All too often, Marketers in a rush to drive results focus solely on techniques to drive more traffic to their websites, but what if we simply made more of the traffic we already have?  Daniel walks us through website user / usability testing and highlights some of the performance improvements it can drive. If you have never engaged in this type of marketing activity, you really should. It's such a simple, straightforward and effective way to drive website improvement that in our opinion every marketer should be regularly practising it.   There are many ways to approach user testing. You can employ specialist agencies with dedicated UX user testing labs, one-way mirrors and a plethora of expensive-looking people, gadgets, techniques, and kit. However, why allow them to have all the fun and glory. There is lots every marketer could do themselves if they make the time. All you need are some volunteers, some well thought out tests, a mobile or laptop with some screen-recording software and some regular time slots to run the tests. ( IOHO biscuits can also help the process, but these are optional.)  Ciaran and Daniel share some insights from their website user testing and encourage all our listeners to give it a go. The more you do, the easier it gets, and it really can result in some dramatic performance improvements. Explore the techniques and tools you can employ and start saving your customers' from poor website or app experiences today. Listen in and learn how to conduct usability testing for your organisation. Useful Links Target Internet Guide to User-Centered Design   Podcast: Mastering Stakeholder Management Conversion Rate Experts  Making Websites Win - the book Making Websites Win - The FREE audiobook podcast  Don't Make Me Think  Revisited

The Digital Marketing Podcast

Website User Testing

We revisit one of Ciaran's favourite marketing formats, The QR code. With both IOS and Android devices now including default support for reading QR codes, they no longer have the requirement to download additional QR code scanners for your audience to be able to use them. We think that's a game changer for the format.   Seeking to update his knowledge of what is possible for marketers considering using the format in 2020, Ciaran speaks to Nils Engelking from QR code specialists  . Nils’ company specialise in helping marketers all over the world to get the most from the QR code format.   Nils shares with us some of the more innovative ways their clients are using the QR codes. Learn some of the key ways to effectively customise and integrate QR codes into your marketing.  It’s a visual technology that anyone with a smartphone can use. Nils shares some core good practice principals of the format to ensure they work for your customers and audiences.   QR codes can and should do so much more than link to your home page. Listen in and be inspired by what this format might offer your organisations campaigns. Explore what's possible with both static and dynamic version of the format, learn how you can utilise frames for your codes to drive higher levels of engagement and much much more.   Useful Links QR Code Generator Website About Egoditor From the Archive- Target Internet’s Complete Guide to QR codes   Google trends showing the growth of 'QR codes' as a global search term

Using QR Codes for Marketing in 2020

We talk influential blogger and international SEO speaker Cindy Krum from Mobile Moxie about her perspective on how Google is taking steps to better organise and understand the world's information. Discover Cindy's concept of SEO Fraggles and how you can utilise them to show up in Google's search results pages using a variety of different content types. If you are wanting to develop a sharper sense of how Google search is working with and indexing with a wide variety different content types in 2020, spending time listening to what Cindy teaches in this episode will greatly help. Learn how you can structure your content to make it easier for Google to recognise the `useful Fragments "within it so they surface more prominently in Google's Search results We also explore a whole suite of useful mobile SEO tools and App store Optimisation tools that Mobile Moxie offer. Cranberries Update: No, this isn't a Google Algorithm update that you somehow missed. There was, as it turns out, a drummer for The Cranberries. His name was  and you can find out more about him here,  but facts aside- Cindy's example still works to illustrate her point if you substitute The Cranberries for any of these bands without drummers. See  Useful Links Mobile Moxie Google My Business Fraggles in SEO Fraggles In SEO Video Webinar recording Wayback Machine

Discover SEO Fraggles

Welcome to the start of 2020. Daniel and Ciaran are back to explore Daniel's predictions for digital marketing for the year ahead. Avoiding the fanciful future-gazing so often indulged in during January, we are focusing on trends we think will be of the utmost importance to your marketing over the next six months to a year.  Under discussion are Social Commerce Posts, Impulse Purchases, Embracing Influencers, Changes to how Google Indexes and serves longer form articles video and Audio. Also under discussion is the ever-increasing importance of Community around digital Content, Conversational design and chatbots as well as the death of programmatic as a blanket term. OK that last one is not so much a prediction as a heartfelt desire of Daniels. We invite you to get in touch if you would like to appear on a future episode exploring and explaining Programmatic Advertising in more detail. (See links below) Finally, we explore what this all means for marketing, summarise and predict the possible death of Digital Marketing! If that shocks you, listen in and this all should make a bit more sense. Useful LInks Get In touch How Machines Learn - Video  IAB Programmatic resources VidIQ Video SEO episode Heartificial Empathy Episode Conversational Design Episode

