Blog

7 Marketing problems that Analytics can Solve

Analytics are a vital part of digital marketing. Digital marketing by it’s very nature, produces data., and all almost all digital marketing platforms and tools have some form of digital analytics built in or if not, there are third party tools that can be used to measure and analyse the data. Indeed only this week, Twitter launched their own generic analytics tool, allowing for users to see who is actually viewing tweets.  Additional social media management platforms such as Hootsuite, Buffer and other social media platforms also have varying degrees of complexities within their own platform that can provide valuable analysis from the data they produce. But what most people don’t know is this data when put together can provide valuable information in delivering solutions to some of marketing’s most common problems

8 Free SEO Hacks You Can Do Yourself

SEO or search engine optimization can be expensive. Most consultants worth their salt ( as opposed to the dodgy ones from India with their spammy emails) will pay anywhere from $1000 - $4000 per month depending on the size and cope and your business and site. And most will want you to commit to a 6 - 12 month service package. Often there is no guarantee of success, and it can be difficult to know if that investment is providing you with a return. Which is not to say there is not value in investing in SEO. A good SEO professional will be a valuable asset not just to your website and Search engine ranking but to your overall marketing team. But if budget is tight and you still want to make an impact on your site ranking and overall online reputation,  there are a few free hacks you can do yourself with some small(ish) investment of time.

Data and Digital Marketing: What it is and Why you need to Pay Attention to It

Many of you may have noticed considerable focus on data lately.. Everyone it seems is talking about it. Our politicians, the business bloggers, the marketers, the cool kids, everyone.  But what is all the fuss about? Why do I need to know so much about my customers?  Why do I need to analyse to the nth degree who clicked on what link in what email I sent out last week.?

Now more than ever data is becoming an increasingly valuable commodity. Data when utilised correctly and aligned with your business and marketing objectives can be a powerful source of competitive advantage. But what is it really? And why is it sooo important?

How to Set Your Digital Marketing Budget

One of the questions I get asked the most from client is how much should I be spending on digital marketing?  How much should I allocate to the marketing budget and how should I decide what is going to provide me with the greatest return? The answer depends and varies widely depending on existing capabilities, the size and structure of your organisation, the environment in which you operate and most importantly, the individual objectives of your marketing strategy.

Back to School? Or Back to Average? Why Learning is Vital for Digital Marketing Success.

As I gingerly step back into that routine and start formally  teaching at university myself, I’ve been reflecting on the concept of learning and why going “back to school” is important, whatever stage of life you’re at. Life is ( or should be) a constant process of learning. We learn from the people we interact with, we learn from media, the interwebs, and even from those we teach ourselves – be it s staff, students and clients . I don’t necessarily mean learning in a formal sense, but opportunities to learn something or gather new knowledge happen every day. As a business owner I am constantly learning, not least because I operate in a rapidly changing area of expertise, but I genuinely love acquiring new knowledge.

Marketing and Creativity: Made for each Other

In my last post, I talked about the similarities between organising a wedding and organising your marketing. As I mentioned, I recently got married myself, hence the inspiration for my last blog post , and still in the first flush of newlywed love, I’m thinking about other ways I can bring in lovey-dovey themes to serious academic topics. I’ll stop soon, I promise, but indulge me.. Creativity and marketing is one such area where two things are perfect for each other.  they go had in hand, their fates inextricably linked. Indeed marketing without creativity is doomed to failure, divorce and ruin. Creativity is marketing’s muse, it's touchstone and it’s true north. And while , it’s certainly true that creativity can and does exist and indeed thrive outside marketing – it feeds music, art, dance, literature and numerous creative pursuits, it is when these two come together that true magic happens.

10 Reasons Why Organising your marketing is like Organising a Wedding

Just over a week ago I got married. I decided over a year ago, that I would plan the wedding myself. I have considerable professional experience in event coordination and with limited options to have the flexibility to craft the experience I wanted in my hometown, I felt I was the best person to do it. The average cost of a wedding in Australia is $55,000. While mine is well under that, I’ve worked extremely hard to make it so. Lots of things I’ve done myself from painting candle holders with glitter to table settings to enlisting the help of friends to provide everything from production to music to set design. But it occurred to me as I reflect on the whirlwind of the last few weeks that there are a lot of similarities between marketing and planning a wedding.

My Story: 6 Months Without Social

When describing what digital marketing is to clients, i often describe it as a very cool way of telling your story. Indeed it is one of the coolest, in that it allows your story to be told, while allowing your customers, clients and citizens of the globe to retell it, to add to it and even to review it. But to date, I have been greatly remiss in not telling my story

Imagine There’s No Marketing

But as many businesses continue to cut back or cut it out altogether their investment in marketing investment, I’m beginning to think, well, what of it? What’s the worst that can happen?
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The truth is nothing. Really, at first you will probably notice little obvious impact on your business. Business activity will keep ticking over, sales will keep coming, and orders will keep being placed. The impact depends on your business, the environment in which you operate and a few other variables. The impact could be anywhere from nothing to a slow , horrible decline.

