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Provoke's Online Marketing Insight, What Would You Like To Know About?

Ecommerce Looks For Ways To Reach But Fails To See Social Media!

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Say one thing, do another! According to latest surveys across the UK, over three-quarters of companies recognise that smartphones and tablets are the most significant recent development to affect future business – but they are not yet measuring the mobile channel seriously. The same percentage of businesses surveyed in a different study shows they are also aware that they can integrate email and social media but only a third say they do this in their marketing campaigns. Yes, they say, we are thinking about it …

Latest figures from global digital market analysts, comScore, indicate 8.8 million – or 40 per cent – of 21.8 million UK mobile owners used mobile apps to connect to the internet during April 2011. Of the leading operating systems, Apple iOS saw 65 per cent of all connections.
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End Of The Line Between Offline And Online

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Offline and online. One or other or mostly one, a bit of the other … is generally how business owners tend to describe their ongoing marketing strategies. Rapid changes are now forcing former distinctions to dissolve at the edges. A new multi disciplinary world is emerging where consumers expect to interact and participate across multiple channels and platforms of their choosing. Business must form bridges between the two or lose user accessibility.

The pressure has been building for some time between the twin worlds of offline and online bumping along, side by side. Companies quite happily conduct online marketing campaigns where traditional physical print advertising, brochures and handouts are made available to download from a printed website address or from an email marketing newsletter link.
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When Tweet Comes To Shove, One Size Doesn’t Fit All!

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“ Tweet everybody, Like everything, Share every thought”, seems to be the mindset of newly socially-minded businesses. Some site owners think it’s the latest way to get to be Google No.1 and so they insist on everyone in sales and marketing keeps blasting the messages out there!

So not really an integrated social media policy then! More an old fashioned mass advertising campaign. The problem lies with perception and increasingly, it is seen that Twitter is attempting to transform itself into a more business-oriented channel. The recognition of ‘social signals’ by Google adds another layer of site credibility and relevance. The unveiling by Google of their own +1 channel for the sharing of relevant found sites underlines the growing importance of search and social to future online marketing.
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No Email Reply Is Why You Fail On Your Social Side!

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New customer? Hello, can I help? Looking to buy now? Will get back to you straightaway! Despite today’s fast search and social world, it’s still old school rules for customer service! For all other enquiries … press five and wait to die before you get a reply!

So, how many times do you have to call or email before getting a response to your enquiry? Perhaps, they’re too busy being social on Twitter or updating their company Facebook page! According to a new customer service study of 100 websites across a wide eCommerce sector, not only did less than half of businesses correctly answer questions asked by email, over a half didn’t bother to acknowledge receipt of an email and nearly a third gave no response at all!
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Lose The Intrusive And Be Inclusive When Email Marketing!

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Intrusion leads to exclusion! In search and social world. Intrusive marketing tends to dally around the edges of the opt-in email newsletter, opening the door to direct email alerts and messages via social sites. Purchased third party lists are still the backbone of email marketing campaigns for nearly half of all businesses. Why be ‘transparent’ when you can ‘push’ a little harder in the old fashioned way?

Throw enough at it and something will stick! A time-honoured principle in email marketing, which amazingly, still underpins the thinking behind many a company mailout. “Send to as many as we can” is the usual command given out at the weekly sales meetings. In the age of relationship marketing, sending and receiving any message is permission-based. Emails landing in unknown intrays unannounced produce the same response as when being on the receiving end of call centre telemarketing on a Tuesday evening after seven!
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Will Mobile Apps Lap Mobile Web?

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Smartphones are on the move – mobiles are taking over the planet! “Two for every human being alive”, is the usual kind of stat we hear daily! With mo’ bile for your buck and channels to use, what’s best now for direct marketing – mobile web or app?

