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Technical abilities overriding core skills in marketing recruitment…
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Core marketing capabilities such as copywriting, project management and analytical skills are often overlooked by industry employers, new research from Hays suggests.

83 per cent of the 300 respondents surveyed agree core skills hold more importance in the sector compared to technical skills, despite the ‘Elements of a marketer’ report concluding that too much deliberation is placed on the technical abilities of each recruitment.

Clare Kemsley, managing director at Hays said: “Core skills are vital to all marketers and without them, technical abilities cannot be used to their full potential. Marketing leaders need to consider the ideal mix of skills, within their teams and within themselves, in order to be able to capitalise on the ever-evolving digital world. 

“When looking for new roles, candidates should focus on highlighting their core skills and ‘fit’ with the organisation in order to increase their value, and earning potential, with future employers.”

Individuals in middle management positions were found to have the most significant skills gaps, as 21 per cent admit to struggling with strategic thinking and 14 per cent on analytical skills. 

Some employers did, however, indicate they would be willing to pay higher salaries for candidates who hold a strong balance of technical abilities and core skills.

Request a copy of the report here

‘Wasteful meetings and excessive emails’ hindering productive marketing tasks…
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UK marketers are increasingly spending large portions of their working day focused on activities outside of their productive duties, a new Workfront study claims.

Wasteful meetings (64 per cent), excessive emails (62 per cent) and excessive oversight were found to be the top three indicators that ‘got in the way’ of completing necessary tasks. In addition, the enterprise work management solutions provider found that over a quarter (27 per cent) would best describe their feelings about attending meetings with negative emojis.

Joe Staples, chief marketing officer at Workfront said: “Meetings and email are a necessary part of today’s workplace. Unfortunately, they are often misused; decreasing, rather than increasing, productivity. The good news is there are better ways to manage work.

“By implementing a solution like Workfront, marketers are able to collaborate in the context of work, and gain complete visibility into the work that is being done. This eliminates the need for unnecessary status meetings, and lengthy email threads and gives teams time back to be more productive. It’s really about providing the tools that allow businesses to focus on the right work, create their best work, and deliver that work faster than ever before.”

The ‘2016 UK Marketing State of Work Report’ collected data on other key factors of a marketer’s typical work pattern, including:

  • 57 per cent take 30 minutes or less for lunch and 27 per cent take less than 15 minutes. 49 per cent claim to be too busy and 36 per cent prefer to work through their lunch hour.
  • 9 hours is the typical workweek for marketers, compared to their non-marketing counterparts who work an average of 40.6 hours per week.
  • 29 per cent said uninterrupted blocks of time would help them be more productive at work, followed by more efficient work processes (23 per cent), and more/better qualified people and resources (20 per cent).
  • 60 per cent believe the majority of workers will work remotely in the coming years.
  • 34 per cent of marketers agree that email will no longer be the main mode of communication in the next five years.

The full report can be accessed here

Marketers rely on data to manage client and agency relationships…
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A recent survey from the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) has revealed that more than 80 per cent of advertisers are using data as a tool to help them manage agency relationships.

ANA, in partnership with Decideware, explored the use of data in broad categories of the client/agency relationship, including: tracking of agency hours, agency performance evaluations, production costs, creative/copy testing and media efficiencies/budgets.

The survey of 92 ‘client-side marketers’ found 90 per cent see data as a way of improving agency efficiencies; 84 per cent believe the use of data will grow in their organisation; and 78 per cent state data improves internal efficiencies at a client’s organisation.

ANA Group EVP, Bill Duggan said: “Data helps build better relationships between the client and agency, helping both parties to focus on outcome. And at a time where there are transparency issues in the industry, the use of data enhances trust.”

Among the 37 performance metrics evaluated, media-related metrics account for seven of the 10 highest-rated metrics for importance, with delivery of total campaign audience goals, efficiency of media buys and media quality assessment rated the highest.

Guest Blog, Thomas Jeanjean: People-based marketing – the death of demographics…
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For years, demographic targeting was at the vanguard of advertising strategies. Thanks to the growth of online and digital channels, brands found themselves able to segment an audience by age, gender and other factors, introducing a new level of sophistication to targeting. But as digital and traditional channels evolve at an incredible pace, the race is on to understand customers better than ever before.

