http://www.conference-news.co.uk/news/2011/02/24/Ireland-raises-its-stake-30-per-cent-on-tourism-marketing/2843
***Get back tourist even after Euro increase i.e. more expensive to have holiday in Ireland
Ireland raises its stake 30% on tourism marketing
Despite the recession hitting Irish tourism hard, Tourism Ireland is to increase its investment in marketing by 30 per cent, with social and digital media at the centre of the new strategy.
Tourism Ireland launched its 2011 Marketing Plans for the British market at the Irish Embassy in London, 23 February, and CEO Niall Gibbons reminded the audience, including key UK event organisers, that tourism was worth €3bn to the Irish economy and delivered four per cent of GNP.
Gibbons said that the new marketing campaign would concentrate on differentiating the Ireland offer for tourism. He admitted that the perception of value had deteriorated with the strengthening of the euro by 40 per cent against sterling.
However, a 10 per cent swing back had helped make Ireland’s hotel room stock “some the best value in Western Europe,” Gibbons said, adding that in addition to Tourism Ireland increasing its marketing budget by 30 per cent, there has been a cut in travel tax from 10 to three per cent.
New Head of Great Britain at Tourism Ireland, Vanessa Markey, outlined three more planks to the “return to growth strategy”: creating a buzz; exciting the British travel trade and increased value. She said there would be a less fragmented approach to marketing, with the lion’s share of funding going to the target markets. Britain, she noted, now accounted for half of all Ireland’s tourism business.
“Digital campaigns and social media will play an important part in promoting Ireland as a business tourism destination,” Markey said. A recent Twitter campaign had attracted 33,000 tweets, she noted, and said a 60-second viral YouTube clip was to be released on St Patrick’s Day (17 March).
An iBot called Dara is also promised as part of the campaign to push Ireland’s literary heritage and Markey said a campaign of TV ads would run on ITV for the first time in five years. One million euros would be put into advertising in video on demand channel slots.
The new marketing activity follows last year’s introduction of a conference CO2 calculator iPhone app, enabling organisers to check the carbon emissions associated with their delegate travel; as well as the popular ‘GB Meet in Ireland’ blog.
Counsellor for Economic Affairs at the Embassy, Eugene Forde, said the new campaign came against a background of “very solid relations” developing between the UK and Ireland and he hoped this would be capped off in 2011 with a Royal visit.
Showing posts with label Marketing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Marketing. Show all posts
Thursday, 24 February 2011
Wednesday, 9 December 2009
Is account planning dead?
Is account planning dead?
By Al Moffatt
Account planning has always been positioned and sold as being the voice of the consumer. Agencies had the iron grip of knowing the consumer and telling clients exactly what they consumers were thinking.
That was until technological, economic and social tends converged to hasten the evolution from push-marketing to user generated content, and now to digital and social media as the preferred way for consumers to talk with each other and to companies. Agencies started to lose touch with clients during the UGC phase, but it's really been ratcheted up now to such a point that clients have the ability to go direct to their consumers rather than having to go through an agency to 'understand their consumer'.
Thus, it seems perfectly logical that Unilever recently dumped their agency to go direct to consumers for their branding and advertising ideas (i.e., crowd sourcing). Whether this is a short-lived fad or a real trend is open to debate. But it is symptomatic of a larger issue that agencies and planners need to watch. Clients are saying, 'We don't need no stinking agency to be 'the voice of the consumer'. We can go directly to the horse's mouth without the agency filter and creative agenda getting in the way.' This is further evidenced by the fact that agencies are having difficulty finding ways to be fairly compensated for their social media thinking and executions because clients, in many cases, don't believe agencies add any incremental value to warrant better compensation.
In order to bring value back to account planning and the agency in general, agencies need to really understand what's going on when it comes to digital and social media. Digital and social media are not marketing or technological phenomena, they are cultural, generational, economic, social and intra- and interpersonal phenomena. Agencies that look at this through a marketing or technological prism rather than through a cultural / anthropological prism are missing the point. It's not that people are using social media, but rather it's why and how they're using social media.
Behind the 140 word 'I'm going out to lunch…' tweets, the 'Look at my kid's birthday pictures' on My Space and the ubiquitous 'Will you be my friend?' invitations on Facebook and LinkedIn is a desire for individuals to feel connected and to feel heard. For all its good, technology has isolated us from each other under the guise of bringing us together. What all these tweets, posting, forums, blogs, etc., are really all about is that people are silently screaming, 'Will someone listen to me?', 'Will someone care about me?', 'Will someone pay attention to me?'
