At our recent Data, Analytics & Insight Leaders Masterclass, which took place on Tuesday 5th June 2018 in Manchester at the Museum of Science and Industry, many of the North’s biggest brands and agencies came together to share their thinking and generate discussion on the key trends and issues that are shaping the data, analytics and insight landscape.
The half-day event, which was the 11th in our popular Marketing Masterclass Series, kicked-off with an opening by Paul Morris (Official Master of Ceremonies) and former Global Digital Director at PZ Cussons and was followed a keynote presentation by icelolly.com’s Gemma Needham and Reema Vadoliya.
In their session, Gemma and Reema shared with delegates icelolly’s journey from a basic analytics setup to implementing a dynamic and customisable system and how this advanced data analytics infrastructure had enabled icelolly to use rich data to best identify marketing opportunities.
Following the keynote, delegates took part in a series of engaging roundtable sessions, which were led by our various industry leaders from Go Inspire, Search Laboratory, The Data Shed, Boxclever, Adthena and Acrotrend – all addressing the current and future hot issues within the area of data, analytics & insight.
The attendance on the day set a new ‘Series Record’ with 65 senior clientside delegates taking part in the masterclass. We were also delighted to achieve a Positive Delegate Experience Rating of 90% in the post-event survey, which demonstrated the excellent value the event delivered on the day.
Delegates on the day included: William Hill, Iceland, ao.com, Boohoo, N Brown Group, BookingGo, MBNA, Shop Direct, Matalan, Pets at Home, Virgin Trains, Asda, Bupa, AutoTrader, Motors.co.uk, Gymshark, Betfred, Jet2 and many more of the North’s finest.
We’ve added a selection of the delegate reviews from the day, with a detailed view of all our reviews here.
“The Masterclasses are always inspiring. I head back to work buzzing with fresh ideas – both from the speakers and fellow attendees.” (MBNA)
“Fantastic session this morning at #DATAMANC18 thanks to really well put together event. Genuinely insightful round tables with speakers offering excellent knowledge share and no sales pitches.” (Virgin Trains)
“A productive morning discussing everything data; an excellent opportunity to gain insight and understanding into the data challenges that every company faces and how they strive to resolve them.” (Jet2)
“I thoroughly enjoyed the masterclass, in a marketing world that is becoming more data driven I felt it gave me some real insight into the methods, tools and skill sets available and I came away with some very interesting ideas on tackling challenges I face in my role.” (Betfred)
“I really enjoyed my first masterclass experience. The round-table format worked well thanks to the quality and openness of the delegate and I returned to my business with some fresh perspectives and frameworks as to how data and insight could be used to drive growth.” (Motors.co.uk)
“Marketing Masterclass Series events are truly the best event that you will find in the North of England. The format, delegate interaction and actionable takeaways is unrivalled. If you have never been to a Marketing Masterclass Series event – then try one, you won’t regret it.” (Traidcraft)
We’d like to thank all our delegates and industry partners for supporting the masterclass. The event was produced by the Marketing Masterclass Series in association with Go Inspire, Search Laboratory, The Data Shed, Boxclever, Adthena, Acrotrend, icelolly.com and Forward Role Recruitment.
We’re thrilled to announce that holiday comparison provider icelolly.com will take center stage at June’s Data, Analytics & Insight Leaders Masterclass in Manchester by delivering the official keynote presentation.
The presentation by Gemma Needham and Reema Vadoliya will provide delegates with a real-life case study and will highlight icelolly’s journey from a basic analytics setup to implementing a dynamic and customisable system and how this advanced data analytics infrastructure has enabled icelolly to use rich data to best identify opportunities for their customers.
The event, which is the 11th in the Marketing Masterclass Series, will also see former PZ Cusson’s Global Digital Director Paul Morris act as the Official Master of Ceremonies.
The #DATAMANC18 masterclass will be held in the Gattatt Suite at the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester on Tuesday 5th June 2018.