The fact is you can’t just stop doing marketing.

Using Your Website for Customer Creation

More than just an online billboard, websites are living, breathing entities that need to be fed regularly with interesting, engaging content, and optimised to encourage not only visitor traffic, but the right visitor traffic. They also need to be designed effectively so as to make this traffic take whatever action you’d like them to take when on your site. This will differ from site to site, and business to business, but could be signing up for a newsletter, buy something or share your content on their own social media site. Essentially you want your site to be vibrant and active, so your visitors will take action. This action is known in digital marketing world as conversion. And once your visitors take action, you can nurture their continued interaction and action to take more action and buy more of your products and or services. So how do you this?

Pricing Because You Can. Should You or Shouldnt you?

Is it OK to charge a premium simply because everyone else does? If you ‘ve reached your desired profit margin or cost plus value rationale is it OK to charge more simply because demand is high and that’s the norm in your industry, sector or region?  Is it greed? Or just good economics?

Comfort Zones. Is Digital Marketing Taking you out of Yours?

This week, I was provided with a challenge. This is not unusual in my line of work. Indeed as just about any business owner knows, almost every day in business throws up some sort of unique challenge form one direction or another. But this one really took me out of my comfort zone. And has made me reflect on the concept of comfort zones and the fact that as digital marketers, we are often asking our clients or bosses to take a step out of theirs, particularly if digital marketing is a new experience. 

Are You Missing Opportunities by Not Monitoring Web Analytics?

These days, most websites have some form of analytics program installed on them. While some have proprietary systems, the most popular and (I think ) the most comprehensive of course is Google Analytics. Whatever your system however, Analytics can provide a wealth of information on not only how your website is performing, but also can unlock goldmines of opportunity for developing new clients or customers or serving your existing ones better.

10 Reasons Why Your Email Lists are Not Growing

Email marketing can prove enormously successful in generating leads, driving brand awareness and engaging with your audiences. But, like any digital marketing activity it has done to be done right to work. One of the most common complaints I get from clients is that “people aren’t signing up to my e-newsletter?’ “or simply my email lists aren’t growing.” While there could be any of a number of reasons why this is the case,  here are a few that could be worth investigating.

Music in You: What Music can Teach us about Marketing

My  recent immersive musical weekend, made me think about the parallels between music and marketing and has joyfully provided me with the inspiration for this blog. It won’t necessarily provide you with answers, or help solve detailed business problems but it might just make you think.

User Experience ( UX) : Not Just for Websites

The more I learn about User Experience,  however, the more I realise it is not just about how users interact with websites, but how they interact with organisations as a  whole

How to Choose a Digital Marketing Consultant

Last week I talked about investing in digital marketing and the pros and cons of choosing an external digital consultant vs hiring in house. Once you have made the decision to invest and after careful evaluation, decided to utilise an external consultant or agency, it’s time to evaluate with whom you will work.

Internal Vs External : Getting Your Digital Marketing On

So you’ve established a need in your business for greater investment in  digital marketing, it’s time to assess how to fill that  need.

The True Cost of Digital Marketing

Earlier this week, I wrote a blog post about the why it is important to invest in your marketing, especially when times are tough. You can catch up on this here.
While it certainly is important to invest in your marketing and to continue to do so through both the good and the bad times, it’s often difficult to know just how much you should be investing and what the real cost of investing in marketing, particularly digital marketing is.

Why You Should Invest in Marketing When Times are tough

When times are tough, it is instinctive to cut back, reduce costs and introduce varying degrees of austerity measures. Often, marketing is one of the first casualties. Businesses large and small often make the mistake of cutting back their marketing, seeing it as a luxury and something that can be done without to help get through lean times. A strategy that is particularly fraught.

SEO vs PPC

SEO? PPC? What to do…..?
Where is best to invest those scarce marketing dollars? Should you avoid either altogether? For small businesses particularly, this can prove to be quite a vexing question.

Artistic Direction vs Audience Engagement

As an arts marketer of over 13 years, I’ve often struggled with (as do many of my colleagues)  developing marketing communications that both resonates with an audience, and meets the vision an artistic director (AD) has in mind for a product. Whether your organisation is an arts organisation or not, the same thing can occur when CEOs direct the development of communications that are based on their own ideas or agenda, with minimal consideration for the audience. As marketers, how do we achieve maximum audience engagement without creating conflict with our ADs/CEOs? How do you get on the same page?

