Archive for the ‘McCann-i’ Category

New PictureMcCann Erickson Social Media Index 2010

Wednesday, May 19th, 2010

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A LACK OF EXPERTISE IN SOCIAL MEDIA COMMUNICATIONS STILL PREVALENT
Whilst more marketing and communications professionals are embracing social media channels for UK brands than last year, the 2010 McCann Erickson Social Media Index still shows that many agencies and consultants are not providing enough guidance to their clients on social media.
Almost half of those surveyed (48%) said they still don’t feel they have adequate knowledge on how best to use social media channels effectively for marketing purposes. Although this is down by over 16% from 64% last year the figure is still surprisingly high.
Nearly a quarter of respondents (23.4%) admitted that advances in social media are difficult to keep up with and almost the same proportion (22.4%) said they would like to understand social media more but that it is not easy to find genuine ‘experts’ in the field.
Interestingly, in just 12 months since the last survey there has been a marked increase in general social media usage for communications activities. On average, usage for each of the main social networks (facebook, twitter and LinkedIn) is up by around 22% from last year. Twitter has shown the most increased usage (+28.2% since 2009) with 61% of those surveyed now saying that Twitter is regularly used as a way of distributing news stories.
It seems that IT departments are now more willing to let their marketing teams have access to social networks at work. Last year’s results showed that 46% of respondents were unable to get access at work and although this figure has come down to 24.3% it still shows that nearly a quarter of UK marketers and communications practitioners are not granted workplace access to social networks, making monitoring and campaign execution impossible.
Social media monitoring for brands is now a key area for marketers who need to demonstrate effectiveness of activity, ROI and target audience usage of social networks. By far the most popular way of brand monitoring online is through Google Alerts with 45.5% using this free tool. Radian 6 has emerged as the most widely used paid-for tool with 14.3% usage followed by PR Newswire’s monitoring tool Social Media Metrics at 10.4%. 11% of those surveyed said they relied on their retained PR agency to monitor social media brand activity and 37% said they conducted ‘ad hoc’ monitoring in house.
marketing discipline
Asked where they think the responsibility for social media communications should reside, 50% said it came under a combination of disciplines; 23% said it was best managed by public relations professionals and 11% said it should sit with digital experts.
Commenting on the study, Joanna Randall, head of PR and social media communications at McCann Erickson Bristol, which conducted the survey said: “Some of these results are very encouraging; there is clearly an upward trend in overall usage of social media as a marketing communications channel. However, we would still like to see some of the barriers removed for UK marketers, particularly, where access is blocked at work and there is a clear need for more information and training specifically targeted to marketers.”
McCann Erickson Bristol’s dedicated social media team called ‘SoMe’ is currently working with a range of clients providing social media comms strategies, reliable monitoring and reporting packages using a combination of services, social media audits and social media campaigns for solus and integrated clients across both consumer and B2B sectors.

Additional results at a glance:
• 59.8% respondents said that social media communications is now part of their day jobs
• 29% think there are now too many social media networks
• 12.1% think social media networks are becoming too commercial
• 16.8% said they are interested in using social media more within their daily role but do not
currently use it
For more information contact: joanna.randall@europe.mccann.com 0117 921 1764

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Demystifying Email

Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009

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What is email?

Email is the foundation of modern business communications, not just to those in your business but also to your customers.

A recent survey showed that 1 in 2 UK businesses send at least 50,000 marketing emails per month, and just over a fifth send at least half a million emails per month. The importance of email as a marketing communications tool and a valuable part of a customer relationship marketing (CRM) strategy cannot be overlooked.

Email is now a part of our everyday lives; from communicating with friends, to arranging meetings, so how do you ensure your marketing communications will always stand out?

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Five key areas to make your email a success

There are many factors affecting how successful a mailing will be. Even if one email increases sales there is no guarantee the next will do the same. So here are five key areas we recommend you consider in order to maximise potential:

• Data Segmentation

If you wish to increase open rate, it’s important to split your data and tailor the message. Targeting customers of different ages, sexes, demographics or even geographic locations can improve the open rates.

• Subject line

From the subject line alone, recipients will decide whether to open the email or delete it. This decision will be made in seconds, so it’s important the subject line packs a punch.

• Timing your sends

Early-birds or Night-owls? The best time to send an email depends on many factors, including your audience, the email proposition and date relevance. However, research has shown that Tuesdays to Thursdays usually prove the most successful days. It’s also important to find the correct balance between contacting customers too often or not often enough.

• Content

Ensuring you have resonant and relevant content goes without saying, however, it’s also vital to consider the amount of images you use, the length of the email, where your links will be placed and most importantly the call to action, the purpose of sending it in the first place.