With many of the UK’s biggest brands already confirmed to attend #DATAMANC18, delegates will have full access to a unique learning experience through a series of engaging roundtable sessions that will explore the key challenges and opportunities in how brands can harness powerful consumer and audience data to drive marketing performance and campaign success.
The Data, Analytics & Insight Leaders Masterclass is produced by Marketing Masterclass Series in association with Acrotrend, Boxclever, The Data Shed, Search Laboratory, Adthena, Go Inspire and Forward Role Recruitment.
At our recent Digital Content Leaders Masterclass, which took place on 16th January at the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester, many of the UK’s biggest brands and agencies came together to share their thinking and experience on the state of play within the content marketing landscape.
The half-day event, which was the tenth in the popular Marketing Masterclass Series, opened-up with the official keynote by Tunafish Media’s Sam Jones, who shared with delegates his thoughts and experience on Creating Social Content for Brand and Personal Engagement.
The session looked at how marketers and brands can effectively create content and manage their online channels successfully to raise brand awareness and drive greater levels of online engagement.
Following the keynote, delegates took part in a series of engaging roundtable sessions, which were led by our industry leaders from Wavemaker, Harvest Digital, Digitaloft, TMC Strategic Communications, Search Laboratory and Bring Digital – all addressing the current and future hot issues within content marketing.
The masterclass was attending by a record number of delegates, and we’re delighted that the post-event survey ALSO revealed our highest delegate satisfaction score, which was based on the overall learning experience.
Delegates on the day included: PZ Cussons, Kelloggs, ao.com, Sky Betting & Gaming, Missguided, N Brown Group, SCS Sofas, TravelSupermarket, Rentalcars, Virgin Money, Shop Direct, The Co-op, Matalan, Pets at Home, Plusnet, Bupa, npower and many more of the North’s finest. We’ve added a few of our delegate reviews below, and also included the official showreel.
“Very interactive sessions. Good mix of experiences around the table from delegates who were able to pitch in with experience sharing from different sectors.” Head of Content at Autotrader
“The Digital Content Leaders masterclass gives content and marketing professionals the opportunity to network, share knowledge, opportunities and challenges in an ever evolving digital landscape. The event helped me look at content creation from different perspectives and helped me understand what the industry should anticipate in the future with new innovations and trends. It’s also a great way to meet like-minded people in a relaxed setting.” Senior Content Manager at ao.com
“Great bite-sized sessions to gather ideas.” Head of Digital Development at Silentnight Group
We’d like to thank all our delegates and industry partners for supporting the masterclass. The event was produced by the Marketing Masterclass Series in association with Wavemaker, Harvest Digital, TMC Strategic Communications, Digitaloft, Search Laboratory, Bring Digital, theEword, Tunafish Media and Forward Role Recruitment.
We’ll be announcing details very soon about our next event, so please follow all our social channels to stay up-to-date with all the latest developments.
In today’s guest post, theEword’s Michael Palmer takes a closer look at the rise of influencer marketing, and why more brands are switching their focus to this channel.
A brief look at Google Trends quickly reveals that the internet’s interest in the term ‘influencer marketing’ has been steadily growing for as long as Google Trends can remember. At the same time, companies are allocating more and more of their budgets to influencers. Two thirds of marketing professionals state they are very content with their current blogger campaigns (according to a study by eMarketer). It’s no doubt then that ‘influencer marketing’ isn’t just a buzzword, but a real force to be reckoned with.
As per TapInfluence’s definition:
‘Influencer marketing is a type of marketing that focuses on using key leaders to drive your brand’s message to the larger market. Rather than marketing directly to a large group of consumers, you instead inspire / hire / pay influencers to get out the word for you.’
Eric Enge from Moz further clarifies that it is ‘the process of developing relationships with influential people that can lead to their assisting you in creating visibility for your product or service.’
So now that we’ve established what influencer marketing is (and that it’s big news), let’s talk about how it can benefit your business.
Why you should consider influencer marketing
It pays off
Even if you focus on multiple KPIs, at the end of the day, it is still money that talks. And influencer marketing’s voice is pretty sweet: a recent case study by TapInfluence and Nielsen Catalina Solutions found that influencer marketing achieves 11 times more ROI than alternative digital marketing methods.
