By Anthony Lambrianos – Week 12 – s3668693 – Digital Marketing

Todays Blog is going to focus on a few ways to track your digital marketing progress. According to Jon Simpson from the Forbes Council, this is more formally known as marketing analytics, which are measurements of marketing efforts and successes, often requiring the collection of data on buyers experiences with the business and actual marketing actions of the business. This data can be found through many various routes which we will focus on more through out the blog. Having the ability to gather this data, aggregate and calculate it, allows businesses to gain insight into what exactly is successful, what needs improvement and the obvious returns on your digital marketing methods.

The first way to get an idea of how your digital marketing is going, is by looking at the overall website traffic. Generally most digital marketing efforts look to drive consumers towards your website. According to Sonia Gregory regular monitoring of the websites traffic gives you a number of insights such as which campaigns are working and when. Another way to check Digital marketing progress is by looking at traffic by source. Essentially this allows you to see exactly where you visitors are coming from, it can be used to see which sources are working and which ones require improvement, allowing you to narrow down spending of money and time. The four main sources tracked by Google Analytics are as follows:

• Organic Search – They clicked on a link provided by a search engine that brought them to your website.
• Direct Visitors – They typed your URL directly into the search bar or have it bookmarked.
• Referrals – They were sent to your website when the clicked on a link provided by a different website.
• Social – They came to your website via social media.

Another method of tracking Digital marketing efforts is Ad Network Conversion Tracking. All ad networks, including Google AdWords, Facebook Ads, Bing Ads, etc. allow you to activate and use conversion tracking. According to Kate Lombardo this is imperative as it allows to view how effective your campaign is in sections like phone calls, website purchases, newsletter sign-ups, app downloads and various other things.

Overall, there are way more tracking methods, however, after completing all of those its important to participate in Key Performance Indicator (KPI) tracking. Any point of data that gives you possible insight into the performance of your marketing can be considered a key performance indicator. KPI tracking allows you to record all the data from your tracking methods and put them into a list, whereby you can use the list to gauge the effectiveness of your digital marketing efforts.

With digital marketing its clear that there are many ways to track progress, often built into the different methods used to make progress. Personally, as a digital marketer I feel that the importance of tracking your progress/success is imperative to ensuring you meet your objectives and doing so in an efficient manor whereby you are not wasting resources on the wrong marketing efforts but rather using them where they are needed most to gain the most benefit. I appreciate you all reading my Week 12 blog, and would love to hear your thoughts on the various tracking methods and whether you feel its important to use them.

Kind regards, Anthony Lambrianos – s3668693 – Week 12 – Digital Marketing Blog

By Anthony Lambrianos – S3668693 – Week 10 – Digital Marketing Blog

Firstly we look at what is Opt-in Email Marketing, Opt-in email is a term used when someone is given the option to receive email. Typically, this is some sort of mailing list, newsletter, or advertising. Without obtaining permission before sending email, the email is unsolicited bulk email, better known as spam. So its important to have Opt-in for Email Marketing to work.

According to Kait Westbrook, there are three major reasons you need all new subscribers to Opt-in. The first reason is because you are able to build effective lists, you need people to actually Opt-in so that you can insure that you don’t alienate potential customers, by Opting in you know they actually would like you hear from you and thus you preserve the image of the brand. The second reason is because you want to avoid blacklisting, which is being added to the domain name system blacklist (DNSBL), which generally happens because of overly aggressive attempts at list building by the brand. If you get added to a black list you are essentially losing more and more customers, so its imperative for the brand to avoid this. The third reason for Opt-in is to avoid breaking the law by not following the CAN-SPAM act and General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) laws. This generally only affects brands within the European Union and United States, however, its still important to make sure you are not breaching these as according to Kait Westbrook the penalties reach up to $41,484 per spam email. According to Industry ACMA even within Australia sending spam mail is prohibited by the Australian Spam Act of 2003.

As for my readers and fellow digital markers please comment below as I’d like to know whether you think Opt-in requests from brands is annoying or you think its a good way to market their products? Personally I feel as though its too much, I prefer to go looking for something if I need it, then have stuff I don’t want force fed to me via email. Most of the time in my eyes I dislike the brand more when they send me many emails. Finally, thanks for stopping by this weeks blog, I appreciate all readers, please feel free to comment below.

Kind Regards, Anthony Lambrianos – s3668693 – Digital Marketing – Week 10

By Anthony Lambrianos – s3668693 – Digital Marketing Blog – Week 9

Firstly lets classify what Search Engine Optimization (SEO) really is, according to Moz an official SEO learning centre, SEO can be understood as the process of maximizing the number of visitors to a particular website by ensuring that the site appears high on the list of results returned by a search engine.

