We are always encouraging learning at Found, which is why we find it very important to allow all members of our team time out of the office to attend conferences or workshops. Last week our three awesome interns Tom, Victoria and Helen attended Day 1 of the Digital Marketing Show at ExCel London.
Here are their takeaways from the four different tracks of the conference:
Mobile Theatre
Creating a Future-proof Mobile SEO Strategy – Patrick Altoft, Branded3
1. Optimise your mobile site
Many corporations are only now just catching on to the power mobile optimisation can bring. Mobile browsing is increasing rapidly, and as customers who have had their fingers burnt once are unlikely to return, you can’t afford to let this slide.
2. However tempting, don’t pester users to download your mobile app
Interrupting mobile browsing to force your app on to users is almost certainly a bad tactic, and may even end up on I Don’t Want Your F****** App.
Content Theatre
Maximise Digital ROI: Clicks, Content & Conversions – Liza Jackson & Julia Payne
3. Sales and Marketing teams must work closer together to have shared, mutual goals
Thanks to search engines, people are entering the sales funnel later. The top sections of the funnel (e.g. awareness, interest and evaluation) are being fulfilled thanks to the marketing team. Julia suggests integrating sales and marketing teams to achieve better results and waste less time and resources.
Buyers are entering the purchasing process later than ever before, it is vital that sales and marketing work together to realise the point at which sales staff can take over from marketing.
4. Personalisation is at the core of modern digital marketing
Make each consumer feel unique and they’ll appreciate it.
Instead of attempting to group users, understand their behaviour, how they have come to visit your site, and what they are doing when they are there.
Engaging Your Audience: Learn From the News Industry – Paul Shanley, Associated Press
5. “The line between brands and publishers blurs.”
Nowadays quality content is as important for companies as it is for news providers. It is vital to use content partnerships to create high-end content. Digital marketers can learn from publishers how to be agile. In years of crisis they had to create better content with less money! Being flexible and adopting to changes is a key to success.
6. Don’t try to do everything yourself
Use external help to achieve better results.
7. Video is a major influence
72% of 16-24 year olds say video is an important factor when choosing their news site.
SEO is Changing: Keep Up – Hugh Jackson, MediaCo
8. Over optimisation is as bad as lack of optimisation.
Know when to stop optimising.
9. The Google Venice update can get you
Although the Venice update from Google in February 2012 did not make as many waves as Panda, or Penguin, it’s still very relevant to many online businesses, and tips were offered on how to make the update work to your advantage.
The Future of Content Marketing: Where Next? – Michael Tinmouth, The SocialPro
10. Social media is not only about broadcasting, but also about listening to consumers.
Sometimes marketers care so much about the content creation that they forget to research and find out more about what their consumers want and need. Implication – spend as much time in social media listening to consumers as creating content.
11. Company CEOs need to get on Twitter
77% people are more likely to trust a company who has a CEO on Twitter.
12. Facebook drives more traffic to YouTube than all of the Google channels combined.
Managing High Volume Marketing Content Across Multiple Channels – Lee Jorgenson, Compendium
13. Stop trying to be amazing. Just be useful to your market – Jay Baer
Sometimes being useful and helpful to your target audience is more efficient than trying to impress everyone with your creativity. Functionality is a core of new content. Be specific, create real value and consumers will appreciate it.
Just concentrate on creating content users will find relevant and hopefully along the way something amazing will occur naturally from this.
14. Create lower effort content that is more time and cost effective
Creating Q&As which Lee classified as medium effort content is more efficient than high effort content like videos, apps, etc. It is impossible to scale the production of very high quality content and for this reason it is advisable for some businesses to concentrate on creation of less costly and time consuming content.
Q & A content is the best content from a search perspective – and takes only medium effort. Anticipate every question that will be asked about your product, and answer it as fully as you can.
Creating “real, low effort content” can be a great way to engage your users. Lee shared the example of when the marketing team of a fishing and hunting outlet in North America decided to empower their employees by getting them to write about personal hunting and fishing stories. With these personal anecdotes, they stumbled upon a great way of producing content their users would love.
Social Theatre
Social Media’s Impact on Native advertising – Guy Cookson, Respond
15. Use rich snippets
They can be greatly beneficial to click through rates, specifically reviews beneath results, which according to Guy increase CTRs by 20-30%.
The Evolution of Search, Social and Content – Kevin Gibbons, BlueGrass Interactive
16. Don’t oversaturate tactics
While Infographics are a great, shareable way of conveying information or creating a talking point, jumping on the latest content trend bandwagon should not take first place to the creation of content that has something new and useful to say.
17. It’s hard to fake authority, you have to build a brand
Start with developing the company and making sure you provide value to consumers with your products and services. Then, go online and show everyone how great you are. Not vice versa.
bizcrowd Theatre
Make your SEO Campaign Start With a Bang – Dixon Jones, Majestic SEO
18. No-one wants to hear you blow you own horn
Contact industry authorities, influential bloggers, news sites and let them break your amazing news for you.
19. Make sure content is useful to a particular sector of society.
Creating new content can be a daunting prospect. Dixon suggests instead creating content with new functionality and that is useful for people.
10. Generate ambassadors for your brand
Ambassadors will aid you in promotion of your product/service. Majestic SEO achieved this by giving a select group of trusted users early beta access, pictures of the product and an account once the product was developed.
20. After your product is released follow up
With webinars, YouTube videos and a conference circuit to keep users engaged.
21. “Google is not so much a search engine, rather than a popularity contest”
That is why strategic SEO becomes especially important nowadays.
Effective Mobile Marketing for Small Business – Ewan Macleod, bizcrowd
22. Mobile should be thought of as primary screen
One in 10 Brits do all of their online shopping via mobile, whilst 1 in 3 do at least some of their Christmas shopping on mobile. Ewan urges marketers to consider the possibility a mobile screen might be the primary screen on which people are viewing your site, and therefore to ensure your site has a responsive design.
Keep on top of the latest digital marketing trends and strategies via the Found blog or through using our SEO and PPC marketing services.