Demographics still play an important role in how businesses communicate with consumers – after all, if you don’t have access to basic information about your target audience, you’re definitely missing a trick. But they are no longer enough…

Today’s consumers expect a much more personalised approach, and brands that target solely by the fact that a shopper is, for example, a woman in her 40s, risk their advertising being irrelevant or, worse, coming across as clichéd or stereotypical.

Any brand, whether big or small, has complex and ever-changing audiences that consume and shop in a range of ways. Each specific audience segment needs to be acknowledged and addressed but one size no longer fits all. In an age of personalisation, predictive technology and real-time updates, it’s all about looking forward and understanding the needs and aspirations of customers both old and new.

At this time of year the stakes get higher. As we prepare for peak season – the period from Black Friday through to Boxing Day sales – competition for consumers’ attention becomes even more fierce. Advertising that doesn’t align to their shopping preferences and interests will likely be disregarded in favour of more engaging messages.

The gifting mindset

The holidays, and particularly Christmas, triggers a shift in consumer mindset. All of a sudden, people stop shopping exclusively for themselves and switch to a ‘gifting’ mind-set.

This shift makes marketing hard to predict, but retargeting campaigns allow businesses to tap into the seasonal trend. Only 2 per cent of people make a purchase on their first visit to a site; retargeting is a way to reach the 98 per cent who are still making their mind up. This allows retailers to react to actual shopper behaviour and offer ads based on what they know a consumer is interested in, rather than what they have deduced via demographic segmentation.

Mobile optimisation

Today the path to purchase involves multiple devices including tablets, personal desktops, work computers and, of course, the mobile phone. In this multi-screened world, mobile has become the ultimate platform for these ‘cross-device’ shoppers to complete their purchases. So much so that people who use multiple devices to shop are at least 20 per cent more likely than average to complete a transaction on mobile. Particulalry as Christmas shopping fever strikes, people will instinctively act through the closest, most convenient device to buy this year’s ‘must have’ gift.

Here in the UK, over 50 per cent of all eCommerce transactions now take place on mobile and a staggering 2.5 million of us are buying on mobile every day. But just because these transactions are taking place on mobile, it doesn’t mean that the consumer journey is confined to the small screen. Many marketers struggle to track and uniquely identify individual shoppers across devices and therefore can’t tailor their experience accordingly. Consumers view a brand’s websites, apps, and online ads as part of the same experience meaning that marketers need to implement an effective cross-device strategy to be able to meet customer expectations and to optimise advertising. The key to cross-device success lies in a people-centric, not demographic, strategy.

What all of this means is that a site not optimised for mobile represents a missed opportunity and could result in a loss of custom, as exasperated shoppers abandon baskets in search of smoother experience elsewhere

As a rule for businesses looking to implement an effective mobile site, the fewer clicks a consumer has to make between adding something to their basket and making a purchase, the better. For example, allow customers to check out as a guest or, if someone has to make an account, ask them for as few details as possible, in the first instance.

Get ahead of the game

Demographics should still be factored in to campaign planning, but should be approached as just one piece of a complex jigsaw. Individuals need to be viewed by marketers as more than just an age, gender or geography. But incorporating technology, like re-targeting and attribution modelling, that are based on behaviour rather than assumption means businesses can target the individual, and not the sum of their parts.

So forget demographics and start targeting people. They’re the ones buying products after all. For growing businesses in particular, every single person is an opportunity and these steps are the first along the path to eCommerce success this Christmas, and beyond.

 

Thomas Jeanjean is regional managing director of the MidMarket business at Criteo. Prior to this, Thomas served as managing director for France and Southern Europe at Criteo. Thomas has over seven years’ experience in performance marketing and a wealth of experience working with fast growing small to medium-sized businesses.

Industry Spotlight: How can marketers ensure that their brand is being displayed correctly on the high street?
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Luca Pagano, CEO of BeMyEye, discusses the need for marketers to find a cost-effective means of ensuring that retailers in brick and mortar stores are displaying their brand correctly.

In the digital age, it’s easy to forget that marketers face challenges offline, as well as online. When faced with decreasing budgets and difficulties justifying ROI to the c-suite, a common problem is proving that offline marketing materials are achieving what is intended. Marketers do not have the same visibility afforded to them when their brand appears in a physical store as they do in online environments. Ultimately, as soon as marketing materials leave the marketers hands, they go into a blind spot.