Well, many clients are now saying, 'Sure, I'll listen to you. I'll pay attention to you. I'll make you feel important.' Thus, agencies have gone from being the listeners to the trackers while clients have gone from being the trackers to becoming the listeners. Agencies are now spending all their time on ROI, tracking clicks, hits, eyeballs, etc., in order to prove that digital and social media advertising work and to try to justify their fees. Clients, on the other hand, are saying, 'Screw that, why do I need to compensate an agency for information I can get myself, especially when we're hurting financially?'
Agencies / account planners can once again add value by telling clients how and why their consumers are using the kinds of digital and social media they are while simultaneously telling them exactly the right mix of messages, media and platforms to use and in what instances. While a few agencies are doing this, it's more from an isolated, analytics perspective, which by definition, looks in the rearview mirror. A more all-encompassing, predictive social science model is needed that helps guide where a client's consumers will go and how best to reach them, now and in the immediate future, especially as digital and social media platforms change so quickly. In other words, agencies and account planners are getting too caught up in the 'what' and not on the 'why'.
Digital and social marketing have allowed the social science and scientific worlds to collide, co-exist and become interdependent on each other like no other media in the history. Yet, in most agencies the two worlds never meet. The one thing that all agency departments now have in common is digital. And no one should be able to better understand this, integrate it, and execute it than account planning.
Thus, agencies need to restructure themselves so that planning sits atop the entire organisation and drives everything that happens in an agency, including media, digital, creative, research, and strategy, rather then just darting in and out to deliver sporadic insights. (Yes, this means that interactive is also under the planning umbrella.) Planning needs to become less reactionary and more prescriptive, preventive and visionary. In other words, account planning really needs to become agency planning if clients are once again to pay agencies for something they don't already know or know how to do.
Al Moffatt is president and CEO of Worldwide Partners, Inc.
By Al Moffatt
Account planning has always been positioned and sold as being the voice of the consumer. Agencies had the iron grip of knowing the consumer and telling clients exactly what they consumers were thinking.
That was until technological, economic and social tends converged to hasten the evolution from push-marketing to user generated content, and now to digital and social media as the preferred way for consumers to talk with each other and to companies. Agencies started to lose touch with clients during the UGC phase, but it's really been ratcheted up now to such a point that clients have the ability to go direct to their consumers rather than having to go through an agency to 'understand their consumer'.
Thus, it seems perfectly logical that Unilever recently dumped their agency to go direct to consumers for their branding and advertising ideas (i.e., crowd sourcing). Whether this is a short-lived fad or a real trend is open to debate. But it is symptomatic of a larger issue that agencies and planners need to watch. Clients are saying, 'We don't need no stinking agency to be 'the voice of the consumer'. We can go directly to the horse's mouth without the agency filter and creative agenda getting in the way.' This is further evidenced by the fact that agencies are having difficulty finding ways to be fairly compensated for their social media thinking and executions because clients, in many cases, don't believe agencies add any incremental value to warrant better compensation.
In order to bring value back to account planning and the agency in general, agencies need to really understand what's going on when it comes to digital and social media. Digital and social media are not marketing or technological phenomena, they are cultural, generational, economic, social and intra- and interpersonal phenomena. Agencies that look at this through a marketing or technological prism rather than through a cultural / anthropological prism are missing the point. It's not that people are using social media, but rather it's why and how they're using social media.
Behind the 140 word 'I'm going out to lunch…' tweets, the 'Look at my kid's birthday pictures' on My Space and the ubiquitous 'Will you be my friend?' invitations on Facebook and LinkedIn is a desire for individuals to feel connected and to feel heard. For all its good, technology has isolated us from each other under the guise of bringing us together. What all these tweets, posting, forums, blogs, etc., are really all about is that people are silently screaming, 'Will someone listen to me?', 'Will someone care about me?', 'Will someone pay attention to me?'