If that doesn’t impress you, wait for it – ROI from bloggers’ endorsements grows with time, as there’s always new people finding your influencer and going through their older content. Unlike other ad types that end when the campaign ends, the returns from your influencer campaign could double after 3 months even with no new investment.
It fills in the gaps
All marketing methods have their perks and disadvantages. Influencer marketing allows you to look at where the other tools are lacking and fill in those gaps:
Digital Advertising
Paid banner ads and promoted social posts are a great thing but not all customers are that keen on seeing them in their browsers at all times and resort to ad-blocking software. Having a blogger promote your brand, however, makes sure that the now native content is seen by the right people, at the right time (especially if you’ve followed the steps mentioned below).
Content Marketing
Are you creating great content that unfortunately doesn’t reach its full potential? Maybe you have chosen a wrong platform, haven’t timed things correctly or focused on the wrong audience… Sometimes it is just pure bad luck. On the other hand, a social influencer will have a regular following; so it’s pretty safe to expect that your message will get the exposure that it deserves.
Traditional PR
Traditional PR approach can be highly unpredictable – the press might get your intended message wrong or simply not pick up your story.. The good news is, there are no such worries with influencer marketing.
As the influencers are not only the medium, but also the publisher, this means, providing you are working with a professional influencer, brands will enjoy a lot more control over how their messages are told.
It adds authenticity
As Gabrielle Archambault, Senior Manager of eos explains:
‘Influencers not only amplify your brand reach on social, they add an element of authenticity to your message. Though consumers can love brands, they have been trained to be somewhat skeptical of them and the content/message they distribute.
‘Content and messaging created by influencers isn’t yet held to that level of scrutiny and is seen as more organic, even when ‘#ad’ or ‘#sponsored’ is included.
‘As a brand, it’s one thing to tell consumers “I’m cool”, it’s significantly more powerful to have a person that a consumer admires say that your brand is cool.’
To put some numbers to this: according to Social Media Explorer, 92% customers are more likely to trust an individual (let’s say an influencer) over a brand.
It brings engagement
While having a solid ROI will make all of your company happy, influencer marketing will satisfy even more of your (marketing) needs. A successful influencer campaign will raise brand awareness, resulting in more website visits, newsletter subscriptions, social following… So you’ll see all of your stats on the incline. Tempting, right?
Furthermore (and as mentioned above), you will have earned points in the eyes of your audience, because what’s better than being endorsed by someone they follow and look up to?
I like the sound of this. What do I do?
Step One: Research
As with any marketing strategy, you need to have your target audience mapped out – what they like, where do they hang out online, what content they consume.
Step Two: Choose well
Picking an influencer is not as easy as it may sound; obviously they need to match your brand, but you should also be trying to tick the following boxes:
Is their following big enough to effectively share your message?
Will they reach a big enough portion of your target audience?
Do they have a regular readership returning to their blogs?
Are they successful in attracting engagement?
If in doubt, use social tools such as Buzzsumo or Follerwonk to see where they stand.
Step Three: Make yourself seen
Influencers get a lot of emails from brands wanting to work with them. If they don’t have the time or don’t think it would be the right fit for them, they simply won’t reply.
Try impressing your chosen influencer by making them feel special before ‘the approach’ – give them attention by sharing their content, RT them, sign up for their newsletter, invite them to feature in your own content… Make sure they know of your existence so that when your proposal email finally arrives, they’re intrigued. Or alternatively, work with a digital agency that already has good relationships with a number of influencers.
Step Four: Know what counts as success
Although influencer marketing differs from other marketing methods, one thing remains the same – you need to know what you want to get out of it and what you’ll call a successful campaign. Is it brand awareness you’re after? Or are you looking to increase your web traffic and social following? Make sure to mention it all in the brief with your influencer. Only KPIs that have been set up well will be able to tell you if your campaign has been successful, or what you need to improve on in the future.