Now we look at some reasons why Search Engine Optimization is so beneficial. The first reason is that an optimized website often receives more traffic and this means that more consumers are visiting your site, the more consumers that visit the more likely you are to make a sale. Its also important as having an optimized site can help you to build your brand, and according to Crazyegg.com SEO and Branding often involve similar steps.

Another reason for using SEO is to build trust and credibility among your consumers. Essentially the goal of any SEO strategy is to create a strong foundation for a website that is clean, effective for users and their experience and that is easily discoverable in searching, all of this due to the brand and its digital properties. Strong Search Engine Optimization means a better user experience, and according to Sam Hollingsworth, Google has learnt how to interpret a more favourable or unfavourable user experience, and having a very strong and enjoyable user experience is a imperative for a websites success.

All though there are many more benefits the final one we will speak about is the cost efficiency of Search Engine Optimization. Sam Hollingsworth states that of-course it costs money, but all great things do. SEO is considered relatively cheap for its payoff will often be considerable in the sense that brand benefit and bottom line will increase. Its better to consider this an business investment rather then a marketing cost as strong SEO implementation will be of use for many years and will only improve as more and more businesses use it.

Finally, I would like to conclude by saying that I as a digital marketer feel that without making use of Search Engine Optimization the business is holding itself back as there is many benefits to be gained from participating in SEO. I would also like to thank you for reading my Blog this week and ask as fellow Digital Marketers to comment below if you feel that the benefits of SEO far out way the cost and if not tell me why.

Kind regards, Anthony Lambrianos, S3668693, Week 9, Digital Marketing.

By Anthony Lambrianos – s3668693 – Digital Marketing – Week 8

Today’s Blog is going to focus on what Big Data is and how digital marketers use it in achieving personalised experiences for consumers. According to SAS Big Data Professionals, big data describes a large volume of data that can be both structured and unstructured, which often floods the business daily. When it comes to big data the most important thing is how a company makes use of it as big data can be analyzed to discover trends, patterns, and more that may lead to improved strategic decisions that will benefit the business.

According to Baiju NT 90% of the worlds data has been created in the last two years, and most companies only analyze about 12% of the data they gather. With this marketers are able to take this data, analyze it and make decisions on a multitude of things. For example, Cookie files generate data on the search history of consumers and allows digital marketers to find out exactly what the consumers want. Essentially Big data takes the guessing out of the process of finding out what customers want.

Big data also allows marketers to display the correct web content and adds by tapping into the data base and finding what content is more engaging and attractive for each customer, for example how Netflix displays programs they think you might like based off of what you have watched in the past – Jas Saran 2018

Depending on who is using the website will determine what the website looks like, although this can be a difficult process for digital marketers to achieve, its an increasing demand amongst consumers for more personalised experiences. According to Jas Saran 2018, if digital marketing teams cant achieve this, then they cannot help their organisation, and without being able to create personalised experiences for customers the organisation will not be able to keep up with those who can and will lose consumers.

Personalized experiences often lead to increases in loyalty, impulse purchases, revenue and fewer product returns – Shep Hyken 2017

So my Question to the blog readers and my fellow digital marketers is do you believe that having personalised experiences as a consumer is important and that the value for an organisation to participate in Big data and providing personalised experiences using this data is imperative in todays market? Personally I do believe it is, as having an experience that is tailored for you is always more enjoyable and practical and makes it easier for me to spend my money then when I have to spend longer searching through stuff I’m not interested in.

Thank you for reading my Week 8 Digital Marketing blog, feel free to comment and have a discussion with me, I look forward to seeing you next week!

Kind Regards, Anthony Lambrianos

By Anthony Lambrianos – s3668693 – Digital Marketing Week 7

Mobile Marketing is becoming more and more important for brands going forward, the reason for this is because the actual use of mobile phones has increased substantially. Statistics for 2019 shown by 99firms states that 80% of internet users own a smart phone and Statista states that 52.2% of worldwide website traffic is through mobile devices. This shows us that the use of mobile phones by consumers is increasing at an alarming rate and opens up huge opportunities for marketers to engage with consumers and push their product and service.

Source: Smart Insights

The ability to connect with consumers has become easier then ever for a business, with 80% of consumers being likely to read a message sent to their mobile within the first 5 minutes of getting it. In the current path of technology and the fact that approximately 5.13 Billion people have mobile phones which equates to 66.53% of the worlds population, its evident that mobile marketing is one of the biggest opportunity’s for organisations to reach consumers world wide.