With the uncertainty of Brexit’s impact and falling store prices, marketers will have to work harder than ever to ensure consistent revenue streams and safeguard operational efficiency. The majority of sales for brands and retailers still take place offline and therefore marketers who supply brand products and materials to physical stores must be confident that their brand is being presented to consumers correctly.

 

Facing the challenge head on

The biggest challenge in ensuring this is the spread of location. Marketers cannot easily monitor how their products and marketing materials are being presented in thousands of physical stores. Normally, marketers would receive a sample snapshot of data providing an overview of their brands presence across a handful of stores, but how can marketers ensure that this is consistent everywhere to measure accurate compliance of promotional activation and ultimately ROI?

To achieve a census view, the brand needs to ‘see’ each individual store. However, up until now this has been a costly, lengthy and improbable task for sales teams to complete. Brands need the ability to check thousands of retailers for in-stock presence of their products, effective activation of marketing collateral and POP and compliance of price quickly and cost-effectively.

 

The role of crowdsourcing to ensure brand consistency

Mobile crowdsourcing and the gig economy have grown at rapid speeds in recent years and businesses are beginning to tap into its incredible power. Marketers can utilise hundreds of thousands of eyes on the ground who are ready to deliver detailed actionable insights about their brand. The crowd can deliver images of promotional activity, pricing and competitor positioning from any location, all in real time.

BeMyEye’s recent report ‘Eyeing up the cost of UK groceries’ is an example of this at work, revealing price differences for a basket of popular groceries across hundreds of retailers in the UK, collected over just 4 days. The crowd uncovered granular level details of branded goods, including that cans of coke are less likely to be stocked in two of the four big supermarkets than avocados, which highlights changes in distribution for Coca Cola in the UK.

The report also discovered interesting insights for marketers when looking at convenience shopping, which is a trend that could unseat leading retailers as consumers move towards ‘little and often’ shopping. For example, results from the report showcase that whilst supermarkets like Tesco remain the most cost-effective outlet for grocery basics like milk, eggs and bread, some other goods, such as avocados, can often be found for lower prices in off-licences.

 

Brands are already benefiting from the crowd

The data from the grocery report highlights that it is possible to gather actionable retail intelligence at scale, cost-effectively and in real-time, however utilising the crowd doesn’t just apply to the grocery sector, the data can be applied to any brand or retailer operating on the high street.

For example, the world’s largest cruise line company, MSC Cruises, uses BeMyEye’s crowd of eyes to analyse the presence of their marketing materials in its travel agency partners. The results amounted to a complete overhaul in the brand’s marketing strategy as 30 per cent of the travel agent partners weren’t displaying the materials correctly.

During uncertain times, marketers need an honest representation of how their marketing materials, promotional offers, and products are being presented and they can turn to mobile crowdsourcing to find this stability. A recent report from McKinsey showed the importance of insights for brands, stating that brands such as Phillips and TRESemmé are all driving growth by meeting consumer needs better than their competitors are. Brands who invest wisely in scaled data, analytics and real-time insights will often achieve up to 10 per cent sales increase, up to 5 per cent higher return on sales and a margin uplift of 1 to 2 per cent – something the c-suite cannot argue with when allocating marketing budgets.

Crowdsourcing and the gig economy have quickly become the fastest, most feasible, accurate and valuable means for marketers to gather granular insights about their products, pricing and promotional activity across every single offline touchpoints. Combating this blind spot will be fundamental for marketers to maximise their brand’s revenue streams in the uncertain post-Brexit retail landscape.

 

Luca is CEO of BeMyEye, Europe’s leader of mobile crowdsourcing for real world data gathering. Prior to BeMyEye, Luca was co-founder and CEO of Glamoo, Italy’s third largest player in the digital couponing space, acquired by Seat Pagine Gialle in 2014.

Prior to joining Glamoo, Luca was VP of Publishing EMEA at EA Mobile, where he spearheaded the growth of iconic brands like Fifa, Tetris and Need for Speed into the dominant titles of the App Store; from 2001 to 2009 Luca was Managing Director UK & International at Buongiorno, a global leader in mobile Value Added Services (VAS).