Step Five: Determine your strategy
Once you know what you’re trying to gain from the campaign, figuring out what form your content should take will be a breeze. Will a blog post do? Or would a podcast and a social competition do the trick?
Assuming you’ve already picked your influencer, you probably have an idea what sort of content they do, are good at, and you like. Now it’s time to combine your ideas with theirs. But don’t worry – that doesn’t mean you have to give up control! What we usually do is brief the influencer on our goals, how we would like the message portrayed and any other specific requirements (for example what hashtag to use) and see what they bring to the table. After all, their creative sparkle is there to make your campaign shine.
Step Six: Don’t forget about FTC
Even though it might be tempting, don’t fall down the trap of pretending you haven’t paid for an endorsement when you have. There are rules set out by the FTC and not following them could not only cause you a hefty fine, but also seriously harm your brand image.
In most cases, including #ad in the post is sufficient to demonstrate that the influencer has received a compensation in some shape or form. If it’s video we’re talking about, the influencer must mention the brand’s involvement, within a specific timeframe and also include this information in the video’s description. Although the influencer will probably know what they need to do, it’s better to always check for yourself to ensure the content doesn’t get taken down for a breach of rules. What’s more – their audience will appreciate the honesty and be actually interested in what the influencer likes and decided to endorse.
When it works, it works
It’s not all talk and no action; this recipe has been tried and tested many a time. For example, Essential Living’s ‘Love London’ 2016 campaign showcasing the benefits of living in London has smashed all KPIs across the board.
The campaign asked bloggers and social media influencers living in London what they love about the city, with their input ranging from the buzzing fashion and music scenes to the limitless opportunities London offered for their careers. Their contributions (with the nod back to the amazing apartments on offer, of course) were put in front of the eyes of those who matter – the target demographic of Essential Living.
So, what do you think? Could influencer marketing help you grow your own business? If you’re tempted but feel like you could use some guidance, why not give a digital agency a ring? TheEword are a lifestyle and leisure agency based in Manchester specialising in content marketing. The ‘Love London’ campaign is one of their many success stories; could the next one be yours?
Michael Palmer is Head of Marketing at theEword – a lifestyle and leisure agency that connects brands with the right audience for their products or services through integrated marketing campaigns.
After the successful launch of last year’s Content Leaders Masterclass, we’re returning to Manchester with our 2nd edition Digital Content Leaders Masterclass, which will take place on Tuesday 16th January 2018.
Our industry leaders will explore the critical importance of content and its strategic link in building brand awareness, online visibility, engagament, trust, loyalty and customer acquisition in an ever-changing digital and social age.
We’ll be adding further details very soon, so please keep checking the site or follow all our updates on social, to ensure you’re fully up-to-date. The event in association with Forward Role will be the 10th masterclass in the series.
As part of our build-up to next week’s Paid & Biddable Leaders Masterclass in Leeds, Epiphany’s Arianne Donoghue examines the area of campaign tracking, and how marketers can use cross-channel data to maximise their results.
One of the biggest challenges in marketing in recent years has been around tracking the value and efficacy of our campaigns. I believe that our focus on last-click conversions could be significantly damaging our marketing, but not in the way you think. This isn’t about attribution, after all.
As someone who’s worked in paid media for over a decade, I know that one of its biggest attractions is measurability – the way we know exactly what return we generate and can optimise to further increase it. However, one of the biggest flaws is the focus on last-click – which we know can lead to more of a focus on bottom-of-the-funnel activity, rather than looking at the top of the funnel and the initial interactions that customers make. We see this at a basic level in the performance of brand vs non-brand keywords and the sometimes poorly perceived value of Display campaigns.
While last-click and attribution are definitely part of the problem here, I’d like to suggest that our quest for ROI can also make things worse in some instances. Let me explain.
The Wrong KPIs
Let’s say that you’re running a Display Prospecting campaign. That sits pretty squarely in the top of the marketing funnel – most likely in the Awareness/Research stages.