Well, many clients are now saying, 'Sure, I'll listen to you. I'll pay attention to you. I'll make you feel important.' Thus, agencies have gone from being the listeners to the trackers while clients have gone from being the trackers to becoming the listeners. Agencies are now spending all their time on ROI, tracking clicks, hits, eyeballs, etc., in order to prove that digital and social media advertising work and to try to justify their fees. Clients, on the other hand, are saying, 'Screw that, why do I need to compensate an agency for information I can get myself, especially when we're hurting financially?'
Agencies / account planners can once again add value by telling clients how and why their consumers are using the kinds of digital and social media they are while simultaneously telling them exactly the right mix of messages, media and platforms to use and in what instances. While a few agencies are doing this, it's more from an isolated, analytics perspective, which by definition, looks in the rearview mirror. A more all-encompassing, predictive social science model is needed that helps guide where a client's consumers will go and how best to reach them, now and in the immediate future, especially as digital and social media platforms change so quickly. In other words, agencies and account planners are getting too caught up in the 'what' and not on the 'why'.
Digital and social marketing have allowed the social science and scientific worlds to collide, co-exist and become interdependent on each other like no other media in the history. Yet, in most agencies the two worlds never meet. The one thing that all agency departments now have in common is digital. And no one should be able to better understand this, integrate it, and execute it than account planning.
Thus, agencies need to restructure themselves so that planning sits atop the entire organisation and drives everything that happens in an agency, including media, digital, creative, research, and strategy, rather then just darting in and out to deliver sporadic insights. (Yes, this means that interactive is also under the planning umbrella.) Planning needs to become less reactionary and more prescriptive, preventive and visionary. In other words, account planning really needs to become agency planning if clients are once again to pay agencies for something they don't already know or know how to do.
Al Moffatt is president and CEO of Worldwide Partners, Inc.
Wednesday, 10 June 2009
10 signs you don't understand web analytics
10 signs you don't understand web analytics
Web analytics has always been an important aspect of digital marketing, but only recently has it been considered critical to success. The data mined through savvy analytics tracking can maximize any marketing budget by driving conversions and results; however, this only comes to pass if you understand what the data are telling you.
Web analytics is critical to measuring the success of your website as you identify opportunities to improve your business and marketing initiatives. Most marketers are confused with business implications of analytics reports, so it ends up being simpler to track what you know.
Web analytics has made great strides in the past decade, from when hit counters were the most sophisticated metric trackers in use. But there is still a long way to go before analytics is used to its full marketing potential. In this article, I hope to articulate ways that marketers can maximize their analytics solutions. To do so, I will discuss the top 10 signs that the power of analytics is still eluding your company.
Sign 1: You bought the tool a year ago, and you're still not measuring your business objectives.
You were sold on the lure of data. You bought a web analytics tool, have dashboards sent to you every week, and have no idea what they're supposed to be telling you about your business. You know there is great information contained in these reports and dashboards -- but you cannot decipher how it helps achieve your goals. Don't worry, you're not alone. The overabundance of data makes it difficult to sync graphs with meeting agendas.
There are several avenues marketers can explore to align analytics with business objectives -- not the least of which is your analytics teams. Keep everyone in the loop as changes occur and reevaluate reporting on a regular basis to ensure marketers have the ammo they need to create educated strategies.
For example, one business objective for a B2B website is to increase the number of qualified leads that come through the site. Measuring the total number of leads is one relevant measurement of this goal, but it's more revealing if compared with comprehensive traffic numbers. Additionally, if campaigns are driving traffic, monitoring conversion rates will track whether website visitors reflect target audiences.
Sign 2: You still have to remind the executive team what your company's KPIs are (hint: key performance indicators).
It is understandable that analytics jargon is not mainstream yet. As more CMOs ask for reports and sound reasoning behind digital marketing decisions, terminology will become more commonplace, and this point will be inconsequential. Until that day, keep framing campaigns, objectives, and goals within key performance indicators. This will keep everyone on the same page. It will continue to drive home the importance and value of grounding decisions in quantitative data. You can start one person at a time -- and the sooner you begin, the sooner you can make a difference. Prove that web analytics and KPIs mean something by suggesting sound improvement opportunities based on data. Your executives will be impressed and memorize any acronym you throw at them.
Sign 3: You create these beautiful dashboards, and no one knows what they mean.
Ah, the infamous dashboards that have been defined to include only the most important key metrics, yet you manage to cram in every possible minute detail, making it impossible to read. Pause a campaign, write more blogs, or increase an SEM budget? You still feel like you are flying blind.