Forum Insight: Customer engagement methods to maintain strong relationships…
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Now more than ever, customer communication methods are becoming varied and diverse. Trade exhibitions, social media platforms, focus groups and surveys, personalised email campaigns – the list is endless. But which methods will prove to be the most effective for your business? Before investing too much time and effort into just one, think carefully about all available options, and ask your customers how they prefer to be contacted…
Keep track of emails: Make it your personal – and even company – goal to respond to all customer emails within a five minute time frame. Not only will it generate appreciative responses, people love fast and efficient customer service, and this level of service will lead to an abundance of recommendations and increased trade. Need more convincing? View Eptica’s ‘Email Management’ article here.

Be active on social media: By now you’re probably tired of the constant emphasis on regular social media use, but inevitably, one of the best ways to connect with customers is through social platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. The good thing about social media is there is no time schedule to follow – you can reach customers at any time of the day. Use your company’s Facebook fan page or Twitter account to engage your followers and keep conversations flowing. Nowadays, social media has been incorporated as a form of customer service, so make your platforms adaptable for staff members to handle customer questions and complaints. Read through Conversocial’s case studies for influential insight.

Answer the phone: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it! No matter what industry, a significant focus seems to be on new customer channel developments. But whatever happened to the traditional phone conversation? Whether you’re following up, apologising for something that went amiss, or wondering why you haven’t received an order in a while, there’s no better way to strengthen a customer relationship. According to eConsultancy, customers prefer assistance over the phone (61 per cent), followed by email (60 per cent); Live Chat (57 per cent); online knowledge base (51 per cent) and “click-to-call” support automation, (34 per cent).

Start a weekly blog: Why not create a weekly blog to keep your customers up-to-date? If you actively keep up a quality blog, not only will your customers read your blog, but they will respond to your blog. This creates a positive flow of communication and helps build customer loyalty. Find inspiration from these companies that have made blogging a ‘top priority’.

Conduct market research: Surveys allow businesses to identify customer needs. Once acknowledged, companies can steer their offerings towards filling these needs. Surveys are also a good tool to bring in prospective customers who are on the fence about a product/service, i.e. surveys can be used as a platform for prospective customers to voice their needs. Confused about whether to conduct quantitative or qualitative research? Learn more about the differences here.

CMOs ‘first in firing line’ if company targets are not met…
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The annual ‘The C-level Disruptive Growth Opportunity’ online research report from Accenture Strategy analysing the attitudes of 535 CEOs and 847 CMOs from organisations around the world has determined that, although an estimated five ‘C-level executives’ are usually held responsible for driving disruptive business growth, the majority (37 per cent) will place CMOs first in the firing line if growth targets are not met.

The results found that CEOs depict CMOs to be the ‘primary driver’ of disruptive growth (50 per cent), closely followed by chief strategy officers (49 per cent), and chief sales officers (38 per cent). The majority of CMOs (96 per cent) also recognise the importance of disruptive growth to revenue potential, and an additional 75 per cent believe they have a great deal of control over the disruptive growth levers in their company.

Senior managing director leading Advanced Customer Strategy at Accenture, Robert Wollan commented: “Organisations that rely on ‘growth by committee’ struggle to achieve their targets. It breeds a C-suite culture where everyone is responsible, yet no one is accountable – and onus unduly falls onto someone, usually the CMO.

“CMOs can take a greater role by actively driving the disruptive growth agenda and generating new value for the business. Such initiatives include developing ecosystems with non-traditional players, launching platforms that elevate current products into expanded service models for customers, and increasing revenue through next generation connected data monetisation – all of which CMOs are well positioned to do.”

The report did, however, acknowledge that many CMOs are not currently in a position to drive disruptive growth due to time and mind-set. Only 30 per cent of believe they are cutting-edge marketing innovators, and 37 per cent of their time is spent on innovation. Furthermore, 60 per cent claim to spend the majority of their time on ‘traditional marketing initiatives’, such as improving customer experience and maintaining brand image.

While evidently important, 54 per cent state a large portion of their marketing budget is being wasted and not delivering the results the business expects.
Download the full report here

Experian Marketing Services confirmed as MBF’s headline sponsor…
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Experian Marketing Services, a leading industry provider of data-driven marketing expertise and cloud-based technology, has been confirmed as the headline sponsor of the upcoming Marketing Business Forum (MBF), to be held on November 8 at the Grange Tower Bridge Hotel in London.