Over 80% of US consumers state that SMS marketing was a positive and helpful part of the consumer experience, showing us that consumers are willing to receive this type of marketing and that it should be used in future marketing campaigns. However, the fact that consumers are accepting of this method of marketing means that the experience itself must be created in such a way that it is pleasant and positively affects consumer experience, instead of becoming aggravating or a disturbance to consumers. This is just one aspect of mobile marketing. Marketers can use APPs, QR codes, Mobile Search Banners and Adds, Location based marketing and more.

Mobile devices are used for over 40% of online transactions and increasing more every year. This shows us that sales can be increased by providing a mobile platform/gateway to your product/service. The reason for the increases in purchases is the fact that being able to conduct these transactions via mobile is easy, it requires less time and effort, it can be done while on the go even if your busy, and it caters for ‘spur’ of the moment purchases (as you don’t have to be at the store to buy it).

Although mobile marketing is considered an opportunity, there are some aspects that must be up to standard for it to work. 91% of users say that the content must be up to standard, 60% of users want fast loading webpages – this is important because a delay by 1 second in webpage response can reduce conversions by 7%. Apps take up to 89% of mobile media time, showing the necessity for creating or being involved in APPs. These are all aspects that the Marketers should take into account when approaching this method of marketing.

Overall as a marketer myself I feel that the use of Mobile Marketing is an absolute must. The ability to provide a good customer experience as well as reach a huge consumer base so easily and cost effectively is a great opportunity for any business/organisation. However, I feel like a lot of care should go into it to ensure its positive experience for the customer instead of an irritation, as a bad experience could lead to the loss of customers or missing out on repeat purchases. Thank you for reading my blog this week and id like to hear how you feel in the comments about mobile marketing and whether you feel it maybe a positive or negative experience for the consumer.

Dear readers, this weeks blog is going to focus on the importance of social media when trying to achieve ‘Word of Mouth'(WOM) marketing and which social media platform inspires the most ‘Word of Mouth’.

So firstly lets take a look at the definition of WOM, it means the passing of information from one person to another vocally, however, this has changed overtime becoming more effective via online resources and social apps/medias. With this current trend studies show that people feel that WOM marketing is more effective then traditional marketing, and that the use of social media to interact with consumers and possible future consumers is a very important marketing technique. https://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/state-womm-word-mouth-trumps-traditional-marketing-slideshare

Word of Mouth has a large effect on business behaviour as seen by the follwing stats: 91% of Business to Business buyers are influenced by word-of-mouth when making their buying decisions. 83% of consumers say they either completely or somewhat trust recommendations from family, colleagues, and friends about products and services – making these recommendations the highest ranked source for trustworthiness.[Nielsen]With 68% of people trusting online opinions from other consumers, which places online opinions as the third most trusted source of product information. 88% of people trust online reviews written by other consumers as much as they trust recommendations from personal contacts. This shows the immense importance and value of Word of Mouth marketing.

Word of Mouth is more likely to occur when exposure is on a wider scale, the more people who see the product or add, means the better chance someone speaks about it to someone else, thus making WOM marketing effective. With this in mind we take a look at some stats on usage and digital reach that our most common social media platforms have, in order to make a decision on which would be the best platform. https://www.statista.com/statistics/579334/most-popular-us-social-networking-apps-ranked-by-reach/

Now seeing these statistics most people would choose Facebook for its large amount of exposure to possible consumers, however, when selecting a social media its important to look at your target audience, because the users of each social media generally have more specific users. For example Facebook is best known for having a well rounded age group that includes our older generations, however Instagram and Snapchat are much better when targeting a younger age gap of people between the ages 8-40. So lets say your trying to market a new line of video games, your best option would be to market on Instagram or Snapchat as your target market would be the younger generations that play games the most. An example of this would be the fantasy movie Rampage staring Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson and Kong featuring Tom Hiddleston both used Snapchat to marketing their films, by introducing filters with the date of movie release and an interesting theme relating to the movie. This is beneficial cause you are reaching your target market using a platform and method is more likely to create WOM then any typical TV ad. If we were to take an overall choice on what social media platforms general day to day companies should market it on in order to achieve the move WOM, it would have to be a combination of Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.

Overall I would like to know what you readers feel about Word of Mouth marketing and if other peoples opinions influence your purchasing. I would also like to know what social media platforms you think would be most beneficial in WOM marketing. Thank you so much for reading this weeks blog and see you next week <3.

By Anthony Lambrianos – S3668693 – Digital Marketing