A recent study by Aberdeen Research Report Group found that despite the growing need for marketing and sales alignment, few UK companies are focused on building a sales pipeline. Even though the overwhelming majority (85%) recognises the value of measuring marketing performance, 63% of those companies are using conversion rate metrics.
What is more alarming, however, is that only 58% of the respondents rate marketing’s contribution to the sales pipeline as being valuable, with a mere 43% actually measuring it. What do these figures indicate? (more…)
With the hullabaloo surrounding the relatively new domain of mobile app development and in a race to jump on the app bandwagon, a lot of businesses forget something quite simple – that a considerable part of smartphone and tablet users still prefer browsing the internet to downloading an app.
Over the past two years only, mobile search has grown by a whopping 500%. And 67% of the respondents in the Adobe 2012 Digital Marketing Optimisation survey prefer mobile sites to apps.
Interesting trend but… what are businesses doing about this? Let’s see: (more…)
“Social media is cool… but what’s the ROI?” This is the first question that is sure to pop in the mind of a CEO upon the very mention of “social”. And rightly so. No self-respecting marketing officer should approach social media without a clear view of the objectives of using the channel in question and an estimate of the impact social marketing activities would have on the bottom line. But while the objectives are fairly easy to set right, linking ‘likes’ to sales seems to be quite a challenge, even for the most seasoned of marketers. (more…)
2012 will be the year when new technologies such as marketing automation will go from cool to critical and CMOs will become data analytics geeks, according to a recent survey conducted by one of the leading market research companies.
In B2B Marketing Trends and Predictions for 2012, a report aimed at marketing leadership professionals, Forrester predicts that, as the volume of data continues to explode, marketing directors will come to realise the importance of data analytics in their efforts to get insight into the needs of their prospects and clients, and turn that intelligence into business insights. (more…)
There are a number of questions that your CEO an CFO will often ask you as a marketing director. Sometimes these questions are really simple but in your heart of hearts, have you really got the facts to back up your poker-faced answer?
If you are embarking on your very first marketing campaign, it may be difficult to answer these probing questions but in reality, with some sound analysis of previous campaigns, you should hold all the aces when the following questions are asked:
Lead generation is a common challenge for marketing teams large and small. No matter how much effort you put into attracting web visitors, if you are not converting them to leads and acquiring customers, then your online marketing activities are not really paying off.
Although not a one-size-fits-all solution, these three steps have been proven to help companies generate more leads and boost their sales…
Step 1: Put content at the heart of your marketing strategy
When considering purchasing a product or service, the majority of your prospects start their journey in one very famous place, Google. It is therefore essential that your organisation is creating a host of search engine optimised content at the heart of your marketing strategy allowing you to get found by more prospects. (more…)
As we prepare to see off 2011, some have better reasons to crack open the bottle of champagne than others. It’s been yet another challenging year for marketing teams the world over, who have had to keep abreast of all the goings-on and novelties of the digital era in a race to increase web traffic, raise brand awareness and generate leads. And naturally, those on the cutting edge of online marketing are the ones who will toast their success as they ring in 2012.
Whether you have reasons to celebrate or not, there’s always more you can do to improve your marketing performance and results, without having to shell out buckets of cash on expensive advertising campaigns. Here are three key mini-strategies to infuse into your 2012 marketing mix.
Set your brand newsroom in motion
How many times in 2011 did you see the word “content” alongside business terms such as marketing, revenue and lead generation? Brand storytelling has turned into a buzz activity – but while it is often considered a one-hit wonder, producing compelling content with the rigour and care of a traditional publisher has become a necessity for businesses looking to attract consumers in the glut of voices of the digital space. A report by eMarketer predicts that 39% of companies will increase their investment in branded content in 2012.
You are amassing a loyal audience of Twitter followers, Facebook fans and an ever increasing stream of website and blog visits, but are simply not converting online leads into new customers.
What more can be done when you blog, engage in social media and regularly create new content for your audience?
Pushing inbound leads further down the sales funnel is a common challenge for many businesses today as they endeavour to work out how to improve the return on investment (ROI) from online channels.
Ask yourself the following:
If you’ve answered at least one of these questions with a “no”, then you’ve identified a potential weak link. Read on to find out how you can make conversion really work for your business.
As audiences get increasingly adept at blocking out these ‘interruptive’ – and quite possibly annoying – commercial messages, outbound marketing as we know it is fast losing ground.
So is there a better way to spend your marketing £££?
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