Ultimately, what is the goal of a prospecting campaign? Eventually, we want it to drive sales/revenue, but this can take a long time – sometimes well beyond the scope of a regular 30 or 90-day cookie window. This is complicated further by the need for robust impression tracking in Analytics to understand when a sale has been driven.
However, if we really think about it, the goal of the campaign, particularly in the short to medium-term, is to find new users who are unfamiliar with your brand and bring them to the website for the very first time. Once this is done, you could argue that prospecting has done its job and it’s now over to Retargeting and Paid Search to get that user to the point of conversion. Yet, rather than assess this campaign’s success on how many new visitors it drove, we use the KPI of our end-goal conversion.
Not Enough Conversions
Another instance where the approach can cause problems is in optimising Paid Search campaigns. Often, marketers may be trying to optimise their paid search campaigns without enough conversion data to make reliable bidding decisions.
This issue is more prevalent with non-brand keywords, which are less likely to drive last-click sales anyway. It doesn’t mean the keywords are adding no value – in fact, we know that if we paused these terms, we’d probably be losing conversions further down the line.
The Solution
How do we fix this? I believe the solution is to have a greater focus on micro conversions when it’s appropriate to do so.
What are micro conversions?
“Micro conversions are activities that users frequently engage in before purchasing. Sites commonly have several kinds of micro conversions, e.g. email sign-up, created account, PDF download, extensive site browsing”
The value of micro conversions is also something Avinash Kaushik wrote about extensively almost ten years ago – I highly recommend reading this blog post he wrote on the subject.
Avinash believes, as do I, that looking at micro conversions in addition to macro ones allows us to better understand the behaviour of the distinct personas who use your site; it forces you to look at more of the multi-channel picture. When we ignore them, we’re saying that we don’t value the users who spend significant time on our websites, or those who signed up to receive emails, or even those who went to the trouble of creating an account. Just because they’re not ready to buy right now, it doesn’t mean they never will and we should look after and value these users.
Of course, with some of our marketing efforts we can create remarketing lists that specifically target these users to help bring them to the point of finally converting. But the credit for those macro conversions would go to the later activity – as it arguably should do, as the job of those channels is to drive conversion. But we would still be undervaluing the activity that drove the micro conversions because we just don’t value them as highly.
Attribution
I know I said this post wasn’t about attribution and it’s not – mostly. Thankfully the increased use of attribution and data-driven models, in particular, is helping to address this issue. Data-driven attribution looks at all of the micro conversions and assigns macro conversion value based on the part that every interaction played across the whole journey.
Still a challenge, however, is the fact that few businesses are set up to use data-driven attribution to help shape their use of channels and budgets. Analytics and Attribution solutions that offer impression tracking can be expensive and not all solutions offer a data-driven model to work with. What can you do if that’s the case?
Firstly, ensure you have goals set up to track your micro conversions and assign a value to these. Report on them as well as your macro conversions and consider using traffic and brand awareness increase as KPIs for certain types of Display and other upper-funnel activities. In the vast majority of businesses, most customers won’t convert on their very first interaction with a new brand – so our measurement and reporting should reflect that.
With more and more businesses understanding the need to look at the whole customer journey, I believe this approach enables us to better judge the success of our marketing campaigns, and the impact they have, at the right point of the customer journey in the right way.
Having started off her digital career client side over a decade ago, Arianne has worked for both agencies and brands in-house, specialising in search. She is now back agency side supporting on biddable media digital strategy. A regular on the conference scene, she’s also an editor and contributor at popular site State of Digital.
Arianne Donoghue is the Paid Media Development Manager at Epiphany, and will be leading a session on ‘Using Cross Channel Data to Help Your Campaigns Work Harder’ at next week’s Paid & Biddable Leaders Masterclass in Leeds.
With just 3-weeks to go until the Paid & Biddable Leaders Masterclass kicks-off in Leeds at Royal Armouries Museum, we’re delighted to confirm that Loud Mouth Media’s Founder & Managing Director – Mark Haslam, will deliver our keynote talk.