How Does Your Engagement Grow?

Engagement is a critical aspect of digital marketing and I believe is vital for building a brand, an enterprise or any project with heart and soul. But how? How do you grow your engagement? How do you use the tools that digital marketing provides to grow your engagement with those whom you wish to engage the most. Here’s my ideas.

How Not to Care about your Customers

This morning, my mother-in law received a very distressing letter in the mail.  In this day and age, that in itself is surprising, but the contents of said letter provide the inspiration for this post.
She is currently going through the arduous and stressful process of selling her   family home and has engaged a local real estate agent to operate on her behalf. Today, she received a piece of paper with a poorly photocopied article from a real estate consultant about unethical behaviours of other RE agents. It was also accompanied by a customer satisfaction survey of no less than 10 pages, which they expected her to fill out and send back. ( no reply paid envelope)
And that was it. That was the only thing in the envelope

There was no letter personally addressed to her, explaining there reasons for sending the article, how it relates( or doesn’t ) to their agency , or anything else really, that was well, human. Oh, wait, the address on the envelope was hand written.

SEO: What it Is and What it isn’t

There is an enormous amount of misunderstanding out there about what SEO is and what it isn’t. Even amongst professional SEOs. It’s a discipline where myths abound and misconceptions are rife

Digital Strategy. Are You Doing It?

Hopefully, most of you by now are engaging in some level of digital marketing activities. Whether  it be maintaining a Facebook page , managing a Linked In account or delving into Twitter. Hopefully this is helping you build your online community , connect  and engage with new people, with your customers and learn new things about your industry. . But are you really using it to your full advantage. Are you seeing real results? A recent study by UK- based digital marketing agency e-consultancy, said that only 38% of organisations have a content marketing strategy. Content marketing is a vital part of digital marketing, and if you’e not doing it right, you could be wasting your time and valuable resources.

But how do you make sure you’re doing it right? How do you continue to position yourselves against your competitors and keep abreast of trends in your industry?

Once Upon a Brand.. The Importance of Storytelling to Your Brand.

From my earliest memories, as I child, I have always been fascinated by stories. Even as a baby, my parents read me bedtime stories , and when I learnt to read myself, it was as if a whole new universe had opened up to me. Stories are important to growing and developing minds, as they are equally important to growing and developing brands.

2012:Unpredictions in digital marketing

There has been a huge number of blog posts over the last few months about predictions of trends in digital marketing in 2012. Just about all of the blog superstars out there in digital marketing land have made forecasts and predictions about what will be the hottest trends for 2012, all hoping to be the one to pick "it".  

Something Old, Something New:  Marrying Traditional and Digital Marketing

I often get many questions  from clients about how to integrate traditional marketing with digital marketing communications or in other words how to integrate online with offline. There has been extensive debate recently among marketers regarding whether it even should be integrated with many making dramatic proclamations that traditional marketing is dead, dying or at least in slow decline. A brief look at the history of marketing might suggest otherwise...

The Marketing of Ideas

A few months ago, I was fortunate enough to attend the first ever, Tedx conference in Darwin, Northern Territory. If you’ve never been to a TedX conference, (this was my first) its whole premise is about ideas worth spreading. People from all walks of life, - health education, business, the arts and more  presented new ideas about working within their area of expertise or just things they had learned from their myriad life experiences . While it was certainly interesting, it got me thinking about the “so what?” of the conference, many great ideas were presented from health to art, to sustainability to little ways to improve our lives, but I wondered what happens next?

Size doesn’t matter. How important are regional social media statistics?

There’s been a lot of talk recently in my neck of the woods ( the small town of Darwin In Australia’s Top End pop. approx 127,000) , regarding social media statistics. Gathering accurate population data from regional towns has always been a challenge, particularly in a town with such a cosmopolitan and transient population as Darwin. For those not familiar with it is a smallish town, with a large proportion of its population working in the defence and primary industry sectors. This, coupled with somewhat extreme (albeit beautiful and exciting) fluctuations in seasonal climate provide for a fairly transient population.When it comes to measuring social media usage in regional areas, particular in a town such as Darwin, the challenges are significant. Because of its transient nature and the short amount of time spent in Darwin by many of its residents, a lot of users don’t identify themselves on social channels as residents of Darwin, thus getting accurate counts of social media usage is very difficult.

What is digital marketing and what is it doing in my boardroom?

Welcome to the first ever blog post for new Darwin- based digital agency iSpry. Please come back and visit, we’ll be posting regularly and sharing our knowledge on the digital marketing revolution and answering hopefully many of those questions that you always wanted to know but were afraid to ask.