Entries by Darren Stevens

When Adidas compares TV advertising to the fax – should we all listen?

Marketing Week Magazine has this week reported on the fact that the snappily titled Adidas “global head of digital ecosystem design” David Greenfield, has compared TV advertising to the fax. Clearly a damming and unwelcome comparison for TV advertising, but is it a viewpoint that all marketers should listen to?

According to Thinkbox (the marketing body for commercial TV in the UK), TV advertising revenue in the UK totalled £5.27 billion in 2015, up 7.4% on 2014. This is the sixth consecutive year that TV advertising revenue has grown in the UK. Forecasts suggest however that digital advertising will overtake TV advertising for the first time in 2017.

TV viewing figures are also on the up, with first half of 2016 figures showing that commercial TV viewing on TV sets had increased for individuals, ABC1 adults and 16-34s.

Yes, the TV market and the way in which we consume media means that audiences are fragmented, but this has also brought TV advertising into the reach of many brands that could not have otherwise considered it. The fragmentation has enabled talented media types to really focus targeting on the desired audience and technological innovation means personalised ads are becoming a reality.

David Greenfield though didn’t hold back with his views – “Of course TV still has a place but the fax machine still has a place too and I’m not about to create a fax machine marketing strategy. Digital is the most relevant channel for our audience.” This viewpoint led the brand to concentrate its spend on social media marketing rather than TV.

Does TV advertising still have a place? I would suggest the answer to this is yes, but it will have to continue fight a rearguard action and innovate to mimic further the targeting and measurement capabilities of digital marketing. TV can be great for brand awareness and direct response, but will always be innaccessible for many and struggle to match the flexibility and speed of movement possible with digital marketing.

We live in interesting times when it comes to the options available to businesses and their marketing budgets. The basic fundamentals do not change though. Any Marketing will struggle unless you are clear on who is your target audience and what your proposition is. Businesses can also improve the chances of making the right choices by making sure that they have the measurements in place to understand where business is coming from. Anyone in need of a fax marketing strategy? Perhaps not.

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How much do you know about people that are visiting your website?

In this day and age for many businesses the first port of call for a potential customer will be to look at your website. But how much do you know about the people that visit your website and how much time are you devoting to looking at this?

There is a an old and much used saying that “there is no such thing as a free lunch”, but when it comes to understanding more about the visitors to your website there really is – Google Analytics. Hopefully most of you reading this blog will already know that you have Google Analytics on your site. But if you are at all unsure, then we would urge you to check straight away. The firm that set up your website will be able to check this for you.

So what can Google Analytics tell you about your visitors? Over any given period that Google Analytics has been in place on your site, it can give you a wealth of information. It will tell you how many visitors in total your site has had. If possible it is good practice to overlay this over enquiry or sales figures to establish the degree of correlation between web visits and these figures. This is important, because if there is a correlation the argument is more compelling for you to try and drive more traffic to your website.

Google Analytics (or GA for short) will also tell you how many of your visitors are unique and how many are repeat visitors. It will tell you how people came to arrive at your site – organic search (search engine), direct (where they keyed in the address – often a good reflection of offline marketing), social media and referral (via a listing of your site on another website – which may also include spam). If you are doing any paid for activity like adwords or you are doing any email marketing or e-newsletters, then these will also show up. You should be looking at these figures on a regular basis, particularly when you see spikes or peaks in visitors to understand what has driven them there. Each one of these categories of source is at least to some degree under your control. Let’s take social media for example, you might be active on social media but to what extent is it driving traffic to your site. Post too frequently on social media with blatantly promotional posts and you will use followers, but an occasional post where you highlight some content on your site is usually acceptable.

GA will also tell you how many pages on average a person visits, how long they spend on the site and what the bounce rate is – a bounce is where they arrive on one page and leave the site immediately before going on to another page. It will also tell you what country the visitor is from, what type of device they use and the behavioural flow. The flow diagrams will give you a good idea of where people arrive on your site, where they go once they arrive, which pages are most popular and where they leave. GA used to tell you what people are keying in to find your site in search, but the bulk of this information is now cloaked i.e. not visible.

