customer needs and deliver efficient corporate results.”

Combining ITP’s expertise in Customer Lifetime Value (CLV), gained from working with the Telecoms industry over several years, with the advanced capabilities of SAP’s in memory database (HANA), Kairos simplifies this complex data science task by providing pre-built; data extractors (APIs), predictive models and visual analytics, to deliver a simple and easy to use solution to measure and track CLV.

Companies wishing to sign up for the beta program can contact UK-based IT Performs on: 0845 868 5692.