With more than 30 years’ experience using analytics, customer identify data and cross-channel marketing solutions for better data-informed decision making, Experian will benefit from full accessibility to pre-arranged one-on-one meetings with big-name delegates ooking to optimise their current strategies; as well as numerous networking opportunities in a relaxed setting.

Dan Bond, head of Marketing at Experian Marketing Services commented: “Experian’s expertise in data, and our powerful Marketing Suite, puts us in a unique position to solve today’s marketing challenges. At the Marketing Business Forum, we are looking forward to connecting with people and companies we can help. Events like this are a great way to share knowledge and build long-lasting business relationships.”

Craig Ross, event sales executive at the Marketing Business Forum said: “Experian Marketing Services are the perfect fit as headline sponsor due to their experience within the industry and the vast number of services they offer. With more than 90 delegates looking for a number of services from this year’s event, Experian have the capabilities to assist the majority of our attendees with their upcoming projects, making the event hugely beneficial to all involved.”

 

Learn more about Experian Marketing Services here

Mass reach and budget ‘matters now more than ever’…
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New research findings presented by Les Binet and Peter Field of the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA) at an ‘Effectiveness Week’ event on October 31 has refuted the misconception that, with the rise of owned and earned online media, marketers are beginning to question the need to spend money on paid media and mass reach.

Providing analysis of the IPA Databank and drawing on IPA TouchPoints data, the findings constitute the first part of a full report to be published in 2018, indicating that penetration is still three times more likely to be the main driver of growth and profit vs loyalty. As such, brands must focus on widening their customer base for which a broad reach of owned and earned communications – particularly paid media –  and subsequent budget, are crucial.

Research also found that brands utilising paid media will typically expand three times quicker than those relying solely on owned and earned media alone. Nonetheless, adding owned media to the equation can increase the effectiveness of a paid campaign by 13 per cent, and earned media by 26 per cent.

Furthermore, adding television increases effectiveness by 40 per cent, making it the most effective platform and it is also the best for generating top-line growth that drives profit, with a 2.6 per cent average market share point gained per year when using television advertising.

IPA director of Marketing Strategy, Janet Hull OBE said: “Here lies the proof that the digital transformation has helped make mass media work even harder. It also proves that while it is good to have earned and owned media, for top-line growth brands must invest in paid-for, mass reach.”

IPA claims the one reason why television advertising effectiveness has increased is due to video on demand and online video working in synergy with live television. The research shows a 54 per cent increase in the average number of very large business effects from adding television and online video together; versus 32 per cent for just television and 25 per cent just for online video.

The latest findings are a follow up to previous reports published by Binet and Field – Marketing in the Era of Accountability (2007) and The Long and the Short of it (2011) – confirming analysis portrayed in the 2011 study that the most profitable campaigns have a 60:40 ratio of long-term brand-building media (broad reach, highly emotive) and short-terms sales activation (tightly targeted and information rich).

Hootsuite partnerships to bridge the paid and organic gap…
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Considered to be the most widely used social media management platform, Hootsuite has announced its new partnerships with six leading technology and social advertising solution groups which, in turn, will allow users to complement their organic social media efforts with optimised social advertising campaigns.

The six partners are:

  1. Popimedia – a subsidiary of Publicis, and an Ad-Tech company that helps brands optimise spend, save time, and scale media on Facebook.
  2. AdEspresso – the best-in-class self-service solution for Facebook and Instagram advertising optimisation.
  3. Mediative – one of North America’s largest integrated digital marketing and media companies.
  4. Kenshoo – the global leader in agile marketing.
  5. Adaptly – a technology and services company that enables advertisers to scale campaigns across Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, and Pinterest.
  6. Nanigans – the leading provider of advertising automation software for in-house marketing teams.

According to the company, users will now have the flexibility to choose ‘best-of-breed’ technology and service solutions to help optimise and manage social advertising campaigns across all major social channels. In particular, integrations with Kenshoo, AdEspresso, and Popimedia will make it accessible for users to manage paid social campaigns and organic social channels all in one place, directly from the Hootsuite dashboard.

Senior vice president of Labs, Corporate and Business Development at Hootsuite, Matt Switzer said: “More than ever, brands are investing in paid social media advertising to complement their overall social initiatives and marketing campaigns. Hootsuite’s partnerships with these market-leading social ads solutions will help give our enterprise customers a cohesive and comprehensive view into their entire social strategy.”