Digital Marketing Trends for 2020

If you enjoyed our interview with the founders of SparkToro, Rand Fishkin and Casey Henry, we have some bonus interview content for you to get stuck into this week. Our chat with Rand and Casey was over an hour long. During that time, we discussed a whole bunch of other things. That's not unusual when we let Ciaran loose with a mic!... but a lot of what that discussion covered was too good to end up on the cutting room floor, so we share it here for your listening pleasure. Under discussion, Is Google Search at risk of becoming a walled garden? Startup investment models, Picking a suitable and memorable brand name, and an exploration of just how Social, Social media channels really still are. Listen in, enjoy and discover how Unicorns differ from Zebras in the startup investment world. Unicorns differ from Zebras in the startup investment world. We also explore some of the flaws in social metrics and how they reward bad behaviour and mislead unsuspecting marketers. We also discuss the SparkScore and the free Fake follower's tool spark toro provide for analysing twitter accounts.   Useful Links Our Interview all about SparkToro Rand Fishkin's blog post on Google Search traffic clicks SparkToro Fake followers tool Casey's Twitter account ( follow him!) Geraldine's blog on social media harassment Spark Scores

Is Social Still Social?

SparkToro is an exciting new influence search engine which enables marketers to search for genuine areas of influence online. In this episode, we speak to Rand Fishkin and Casey Henry, the founders behind this amazing new tool. If you would like actionable intelligence on what different social and online audiences engage with, you will love this tool. As Rand explains, most marketers searching for influencers base their searches on what the influencers say about themselves. What SparkToro enables you to do is to Identify what audiences passionate about a subject or social account, pay attention to, read, watch or listen to. We are excited by the opportunities SparkToro opens up for Marketing. Listen in and redefine in your mind where influence online really sits.   We also explore what some of SparkToro's free tools do and how they can help you to better analyse and measure influence and audiences for any content. Want to get early access to the full SparkToro tool? ( Trust us...You do!) Fill out the email from the Sparktoro team on their official launch.  Useful Links SparkToro Rand's 'Lost and Founder' Book Spark Toro Fake Follower Audit SparkToro Trending SparkScore SparkToro Resources Moz Whiteboard Fridays How to create 10X content

Discover SparkToro - A New Search Engine for Audience Intelligence

Daniel talks us through what he feels is at the root of the current digital marketing skills gap in marketing. In a digital marketing world which is changing all the time dramatically, we explore some of the challenges faced by university education and publishing and organisational structure and individuals, all of which struggle to keep up with current best practice, tactics and strategy.  We also explore some of the challenges we face in teaching and training others in such a fast-moving environment. Daniel invites organisations to engage with our students on the Digital Leadership programme, and we would love to know youth thoughts on the challenges we have explored in this episode. Where you think publishing, education industry and individuals are going wrong, and what we can do to improve there so that there isn't this digital skills gap? Useful LInks Contact us Take the Digital Skills Benchmark  2018 Digital Skills Benchmark report ( new report out in 2020) Jersey Digital Leadership Programme

The State of Digital Skills and Education

Daniel introduces us to BIMA ( The British Interactive Media Association) who kindly invited us to attend their conference last month. BIMA drive innovation and excellence across the digital industry. While at the conference, Daniel collected a variety of interviews from movers and shakers in the interactive world which we are sharing with you this week. We get to hear from Cindy Rose, the UK CEO of Microsoft. Cindy is responsible for all of Microsoft’s product, service and support offerings across the United Kingdom. She is continuing the company’s transformation into the leading productivity and platform company for the mobile-first, cloud-first era. Cindy explores some of the ways Microsoft is making other people cool, helping the world to collaborate better, embracing diversity, and educating the world on all the new possibilities advances in digital technology are enabling. We also speak to Richard Nockles, the Creative Director of Sky VR on how they are using interactive technology to enhance entertainment in an immersive way using augmented reality and virtual reality. Richard explores with Daniel some of the low cost and creative ways new technologies can be used to engage audiences in exciting ways. Daniel also speaks to William Skeaping, an Extinction Rebellion activist and co-author of " This Is Not A Drill, The Extinction Rebellion Handbook. William explains how Extinction Rebellion is using digital technologies to drive people to take action and to create community. Useful Links BIMA BIMA Digital Day   Microsoft Cindy Rose   Sky VR Richard Nockles   Extinction Rebellion This Is Not A Drill   Digital Leadership Programme

