A talk for Leeds Metropolitan Business School. 1st November 2012

1. Best Practices in
Digital marketing
For Leeds Metropolitan University
November 1st 2012
Dr Dave Chaffey
CEO: SmartInsights.com
Download presentation:
SmartInsights.com/leedsmet/
1

2. About Dave Chaffey
 Books  Online advice and consulting
www.smartinsights.com
 Qualifications and training
www.theidm.com
 Insights Director
www.clickthrough-marketing.com
2

3. Why are best practices needed?
 Consumer engagement is tough
 Fierce competition across each of PRACE
 To avoid this….
3

4. Ling’s Cars
Ling’s Cars 4

5. This month (Feb 2012) so far, I have sold 18 Merc C-
Class (to chose a significant car). That is a £30k car.
Payments will typically be more than £12,000 of payment
commitment over 3-years. Try converting and getting an
order for £12,000 from a website! Therefore I have to try
harder than most websites...
Yes, many people will take one look, or make one visit
and leave, never to come back. Many people complain
about retina burn etc. But, so what?
I *HAVE* to polarise visitors, and get them to choose
to stay or go. It's no good being average, no one would
commit to £12k of payments over 3 years if I was
average. So the argument that I get drop-off is very valid.
Source: Ling’s cars and the art of persuading visitors to buy
5

6. What is “best practice”
for digital marketing?
 A process?
 A technique?
 A mindset?
Need?
 Framework
 Capability review
 The right resources
6

7. Q. Have we benchmarked our
digital marketing capabilities?
http://bit.ly/smarthealthcheck
7

8. Where does “best practice”
originate?
 Opinion
 Beware the gurus!
 Experience
 Relevant case studies
 Testing
 Using analytics
 Research
 What sample
size/frame, sector?
8

9.  PLAN:
 Insight
 Journey
analysis
 Targeting
 OVP
9

10. 10

11. What happens if there
is no digital plan?





11

12. Harnessing insight
http://bit.ly/smartbenchmarking
12

13. Group common search behaviours
NOT keyword LISTS:
Need: treatment/surgery
Concerns: risks/costs
<Need> + <Qualifiers>
Google Agency Toolkit
13

14. Use on/offline personas
14

15. 15

16. Customer journey analysis
Transaction Interaction Reach
layer layer layer
Example:
Sneakerpedia
16
Source Nate Elliot, Analyst at Forrester Research

17. Use Google Analytics MCF
to understand true value
Measuring assists in Google Analytics
Google’s new social reports
17 1
7

18. Understanding
multichannel journeys
Smart Insights: ROPO summary of Google case
18

19. Consistent OVP through customer journeys
19

20.  REACH
 Mix
 SEO
 Viral
20

21. 21

22. A balanced traffic mix?
Source: Google 2010 22

23. Is ethical SEO “best practice”?
 Dark Inky Black Hat SEO: So evil he’s a typosquatter installing spyware. Plain illegal, too.
 Charcoal Hat SEO: Optimizes really unrelated pages for all kinds of queries, but within the bounds of
legality.
 Dark Gray Hat SEO: This SEO is e.g. a splogger stealing content from other sites. (What, that’s better than
charcoal?)
 Slate Gray Hat SEO: An SEO creating link farms and such.
 Gray Hat SEO: An SEO who actually reads the search engine’s webmaster guidelines, but then tries as
much “evil” as she can get away with.
 Light Gray Hat SEO: This SEO creates original content (lots of it), but the content is still only aimed at
search engines.
 Off-White Hat SEO: This guy not only ensures the site is indexable – he’ll also make sure to get lots of
backlinks from friends.
 White Hat SEO: This person puts up the content that people are actually searching for, and prepares the
site to make it very accessible. White Hat SEOs only optimize those of their pages they deem worthy to be
ranking top in search engines.
 Luminescent Pearly White Hat SEO: Not only does this SEO do everything the White Hat SEO does, the
LPW Hat SEO also makes sure pages will not show up for irrelevant queries.
23

24. A case in point…
24

25. Google+ matters (to SEO)
25

26.  ACT
 Content
marketing
 UX
26

27. 27

28. TEFL Taster example
28
Smart Insights Explainer example

29. Example of an integrated
29
social media campaign

30. 30

31. Source: Jakob Nielsen useit.com
31

32. Persistent UX myth 1:
3 click rule
Source: UIE
32

33. Persistent UX myth 2:
Make the home page scrollable
Source: CX Partners
33

34. Source: CX Partners
34

35. Persistent UX myth 3:
The home page is most important
to get right / optimise
In 2003, 39 percent of the page views for a large research website
were for the homepage. By 2009, it was down to 19 percent. In
one month in 2008, of the 70,000 page views a technology site
received, 22,000 were for the homepage. For the same month in
2010, of the 120,000 page views the site received, only 2,500
were for the homepage.
Another technology website had roughly 10 percent of page views
for the homepage in 2008, and by 2010 it was down to 5 percent.
One of the largest websites in the world had 25 percent of visitors
come to the homepage in 2005, but in 2010 only has 10 percent.
Gerry McGovern: The Decline of the homepage
35

36. Effective home page examples
36

37.  CONVERT
 CRO
37

38. Mobile and social are sexy, and important for the future. But today
98% of your revenue comes from Email, Affiliate, Display, Search.
At least 50% of your attention / love / obsession should be to
continuously get good at 98% of your revenue.
You'll likely survive longer. : )
Will you get the balance right?
Investment in CRO?
38

39. 39

40. 40

41. How we encourage conversion...
50% Student
Discount
Available
41

42.  ENGAGE
 Customer
comms
 Social
media
 Mobile
marketing
42

43. 43

44. Parasuraman,A.;Berry,Leonard L.;Zeithaml,Valarie A.,
“A Conceptual Model of Service Quality and Its Implications for Future Research”,
Journal of Marketing, 1985, 49, 4, 41-50.
44

45. Ask “Why” as well as “what” - use feedback tools Key
Point
iPerceptions http://www.4qsurvey.com
“Bad web site. Difficult to
find item as no search box
provided for short cut”
“I can't find any prices on
your website”
“Would like to see where I
can buy products from” .
Satisfaction : Intent tools
http://bit.ly/smartfeedback
45

46. www.whatusersdo.com 46

47. Gaining site and business innovation
ideas through Uservoice
Tools: http://bit.ly/smartfeedback
47

48. Source: Dan Zarrella
48

49. Your email marketing capability?
Presented by Grant Baillie of Argos at 2008 Email marketing conference, with permission
49

50. Test version A Test version B
Send Volume: 10,000 Send Volume: 10,000 Main Broadcast
Sample criteria: Random Sample criteria: Random Send Volume: 180,000
Click through rate: 6.1% Click through rate: 4.5% Click through rate: 5.8%
Source:
50

51. Templates that work in the inbox –
beware image blocking
51

52. The ? growth of mobile
52

53. Source: Craig Sullivan (Belron/Autoglass)53

54. Mobile best practice?
Source: Mobile marketing 2015
54

55. Conclusions?
 You can run an online business by best practice alone,
but… to make the most of opportunities you need…
 A digital marketing strategy
 To analyse and test, test, test what works in your sector
 Be relentless!
55

56. Let’s Connect!
Questions & discussion welcome
SmartInsights.com/leedsmet/
 Blog
uk.linkedin.com/in/davechaffey
www.smartinsights.com/blog
 Feeds
www.feedburner.com/smartinsi
www.facebook.com/davechaffey
ghts
 Email Newsletter
www.smartinsights.com
www.twitter.com/DaveChaffey
56