When in house professionals are slaving away on their digital marketing RFP, a lot of the same preconceptions come up time and time again.

For example:

• A shiny new website will attract more customers
• Build a forum and we will get lots of users
• Lots of community members = sales
• High search engine position = high sales
• Increased website traffic converts to more profits
• PPC is a cheaper alternative to SEO
• I need to buy more data

People believe they know what the key to success and sales is, and they’re quite genuinely looking for help to make it happen.  However, too often, digital agencies will nod along and promise to fulfil needs without asking that most important question: Why? What are you trying to achieve?

When someone requests a full shiny website overhaul or decides they want a community as part of their site, any responsible consultant should be scrutinising these factors and analysing whether this is really the best advice.  But this isn’t always the way and as a result, quotes can vary wildly and cause comparisons which really aren’t apples for apples. Getting under the skin of what’s actually required is exactly the kind of commitment that should be top of the list when considering your provider – the experts role is to educate and inform, not to take requests at face value without providing value of experience. It’s the right thing to do and it makes business sense for everyone – the more accurate the brief, the happier and more successful the client.

While a lot of this input can be dispensed early on in the process, to really do the issue justice, scoping sessions are often the best way to truly immerse yourself in the problem, objectives and requirements – there really is no replacement for this in depth understanding.

In half a day or so, you can look at past, present and future, considering what has worked and what doesn’t and what the needs of the business really are.  By this point, those preconceptions we mentioned earlier are a distant memory and what dominates is the real task at hand and how to get the results required.

With all this in hand, ROI can’t help but come along sooner rather than later.  If you want to find out more about how we go about this and have us challenge a few of your preconceptions, contact us, we’d love to hear from you.

You can check out more about our scoping session service here.

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Have you ever wondered what people actually do on your website? Or how to find ways in which you can improve your online conversion rate?

Well using Google analytics is one thing. Understanding how to ask it meaningful questions and knowing how to find the answers in your reports, is another.

That’s why I  have put together this totally practical course of interactive webinars for marketers who want to get more from Google Analytics.

Over 6 weeks starting on the 1^st September I will be providing a weekly webinar which makes it easy to understand how to use Google Analytics effectively – whatever your level of experience.

Each webinar includes clear examples, demonstrations and step by step instructions.

By the end of each webinar you’ll be able to test, measure and make worthwhile changes to your website that will give you immediate results. Maybe your site is getting enough traffic so search engine optimisation is the answer, or maybe your retention rate isn’t very good so email marketing could help, or maybe your site just isn’t converting so improving your website design would turn your online sales around. Attending this course will let you find what your problem is and provide the solutions to fix it.

Together and individually, these totally practical webinars will teach you in clear no-nonsense terms how to use Google Analytics to empower you to:

• Understand what’s really happening on your website
• Increase your website traffic
• Reduce page and webform abandonment
• Improve your onsite conversion rates
• Increase the ROI of your online marketing

The webinars will be held every Wednesday at 11am from 1st September. Each class  lasts 40 minutes followed by 20 mins for questions and answers.

Don’t miss out – book now

Good news for all in the the business of marketing – the latest IPA/BDO Bellweather report and survey (published Jan 18) shows growing optimism and budgets amongst marketers.

The report shows that whilst overall UK marketing spend fell in the final 3 months of 2009, of 300 marketeers polled, most expect their 2010 marketing budgets to increase on last year.

The same survey shows spend on internet advertising rising for the second quarter running and direct marketing budgets including email marketing, increasing for the first time since early 2007.

Track your return – grow your budget

With direct and digital marketing leading the recovery, now is the time for all us digital marketeers to make doubly sure we are effectively tracking the return on our digital marketing activities.

Once you can prove in a compelling way exactly whats working and put a value on that success then you have the ammunition you need to get more budget.

Here’s my advise on the 5 basic review steps to follow now, to ensure you’re getting the most from your digital marketing ROI tracking:

• Define which metrics are true indicators of success for your business
• Ensure you have the best way to accurately measure each of these key metrics
• Bench mark your metrics against previous years and where possible against those of your competitors, other divisions, and/or the market you are in
• Plot and understand your customers’ journey so you can calculate the value of each action resulting from your digital  marketing activity
• Once you know the direct contribution of your email campaigns to your sales revenue , calculate the value of a permissioned email address to your business. This will help you drive investment in growing that database.

Thanks to my pals in the team of internet marketing consultants at our sister company, dotAgency, for their inspiration for this blog.

By Cliff Guy

A recent report indicates that organisations who sell online are among the most confident about the immediate outlook, despite the gloomy economic climate.

More than 75% of those surveyed in eBay’s Online Business Index plan to expand or diversify this year. The index monitors the mood of companies who sell online, and found that 64% of those trading on the internet were upbeat about their performance this year.

More than half the companies surveyed expect rising sales and an additional 30% expect sales at least to remain stable. Just one in 4 has revised down their revenue targets for the year.

The resilience of the online market as the channel of preference for consumers in harder times, and the cost-effective nature of online and email marketing are proving powerful drivers for businesses who invest their resources in the digital arena.

Source: Metro.co.uk

By Tink Taylor

Not even a trespasser on the train tracks could stop dotMailer’s Inside Knowledge seminar at the IAB last Friday – an event which saw over 60 email marketeers join myself, Simon Bird, Skip Fidura and Anita White for an afternoon of email and digital thought leadership.

Mainly concentrating on email, attendees went on a whirlwind afternoon through the dotMailer platform, real life examples from retailers studied within our Hitting the Mark email benchmarking report, onto optimising your website and ending with a thought provoking half hour from our newest Strategy Director Skip Fidura on Email in a Web 2.0 World.

Throughout his presentation, Skip hammered home the fact that email is the gateway to customer’s digital lives. Consumers want to be listened to and offered flexibility and choice in the way they receive communications. This means as marketer’s we need to work smarter to ensure we meet their new and changing needs.

Is Email dead in a Web 2.0 world? A resounding no was answered, it just needs some careful thought and an integrated strategy.

By Donna McNicholas

Last week dotMailer held our first Inside Knowledge seminar at our Manchester offices. Businesses from far and wide came to learn how they can increase their online presence and effectively target their customers, prospects etc with email and digital marketing. Most of the 60 attendees were from the North West but a few travelled from as far south as Kent – so a big thank you to all who attended.

We kicked off with a demonstration of our dotMailer Enterprise platform. With over 20 new features added in the past month including behavioural segmentation and geo mapping there was lots of new features to interest even our oldest and most email savvy customers.

Our Client Services Director, Tink Taylor did a lively yet informative presentation on our Hitting the Mark report, looking at the email practice of the high street and showing our guests just how they can take lessons from the retailers to change their own email marketing to deliver real and tangible results. The feedback and buzz from this presentation was echoed throughout the festive drinks and mince pies that were served during the networking after the seminar closed.

Simon Bird’s session on driving traffic to your site and then converting the sales completed the day and the cycle that many online visitors experience. Helpful and practical tips were shared on how to quickly increase your Google rankings by following simple SEO tips and tricks.

The event from start to finish was great and I’m looking forward to further events throughout 2009.