Key Takeaways From Technology for Marketing

Last week, we attended Technology for Marketing at London Olympia and spent the day chatting to over 100 marketing technology providers and listening to strategic sessions taken by marketing professionals at industry giants like Google, Badoo and Jack’d.

Here’s our highlights and top takeaways from the day:

 

Realising Your True Email Potential

Email marketing can be a creative and cost-effective way to grow your brand and promote your products or services. It’s a great way to drive revenue and enhance and improve your customer experience – so why is it so often overlooked?

Danielle Woolley, from email marketing platform, Adestra, describes email marketing as ‘the Cinderella of digital marketing’. While it’s not got the shiny, new feel like that of AI or virtual reality marketing, chances are, it could well be a great solution for your business.

So what’s stopping you from taking email marketing to the ball? Is it:

• Integrating your data
• Growing and retaining subscribers
• A lack of focus
• Accurately measuring ROI

We agree with Danielle – email must be customer-centric, but goal focused. Though opens, clicks, click-throughs are all very promising, they are – essentially – vanity metrics. With that in mind, how should your business approach the above? More importantly, why should your recipients open YOUR promotional email, above all the others they have in their inbox?

Generate UK can help you with all of the above. Though email marketing is often thought of as a traditional marketing solution, we understand the lasting importance of email, in today’s digital world.

 

Data Challenges and Opportunities

Five months on from GDPR, everyone is still talking about data and data protection. Are the effects of GDPR still holding back your business’ marketing activities? Or have you seized the multiple opportunities that a more data-focussed world has brought to marketers?

Many people are dubious of the way that businesses are expected to collect, store and handle data in a post-GDPR world. Some are wondering, if we are all using data in the same way – won’t we all be driving the same results?

The short answer is no. The long answer? The Technology for Marketing panel largely agreed that data challenges are driving marketers to be more savvy, however, some advertisers – particularly in smaller businesses – still feel bewildered in the wake of GDPR.

Post-GDPR, innovative and creative marketing is even more important than it was before 25^th May 2018. The panel suggested – with particular regards to small start-ups and SMEs – that this is where agencies, like Generate UK, come in. One panellist went as far as to proclaim that, with the help of digital agencies, a ‘golden age of digital marketing is upon us’. This is because independent agencies can take a personal, hands-on approach to each client’s data, really getting to grips with it, in order to create bespoke data sets for each of your business’ campaigns.

 

The Secrets of Local Search

As a digital marketing agency in Berkshire, local search – or local SEO – has been a hot topic for us since it emerged in 2013.

Local search is a branch of SEO that targets customers in your business’ local area. It allows your business to promote your services to local customers in a more targeted format, for example, if people were to search ‘digital marketing agency Berkshire’.

Of all organic search engine queries, a huge 46% are related to a place or locality. This goes hand in hand with the fact that nearly 90% of people search using their smart phone; the combination of local and mobile search indicates that a prospect has high intent, with local search converting at 18% – around double that of non-local search terms. The chances are, people searching in this context want to find a product or service locally and they want to find it ASAP, for example ‘restaurants in Camden’ or ‘umbrellas Reading’. In line with this, Gen Zers and Millennials have low levels of brand loyalty  – modern customers don’t necessarily want to make repeat purposes, they just want it now.

Sounds great if you’re a hairdresser in Hemel Hempstead, or a plumber in Portsmouth – but what if you’re a national or international business – can you still utilise local SEO?

YES! After all, just because you’re a national or global company, that doesn’t mean you don’t want to encourage local customers.

The rise and rise of local SEO has meant that long tail keywords (longer phrases) are becoming ‘long long long tail’ keywords, all because people want specifics. For example, as well as locational differentiators, people searching on-the-go  frequently add adjectives such as ‘cheap’ or ‘easy’ to their search engine enquiries.

Meanwhile, even Google searches in hindsight are becoming more specific in some sectors, for example ‘best restaurants in Camden for couples’. These more specific and particular search engine enquiries have become more common with the rise of voice search which, again, incorporates that same immediacy and convenience.

 

Want to find out more about our top Technology for Marketing insights? We’d love to hear from you! Contact Us today, or browse our digital marketing services now.