• Testing

As market dynamics fluctuate on a regular basis, continued testing is vital for any emailing campaign. It’s vital to test subject lines and content and to review the segmentation and statistics from each send. Combining these results will inform future campaigns and improve the effectiveness of your emails.

How can you increase the ROI of your email?

Maximising ROI involves looking beyond open rates and clicks. The destination of the email needs to complete the consumer journey.

Rather than clicking through to a home page, it’s important to make the customer journey relevant by taking them straight to the page or product page they are interested in. By keeping everything as simple as possible, you’ll find that consumer interest and engagement remains as high as possible.

When everything is in place, it’s time to send the email. A reputable sender and a cleansed list will increase the amount of emails reaching a recipients inbox, as each incorrect address or blocked email effectively eats away at the marketing budget. Once you’ve created a successful template, ROI can be further maximised by A/B testing, whereby your template variables, e.g. subject line, colour palette or fonts can be individually tested and tweaked.

Contact McCann-i

If you’re interested in finding out how to implement Email Marketing, or you want to know more about McCann-i, give us a call or arrange a breakfast meeting with:

Claire Banks
Head of Interactive
McCann-i
Claire.banks@europe.mccann.com
07816 271 162

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Demystifying Web Development

Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009

dev_header3Build it and they will come??

What does Website Development mean?

Website development traditionally refers to the coding part of creating a webpage, but as online solutions have become more and more complex, the term web development has become shorthand for a raft of development techniques.

To the marketeer, having a website means 24/7/365 days a year exposure at arguably the lowest cost per thousand touch point in your marketing plan….so it’s worth knowing how to get it right.

So how do you start a web development project?

The first thing to decide is what you want your visitors to do and what you want to tell them. Being mindful that visitors’ intentions might not marry up with your objectives – you might want visitors to purchase, they may want to price compare – you need to ensure that your site supports all the decisions a visitor may make. If you already have a website, a Usability Study that records visitors’ responses to set tasks can validate the positive and negative elements of a sites’ usability, and help inform any updates that need to be made.

The next stage is referred to as “Information Architecture”, where we determine how best to take your visitor through your content in a non-linear way (which can be quite a task if you have a large product portfolio or complicated service offering).

The result is a master plan for the website – known as the functional specification. This document explains to everyone involved how the website fits together and specifies how it all works. It’s vital to get this stage right, as it becomes the foundation on which everything is built.

As soon as the specification is approved, it’s time to start designing. There’s a lot for a digital designer to consider such as will the design work across different platforms? Will it be useable and fit for purpose?

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So you’ve got a website already, what more do you need to know?

That technology never stands still. Developers are improving coding techniques and building functionality that was once thought impossible in the online space. A website is a living and breathing thing, and for visitors and search engines to value your content and keep coming back, it needs to offer them a reason to return.

A successful ongoing web development strategy, like all marketing endeavours, should be validated by consumer insight. Website analytics, Usability Studies, creative and functionality testing all offer transparent ways to monitor and learn from online activity. Sometimes the simplest change can make an astonishing difference… take the well-told example of a major eCommerce website’s decision to remove its pre-purchase registration form, which they claim earned them $300m in increased sales!

Contact McCann-i

‘Build it and they will come’ is a nice thought but the digital space is competitive and increasingly sophisticated. Creating a site that delivers a fulfilling and effortless user experience is a process that we’re passionate about. If you are interested in developing a new website or you’d like to know more about improving the customer journey of your existing site, then please call or email to arrange a meeting with:

Claire Banks
Head of Interactive
McCann-i
Claire.banks@europe.mccann.com
07816 271 162

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Demystifying Search Engine Marketing

Monday, August 17th, 2009

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Hello! I’m here! Pick me…Pick ME!!…
Making your ‘needle’ a ‘giant in the haystack’!

 

What is Search Engine Marketing?

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is the combination of paid for and non-paid for means to promote websites by increasing their visibility in search engine result pages (SERPs).

Paid for SEM can take the form of;

Search engine Pay Per Click (PPC) where companies pay for their ads to be listed at the top or to the right of search engine result pages (e.g. managed via Google Adwords or MSN).

Paid-inclusion, where search engines charge for each website that appears in search listings (many smaller search engines use this model, but it is against Google’s ethos).

Contextual search advertising where relevant ads are served into website pages, depending on the keywords on that page. These appear next to the content (e.g. managed via Google Adsense).

Carrying out PPC campaigns, even as a test, can inform us about what keywords people are using to find your content, and how visitors who have searched on various keywords interact with your site.

Non-paid for search is referred to as Search Engine Optimisation; the art of elevating your website up the natural or organic search engine results for relevant keywords. There are many factors that affect your listing, both on-page (i.e. your code, structure and content), and off-page (i.e. who’s linking to you and talking about you). Importantly, the algorithms that search engines use to calculate who is number one are top-secret and change with the wind. In fact they are often named like hurricanes as they can easily blow big players off the prized top spot.