The answer: Throw it away and start over.
Refine and redefine your business objectives, and assign a KPI to each. Understand what influences your KPIs, and how fluctuations affect the success of your business objectives. Once this is established, dashboards start to look different and useable.
Sign 4: Your boss is always asking about the number of "hits" your company's website is getting.
This has not been a valuable success metric since the '90s, and it is like nails on a chalkboard to any analytics professional. Potential consumers are not "hits" -- they are people who expect valuable content and a quality user experience when they visit a website. This goes back to point No. 2. Education is needed if we are to evolve beyond basic metrics and start unearthing valuable user insights.
The next time your boss asks how many "hits" the website is getting, simply respond with a smile and say, "I don't know, but since we began optimizing the checkout process, our conversion rate has increased X percent, resulting in an increase in $X dollars last month. Do you want me to look into those 'hits' for you?"
That will likely be the last time you are asked about a hit count.
Sign 5: You're still scratching your head wondering what you should segment and how it will help.
A great place to begin is to differentiate between new and return visitors. How do they behave differently, and how do they convert differently? What are some insights that you could glean to help increase conversion rates? Analytics can also help segment out users who are not looking for your website. To do so, create a segment that does not include your target audience and learn what your true conversion rate is -- and optimize from there.
Continuing with the example from point No. 1, segmentation also provides value in measuring your business objectives. I mentioned that the conversion rate can help assess if the target audience is who is arriving on a website. Segmentation can help provide insight into identifying new and returning visitors. New visitors may not fill out a lead form; however, they may download a couple of white papers, and returning visitors may fill out the lead form on their second or third site visits. All of this information can help marketers target their audiences appropriately.
Sign 6: Even though your homepage has an 80 percent bounce rate, your boss doesn't want a change because he/she likes the way it looks.
This is a classic push-pull battle. The difference is that one group is comprised of potential consumers who are the key to a company's success. To convince decision makers to trust their data, run tests to prove that the reports reflect consumer preference. Remain persistent on the implications of what not changing it could do to your business goals. If bounce rates improve, there will be little left to debate.
When evaluating a homepage for performance and deciding what needs to change, there are a few things to keep in mind: What is the value proposition? Why should a visitor engage further with the site? What is the call-to-action? Where are you trying to drive visitors within the website? Does the homepage have a clear navigation path for various user types? If the answer is "I am not sure" to any of these questions, you've found a great place to begin testing.
Sign 7: You're running multiple online marketing campaigns, and you have no idea which performs better.
For the first time, marketing campaigns can be measured to show their direct correlation and impact. Start from the beginning and tag online media campaigns so that you can measure how well each drives traffic to your site and how it converts. Knowing where to move your marketing dollars will become obvious once campaigns are tracked individually.
Google Analytics provides a URL builder for those who are not familiar with tagging campaigns. However, analytics solutions vary, so it would be best to check your implementation guide to clearly understand the requirements. The following is a hypothetical example of a campaign parameter using Google Analytics:
www.mysite.com/landingpage1?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=may
The "?utm" portion of the URL lets Google Analytics know that a variable is being passed from a campaign. The source ID will let Google Analytics know where the visitor is coming from, the campaign medium, and other useful statistics. These variables can be established to reflect whatever data make sense for a particular campaign.
Sign 8: The one time you ran an A/B test, a winner was chosen -- but no improvements ensued.
Testing is only one part of optimization, the next -- and most difficult part -- is implementation. Optimization is a continual process to make sure you are putting your best foot, ad creative, and messaging forward. What improves conversion rates today may not be as effective three months from now. With analytics, marketers are equipped to do more than just keep up with their consumers, and doing so will help attain goals and drive business.
A/B and multivariate testing are widely used in search engine marketing to determine the most effective ad creative. If most of your sales are completed offline, run testing with ad copy including phone numbers/store locations versus creative without it. Track conversion rates to see if prominently displaying this information on search engine ads makes a difference.
Sign 9: You still can't figure out why total site visits don't add up in all the reports.
It's important to understand that web analytics is not perfect, and sometimes 1 plus 1 equals 3. This does not mean that the information is inaccurate, but with an infinite number of variables and moving parts, numbers do not always match up. Web analytics data are still extremely valuable and important in gauging how a website performs. Remember to look at trends and major changes in key metrics. Continue to investigate what may have caused drastic changes until you have an answer.