Or is that the wrong question to ask? As consumer online access, engagement and purchasing increasingly migrates to mobile, the vexed question for eCommerce seems to be a straight choice between mCommerce and mobile app! On today’s search and social web, it should always be about choosing any number of relevant channels and platforms, integrated with a social media policy for a specific online marketing campaign.
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Segment SMEs For Search And Social Ease.

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The world is no longer niche – it’s segmented! One size does not fit all in the age of personalised search and social, online. The granular breakdown to reach specific target group individuals is key to engagement with many of today’s SMEs. Adopting the right channels can make the vital connection – so where do you start the conversation?

Traditionally, a significant B2B marketplace, current rough estimates suggest that today, there’s some two million small to medium businesses who employ 60 per cent of the private sector workforce producing a staggering 50 per cent of the UK’s GDP. Not a small niche then, but absolutely, a rich seam for potential online marketing campaigns for both straightforward eCommerce and infrastructure partnering.
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Email Sails Further Up Mobile Channels!

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Email is alive and well and thriving on all platforms! As if we didn’t know. Included on smartphones and tablets, its’ successful migration from desktop to mobile users on the move has seen phenomenal growth and data galore. So it’s time to find out the right time to send the right message to be read.

According to a new survey of email platforms and subscribers, over 80 per cent phenomenal growth in mobile usage has been seen, adding to the traditional desktop and webmail – as opposed to early forecasts of being swept away by emerging social media messaging sites. In fact, the rise of mCommerce and tablet browsing is re-energising email marketing potential across the developing platforms.
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SME Marketing Strategies Survey Reveals Same Old Same Old!

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According to a new survey of UK small businesses, nearly two thirds have no current set marketing budget, yet over two thirds understand the need to invest in their website as opposed to print marketing and some 10 per cent only would consider social media due to lack of time and resources. Sound familiar?

It’s the same old, same old! Where have these business owners been while the online marketing terrain has been dramatically shifting in recent years? It appears that many are just now waking up to the realities of the web as they see the diminishing returns of just physical print advertising by itself.
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Awareness Websites Convert By Problem Insights!

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Converting site visitors to fulfil one or more of its’ objectives is where the different elements of your traffic driving strategies can come together at the centre of new and repeat lead generation. On today’s social networking web, where endless connections can open up more channels across new platforms, it’s very much a case of more roads lead to Rome, so it’s crucial to maximise site staying power on every page!

Time to open up your prospective customer’s eyes! The essence of online marketing is to create intrigue in the mind of your ‘possibly interested’ target niche audience. But interested just enough to click onto a link from an item of content placed out there in the form of a blog post, tweet, Facebook update, video, email marketing newsletter, a site / forum comment or customer review.
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Customer Support Expects More From Email Disconnects!

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The endless taking of the email marketing pulse to discover if this veteran messaging organ is “ dead or alive” received another batch of adrenalin-enhancing stats this week with the announcement by an European survey that “ emailing reach is generally up to 40% higher than reported by mail programmes”. Yet, a different study, investigating certain types of online services also reported that “almost half of all email enquires went unanswered”.

The first study suggests that while newsletters do get clicked and ‘non-openers’ read emails, nearly a third of email opener clicks were not measured as a result of a type of email service provider (ESP) software, called a “tracking pixel”.
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Why You Must Reply To Your Followers Hue And Cry!

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Savvy site owners are getting pretty keen on getting those nifty Twitter and Facebook buttons onto their home pages these days! Thing is of course, having them and using them, properly, can often be two different things! A Tweet today is not a sale tomorrow! Especially, if as recent findings show, you’re one of the overwhelming majority of web businesses who neither bother to follow back or reply to comments.

So what’s the point of going social with your online marketing if you’re not actually engaging with those who were interested enough in your tweet, Facebook update, blog or video to take time out to retweet or leave a comment? According to a recent survey of UK online retailers, very little, as the findings show only around a quarter are bothering to respond on Twitter, even less on Facebook and none at all on YouTube or a site blog!
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