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What’s new in SEO: does Google favour brands?

Google makes updates to their natural search algorithms hundreds of times per year, so that they stay ahead of the game and guard against false SEO listings. A recent, “minor” algorithm change named “Vince’s change” (Vince, btw, is a guy at Google who did most of the work), has caused some consternation, especially for the sites that it swept off the top spot.

It appears that Google’s updated algorithm favours brands. SEO Book shows that brands that were previously way off the top page, were propelled up the listings. Google’s SEO Supremo Matt Cutts claims however, that this was not directly attributable to “Vince’s change” saying that they still rank according to: trust, authority, reputation, page rank, and high quality content on the site. In practical terms it appears to be good news for brands, in spite of Google’s claims that “there’s nothing to see here, move along quietly”.

Contact McCann-i

If you’d like to know more about how you can optimise your website for organic listings, and how your PPC and SEO can work together to enable you to gain ground on the competition, give us a call or arrange a meeting with:

Claire Banks
Head of Interactive
McCann-i
Claire.banks@europe.mccann.com
07816 271 162

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Demystifying Social Media

Monday, August 17th, 2009

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 Realise the power of social networks.

What is Social Media?

Simply put, social media is people sharing and discussing information online. The conversations can range from personal (updating your Facebook status with what you had for breakfast) to political (one message per second mentioning “Obama” on Twitter).

The shift into social media has come about because of highly accessible and usable publishing technologies that have emerged online. Some of the best known being Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Flickr, and the exponentially successful newbie, Twitter.

The internet is buzzing with banter on a scale that is practically unimaginable – “memes” are born, roll around the network and die in hours, likewise news has a gnat’s life-cycle. To engage in social media you need to provide responsive and useful content to capture the populous’ interest.

You can guarantee that someone somewhere is talking about your brand online, whether it’s in a blog, a tweet, a Facebook group, or a video of your product on YouTube; there are conversations going on out there that you can be a part of to amplify your message.

However, the advent of social media now means you are more accountable than ever. Take the recent example of United Airlines, a particularly upset singer-songwriter blamed the airline for breaking his prized guitar and YouTubed a video that currently stands at 4.2 million views. As a direct result United Airlines share price dropped by 10%; the equivalent of 51,000 guitars! Watch his complaint here: United Breaks Guitars.

This real life David and Goliath example shows the power of social media as a tool to manage reputation and influence opinions.

How to activate Social Media for your Brand?

There are companies using social media well, for example Delta Airlines, are successfully blogging and tweeting. YouTube and Flickr accounts are also allowing them to create a personable two-way communication with customers.

However, with so many different social networks it’s difficult to know when and where to be part of the conversation. Social Media, used in the right way, can help to create a real buzz, but it’s absolutely vital that you have a strategy.

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Contact McCann-i

If you’d like to know more about how social media can fit into your digital strategy, or you want to know more about McCann-i, give us a call or arrange a breakfast meeting with:

Claire Banks
Head of Interactive
McCann-i
Claire.banks@europe.mccann.com
07816 271 162

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Demystifying Augmented Reality

Monday, August 17th, 2009

AR Header

What is Augmented Reality?

Technically, Augmented Reality (AR) is a technology that allows us to embed computer generated objects into live video – typically a video stream from a webcam – so that, on screen, the objects move and interact with the real environment.

AR has been in development over the last 10 years (with a lot of original work contributed by one of our key clients, Ordnance Survey) but really hit the mainstream in early 2009 with GE’s eye-opening Eco Smart Grid campaign. Since then AR has been adopted by many leading brands to support advertising, most notably with BMW’s recent Z4 campaign.

How can AR benefit your brand?
Some recent AR usage has been little more than gimmickry – a cool tech demo in search of a campaign idea.

It could be argued that, whilst very successful (1 million views in 3 months), GE’s use of AR had little relevance to the campaign – GE generated a lot of traffic just by being first.

AR still has huge impact and, with only 6 months in the mainstream, is still able to generate traffic in its own right. However, at McCann-i, we believe the true power of AR in marketing is demonstrated in implementations where no other solution would suffice:

• On pack promotions driving traffic online

• 3D brochures/virtual popup to bring products to life

• Purchase decision support to increase online sales

• Drive footfall from online to bricks and mortar

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Contact McCann-i
AR has bags of commercial potential. If you’re interested in finding out how Augmented Reality could produce results for you, or you want to know more about McCann-i, give us a call or arrange a breakfast meeting with:

Claire Banks
Head of Interactive
McCann-i
claire.banks@europe.mccann.com

07816 271 162

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