It is a good idea to log some of these key stats in an excel spreadsheet and chart them, so that you can detect month on month changes, seasonality and year on year comparisons. Reviewing this information on say a monthly basis can be a good motivator to drive other activity and impact on these figures. Also when people do make an enquiry or a purchase, make sure you ask where they heard about you and that you log this as well.

Once you have got to grips with the basics then it is worth looking at the information in greater details. For example, if you accept that the number of pages viewed is a good proxy for gauging engagement with a site, which method of driving traffic to your website brings the most engaged visitors. Or, which page are most people leaving your website from and what can you do to stem the tide e.g. signpost them to other content.

You can also set up goals in GA. A good one might be to set a goal for completion of the contact form on your website (which can be done provided completion of your contact form results in a thank you page). GA will then tell you which forms of traffic are most effective at driving traffic that completes your contact form.

How much of what we have outlined in this blog are you doing? Most firms invest a lot of money in their websites, isn’t it then worthwhile investing some time in understanding how it is performing? If you think you could do with some help interpreting this information or planning activity to affect these figures – then of course you could get in touch with us by completing our contact form.

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Is there such a thing as too much marketing?

It might come as something of a surprise to hear a Marketing business say this, but in our opinion the answer to this question is most definitely yes.

The most obvious reason for this is a business or organisation’s ability to service the business or level of business that marketing has generated. If you cannot supply whatever demand marketing has generated then there will clearly be wasted effort and expense. If customers cannot get through to you or fail to get a response then not only do you lose out on that business, but you are also putting at risk your reputation and repeat business if the enquirer was an existing business.

Many businesses have excellent sales processes that when you view them, have a faultless process for handling enquiries, logging them and following them up appropriately. But ask yourself the question, is this always the case or when volumes pick up, do you ever fail to log the source of an enquiry or do enquiries fall through the cracks.

It is by no means easy, but in an ideal world Marketing should be aiming to deliver exactly the right amount of business (particularly difficult in markets that are seasonal). Generate too little interest and you might fail to meet your targets, generate too much and there is the wastage already referred to. A good starting point here though is to ensure that your targets are broken down into monthly targets for leads, enquiries, opportunities and sales. That way you have a sound basis for tracking projected versus actual performance and you will detect changes in overall levels, but also in conversion rates and average transaction levels.

So there really can be too much of a good thing, even marketing ……

If you would like us to review your Marketing to determine whether or not you are doing the right amount, then please contact us.

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Prestbury Marketing renew sponsorship of Gloucester-Hartpury Women’s Rugby Club

Prestbury Marketing have renewed their sponsorship of the Gloucester-Hartpury Women’s Rugby Club.

Established in 2014 the joint Gloucester-Hartpury Women’s side have previously won the Women’s National Junior Cup. They finished in second spot in National Championship Midlands Two in their first season in that league and their ultimate ambition is to compete in the Women’s Premiership.

Darren Stevens from Prestbury Marketing commented on the sponsorship:

“We are big supporters of local rugby and Gloucester Rugby in particular and this combined with our close association with Hartpury College made this an easy decision to renew our sponsorship. We think the team have a big future and we are pleased to play our own small part in supporting them. We look forward to following their success and wish them all the best for the forthcoming season”.

You can learn more about the Gloucester-Hartpury WRFC from their Facebook page.

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Highlighting our wares

The Gloucestershire Business Show is here a second year and Prestbury Marketing are excited to be heading to the racecourse this Wednesday and Thursday to speak to local businesses. ‘The show is a great local event to network and meet local companies just like us’ said Darren Stevens, Marketing Consultant and Managing Director of Prestbury Marketing. […]

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Practicing what we preach

Prestbury Marketing are excited to be launching their new website today. The site is the result of months of hard work and hours of writing content, establishing the SEO, case studies and trialling different options. It highlights the successes of Prestbury Marketing, offers hints and tips to support customers and demonstrates how they offer an […]

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Prestbury Marketing to sponsor Cheltenham Challenge

Prestbury Marketing is to sponsor the running bibs for this year’s Cheltenham Challenge. Since being taken on as an event by County Community Projects, the event has gone from strength to strength, attracting thousands of participants who complete a variety of distances. The event raises money dozens of local and national causes. Darren Stevens from […]

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