A metric that is often used to measure audience mix is a comparison of new versus returning visitors. This metric is calculated as the total amount of new visitors divided by the total amount of returning visitors. A small number (0.3) indicates that the website has a healthy retention of visitors, while a higher number (5.2) indicates that the website has an abundance of new visitors. Marketing strategies that are in place determine the optimal rate for this metric. If an acquisition campaign launches and the goal is to drive qualified traffic, you should expect to see the ratio increase -- hopefully not too much, as you want to see the new traffic return.
Sign 10: You still design with HiPPO (highest paid person's opinion) standards in mind.
Great design drives conversions, so it needs to be strategically crafted to contribute to marketing goals. What worked on a previous project or competitor's site does not necessarily translate to your company. I am not advocating that you discount people's opinions or blindly follow analytics -- it is important to take both into account. Data are a great unifier and can help keep people on the same page in board meetings. By combining objective and subjective points of discussion, it is easier to come to sound marketing decisions. Even if the topic on the table is outlandish, cutting edge, or uncharted territory, at least data can be a place to initiate the conversation.
In conclusion, combining marketing insight with data is an extremely powerful and successful strategy.
Nicole Rawski is a web analytics analyst at Geary Interactive.
Saturday, 16 May 2009
How I made a business out of Man Utd fans
'How I made a business out of Man Utd fans'
By Jeeva Arulampalam and Sharen Kaurbt@nstp.com.my
2009/05/15
Peter Draper spent seven years changing the business culture of Manchester United plc to provide better service to the fans.
Fans, he stresses, ought to be treated as customers.
By the time he left Man U as its marketing director in May 2006, Draper had strengthened the club's brand name by creating interest in its on-field successes and boosting Man U's off-field commercial performances.
Draper, who now works with different customer brands and international sports rights holders in Britain, the United States and Asia, helps brand owners cultivate a relationship with their customers and create more meaningful communications.
While he was in town yesterday to speak to corporate leaders about "marketing in turbulent times", the New Straits Times took the opportunity to get his take on creating a strong brand.
Q: What were the key changes you made within Man Utd when you came on board in 1999?
A: They were a very successful football team but what we wanted to do was turn it into a successful commercial business. It was about converting that fandom into some kind of commercial proposition that brings reward to the organisation.
We put in place programmes to build value on an ongoing basis and created a lasting relationship with our fans via our fans forum.
Man U also had a variety of businesses such as retail and licensing, media, stadium, etc. My job was to harmonise all these businesses and get the best value from a marketing perspective that brings in revenue.
We changed our approach to become a customer-oriented business and not merely a football club.
Over time, fans accepted that it was right to run a good and profitable organisation. They also took a bit of glory in that and earned bragging rights because they could see that other teams were badly managed and losing money.
While the fans contribute to the wealth of the organisation, they saw the evolution of the core product -- the team -- in terms of having great style and skills.
Q: How do you build a brand name and sustain the brand power over time?
A: The Manchester United name has been there for more than 100 years. But some will say that Man U's marketing was done by the media.
In the last 15 years, the penetration of football as a media darling sport has been fantastic and Man U benefited as it was on top of the game. Through the power of television, the team reached across 205 markets. But Man U has invested tremendously in its players, which helped to build a strong brand.
Sustaining the brand power is about being in the moment or being current.
Q: How do you decide what is current?
A: I think some people know if you are or you're not. For Man U, it was changing the look and the feel of its services. We wanted to build a relationship with our fans. So, instead of sending fans generic season tickets renewal letters, we personalised it and signed off with Alex Ferguson's name.
Q: How can a brand attract new customers?
A: For a brand, it's being true to a higher purpose. Like AirAsia, Datuk Tony Fernandes thought about the democratisation of air travel, which manifested into a brand position of "now everyone can fly".
By being true to your purpose and creating awareness, people will find you. Also, technology has worked for most brands as it allows for social interaction and the ability to share experiences.
Q: What was Man U's strategy in picking commercial partners?
A: We chose partners that made us more visible and could allow brand penetration in new markets. We also picked partners that added new dimension to our activities. We picked them because they were able to liberate our brand through their product in a manner that we couldn't do on our own.
Another aspect concerning sponsorship was looking for exclusivity.
http://www.btimes.com.my/Current_News/BTIMES/articles/20090515015642/Article/
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