Tag Archives: bbsdigmarket

Are companies respecting Digital Marketing manners/netiquette?

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A report by Gartner has found that digital marketing spend is predicted to increase 17% in 2015 showing just how popular it has become (Gartner, 2015). This blog will explore whether in some cases, companies are going too far with their digital marketing approach and will consumers find it intrusive?

I believe digital marketing should integrate seamlessly into consumer’s lives by understanding them and their behaviours.

Let’s take Dorothy Perkins for example.

I have received a marketing email from them every day for the last 6 days. After reading the first one, the subsequent emails got sent straight to the trash folder.

dorothy

They have tweeted 8 times within the space of 24 hours with content that doesn’t grab my attention and their Facebook page is no different.

The impact of this is that they’ve clogged up my timeline, newsfeed and inbox and I would definitely describe this as intrusive.

In contrast, let’s look at a success story, Asos. I receive fewer marketing emails but each one seems to have a purpose which encourages me to open it, read it, click through and sometimes purchase. Admittedly they do tweet a lot but this doesn’t interrupt my online activities as the content is interesting, includes media and is relevant to me, their target audience. An example:

asos

So what are the consequences of too much digital marketing? Academic research by (Smith, 2011) has found that messages that interrupt a consumer’s online activity may create ill feeling towards the brand. Although dated, more research by (Hairong, et al., 2002) shows that if consumers have feelings of irritation by a brands online presence this will limit the flow of positive messages.  This contradicts directly with the purpose of digital marketing to promote products and services using digital distribution channels.

Also, taking history as an example; look at direct mail, now referred to as ‘junk mail’ and ignored by almost every consumer out there. So by ignoring digital marketing netiquette and becoming intrusive, do companies run the risk of

So how can companies understand digital marketing manners and insure they do not become intrusive? Companies need to evolve to a more thoughtful and creative way of digital marketing and think of quality over quantity.

This blog was inspired by a conclusion drawn from an event hosted by Digital Annexe at DA University (The Drum, 2015). http://www.thedrum.com/news/2015/01/26/too-much-digital-marketing-remains-intrusive-says-havas-medias-amy-kean-da

References

Campaign, 2013. Digital marketing is ‘invasive and annoying’, study claims. [Online]
Available at: http://www.campaignlive.co.uk/news/1185778/digital-marketing-invasive-annoying-finds-adobe-research/
[Accessed 12th February 2015].

Gartner, 2015. Budgeting for 2015? Expect the unexpected.. [Online]
Available at: http://www.gartner.com/marketing/digital/research/digital-marketing-spend/
[Accessed 12th February 2015].

Hairong, L., Edwards, S. & Lee, J.-H., 2002. Measuring the Intrusiveness of Advertisements:Scale Development and Validation. Journal of Advertising, Vol.31(No. 2), pp. Pg. 37-47.

Smith, K., 2011. Digital marketing strategies that Millennials find appealing, motivating,or just annoying. Journal of Strategic Marketing, Vol. 19(No.6), pp. Pg. 489-499.

The Drum, 2015. Too much digital marketing remains intrusive says Havas Media’s Amy Kean at DA University. [Online]
Available at: http://www.thedrum.com/news/2015/01/26/too-much-digital-marketing-remains-intrusive-says-havas-medias-amy-kean-da
[Accessed 12th February 2015].

 

 

The ‘First Choice’ for influencers

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Today I’m looking at the influencers of tour operator TUI Travel and in particular their package holiday brand First Choice.

(Galeotti & Goyal, 2009) state how incorporating social network information in the design of marketing and influence strategies can both reduce waste in resources and generate greater sales. They describe two types of people, the first group (M) are the influencers and their actions result in some information reaching the second group of people (N). Group N makes decisions based on this distribution of information and can generate pay offs.

First Choice currently use influences in the form of travel news sites and social media. See examples below.

first choicethe saturdays

First Choice might have picked these influential websites and celebrities in their PR strategy due the wide range of audience, recognised organisation/people and marketing objectives.

However, maybe blogs could be a way of influencing too, using keywords to link back to the First Choice brand. By searching in Google ‘top 10 travel blogs’ I have managed to locate some sites which TUI could think about targeting.

http://www.cision.com/uk/social-media-index/top-10-uk-travel-and-tourism-blogs/

In summary, although First Choice are already aware of the theory of influences this could perhaps be expanded on by using keywords and blogs to bring users back to the brand.

Galeotti, A. & Goyal, S., 2009. Influencing the influencers: a theory of strategic diffusion. RAND Journal of Economics, Vol. 40(No. 3), p. pg. 509–532.

 

20 marketing emails a day, does the placement of call to action buttons make for higher conversion?

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After reading an article by (Hernandez & Resnick, 2013) about how the placement of call to action buttons can impact a consumers desire to continue their eCommerce experience it got me thinking about the 20+ marketing emails I get a day and which ones I actually read let alone click through to the landing page.

The one I’m particularly interested in is a ‘get the latest deals’ email I received from Ebay earlier. It is an opt in email and is an event triggered email to promote Christmas deals, however is not personalised in any way. I believe it also draws on the life cycle theory as well to try and regain my custom. Theory states that these types of emails tend to get very high open rates – but does that turn into conversion rates?ebay logo

The article describes several user scan patterns and how eye tracking research helps companies to lead the consumer through the purchase funnel. When opening the ebay email I believe I used a Z -Pattern to scan the page, this meant I looked at all 4 quadrants and was less likely to miss relevant content.

Z patternebay2

 

The call to action is mainly on the top horizontal line, which meant I was automatically drawn to the seasonal aspect of the email and was encouraged to click through to the landing page, which led directly to their Christmas deals as stated. This allows users to browse categories or conduct searches all leading them through towards a purchase.

ebay christmas

 

By analysing the user scan patterns and the ebay email marketing I believe it has quite a successful placement of call to action.

However the question that I’ve got now… does the same apply for emails opened on a mobile device? Does this encourage different user scan patterns, does the placement of call to action buttons need to be changed for mobile devices?  I’ve come across another interesting blog about CTA buttons which gives some thought into mobile devices.

https://litmus.com/blog/click-tap-and-touch-a-guide-to-cta-best-practices 

Hernandez, A., & Resnick, M. L. (2013, September). Placement of Call to Action Buttons for Higher Website Conversion and Acquisition An Eye Tracking Study. In Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting (Vol. 57, No. 1, pp. 1042-1046). SAGE Publications.