In his keynote presentation ‘Beyond the Click: Creating Lifetime Value with Digital Advertising’, Mark will discuss the strategy he recommends to go beyond the click in digital advertising. From creating the perfect audience to capitalising on website visitors, he’ll be revealing the latest in digital advertising innovations.
Delegates can also expect an action-packed agenda on the day with a series of engaging roundtable sessions delivered by industry leaders – Epiphany, Journey Further, Crafted, Adthena, Home Agency and Search Laboratory.
Full programme details for #PBLEEDS17 can be found here or you can view our official event brochure below.
We’re delighted to welcome on-board our latest batch of delegates – Jet2, Sky Betting & Gaming, First Direct, npower, Leeds Building Society, Irwin Mitchell, Damart, Plusnet, Sykes Cottages and Cotton Traders, who’ve confirmed their attendance for our upcoming Paid & Biddable Leaders Masterclass, which is the 9th event in the Marketing Masterclass Series.
The masterclass in association with Epiphany, Journey Further, Adthena, Home Agency, Crafted, Search Laboratory and JV Recruitment will take place in the stunning Wellington Suite at Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds on Tuesday 5th September 2017.
Session Highlights Include:
Delivering truly integrated biddable campaigns with better ROI
Overcoming the key challenges brands face with integrated biddable campaigns
Unlocking the power of paid social
How to measure paid social campaigns effectively
Biddable media for the moments that matter: Delivering the most relevant message, to the right person, in the right place – at the right time
Our industry leaders will share their latest thinking on the critical issues and trends that are shaping the ‘Paid Search, Biddable Media and Social Advertising’ landscape through a series of engaging roundtable sessions. We’ll also be announcing some exciting news in the coming week in regards to our keynote talk!
We only have a limited number of delegate seats remaining for the masterclass, so, if you’d like to join us, please register and secure your seat here.
If you’d like to join us at the Paid & Biddable Leaders Masterclass in Leeds on Tuesday 5th September 2017, registration is now officially open.
After successfully launching the last five events in Manchester, we’ve decided to return to Leeds for our next masterclass – so that we can continue to expand our geographical reach and make the roundtable-based events as accessible as possible.
We’ll be adding further details in regards to the venue, agenda and industry leaders very soon.
The event in association with Epiphany, Journey Further, Home Agency, Search Laboratory, Adthena and JV Recruitment will be the 9th masterclass in the rapidly growing series.
We’re just 2-weeks away from the Data & Insight Leaders Masterclass in Manchester, and with a fine selection of the industry’s leading thinkers in attendance – It promises to be an action-packed experience.
The masterclass, which will be held in the Walters Suite at the 5-Star Radisson Blu Edwardian, will kick-off with a keynote presentation by The Fragrance Shop’s Customer Marketing Director – Nicola Travis.
Keynote Details…
Using data for competitive edge has become increasingly complex with a wealth of providers, options, channels, challenges and more and more data in our organizations. How do we start wading through the data lake, stay afloat and focus on progress without sinking?
Nicola will discuss three areas of data and insight with a focus on potential solutions for some of the challenges faced in retail today. This session will put the challenges in context and look at ways to win with cross-channel customers, the loyalty landscape and the key measures involved. Using examples from today’s retailers, Nicola will discuss the use of analytics in the business for strong CRM.
The Big Issues…
Once Nicola’s presentation is finished, delegates will be able to enjoy a series of engaging roundtable sessions which will examine some of the industry’s key issues including: Joined-up data, single customer view, attribution analysis, smarter targeting strategies and driving data & insight performance.
The masterclass in association with Home, Search Laboratory, Aquila Insight, GI Insight, Greenlight, Black Swan Data, Whitecap Consulting and JV Recruitment is the 8th in the Marketing Masterclass Series.
The attendance on the day set a new ‘Series Record’ with 65 senior clientside delegates taking part in the masterclass. We were also delighted to achieve a Positive Delegate Experience Rating of 90% in the post-event survey, which demonstrated the excellent value the event delivered on the day.