BIMA Conference Highlights

Is personalisation something you should pursue whatever the cost to your audience? Increasingly audiences are waking up to how their data might be being used or abused and are increasingly reluctant to share information with marketers. Are too many marketers not using the data they already have to identify users interests from their previous behaviour? We don't need to ask for a thousand bits of information if we make smarter use of the behavioural data we already have.  Daniel shares with us a conversion rate optimisation experiment we are running one of our own highest-performing organic landing pages and the platforms we are using to power that. We also explore how conversion rate tricks and automation systems can sometimes work against you. Ciaran explores Micro-content publishing growth, plus we explore how gullible adorable Ciaran can be if you tell him a plausible enough story.  Useful Links Advertising Research Foundation Survey How to get Google Analytics Certification landing page experiment Active Campaign Convert Flow Google Search Console Best Dogs for Sailing Get in touch about your CRO successes. We would love to hear from you.

Marketing Personalisation and Conversion Rate Optimisation

Ciaran talks to Alistair Beech from the University of Manchester and explores how they are using Hootsuite’s Amplify App to engage senior staff advocates to help spread the word on the University’s amazing research and campaign initiatives. Based at the largest single-site university in the UK, Alistair shares with us how his communications team went about persuading influential members of the University’s community to engage with their advocacy programme. How do you go about convincing busy staff members and academics that helping you to share great content about your organisation is a beneficial activity for them to invest their time into? If you are looking at any employee social engagement at scale, Alistair has some great pointers and key learnings that will help you to build a useful and engaging internal advocacy programme. Listen in and learn how to engage at scale. Useful Links Hootsuite Amplify >Hootsuite The University of Manchester   Alistair Beech   James Baker

Employee Advocacy At Scale with Hootsuite Amplify

Is Marketing in your organisation seen as less important than Finance, Sales, Operations or HR? Distracted by digital, does your Marketing team find itself relegated from the top table of decision-making, focusing purely on Marketing Communications?  Ciaran talks to Mike Berry, an author, digital consultant, trainer and academic, about the famous "4P's of the Marketing Mix: Product, Price, Place, and Promotion." We discover that the 4 Ps is still as fresh and relevant today as it was when it was devised by E. Jerome McCarthy back in 1960. However, and worryingly for Marketers, Mike argues that responsibility for the full Marketing Mix has been gradually surrendered, to the detriment of Marketing as a profession. We explore how Marketers can learn to harness this essential framework alongside effective data and measurement of performance, and reclaim all the 4P's, ensuring that Marketing can once more truly champion the Customer! In this episode, we revisit this framework as Mike (controversially) redefines it as Product, Price, Distribution, and Marketing Communications. So could 2 Ps, a D, and an MC be the new rallying battle cry for Marketing? This leads us to an exploration of the story behind Mike's co-authored book: Digital Marketing Fundamentals: From Strategy to ROI and we hear how Mike goes about finding international case studies of great (digital) marketing campaigns we can all learn from. Useful Links Digital Marketing Fundamentals: From Strategy to ROI Connect with Mike on LinkedIn: More Books by Mike Berry Jerome McCarthy Phillip Kotler

Revisiting 'The 4P's of the Marketing Mix' with Mike Berry

With many of you are gearing up around the start of a new academic year we thought we'd indulge in a little future-gazing. This week we talk with Futurist and Angel Investor Matt Ward from The Disruptors.fm podcast. With a background in building and selling ecommerce platforms, and as a podcaster interviewing the leaders in the disruptive space, Matt has a unique take on what the future holds. Which current Sci-fi-Esque developments will be transformational and disruptive? Which technologies should you be keeping a development eye on as a digital marketer? Matt shares his compass on the future that technology is taking us to. Under discussion are many of the usual suspects for digital crystal ball gazing but we'd argue you won't have heard about them talked about and inspected quite the way Matt does. Our future-gazing takes many different turns. Driverless cars, Augmented and Virtual reality ( exactly when these things become mainstream?) The future of e-commerce and how it will evolve. How can smaller startups compete with big online sellers and players? Are the future of social media and blockchain platforms interwound? Finally, as an angel investor, we pick Matt's brains on what he looks for in any investment. If your dream is to create and sell your disruptive solution and retire on the proceeds, we think you will want to hear what Matt has to say. It isn't always the idyllic dream so often portrayed. Useful Links Matt Ward  Find Matt on Twitter Listen to The Disruptors Podcast Hear more about Angel Investing in early-stage tech startups with Matt's other podcast,

Future Gazing with Matt Ward from Disruptors.fm podcast

In a follow up to our last episode on fake social metrics and engagement, Ciaran speaks to Anders Ankarlid from A Good Company, whose original research into Influencer marketing sparked our interest in effective Influencer marketing measurement. Anders shares the full story behind his research and explains how his organisation have changed how they approach influencer marketing as a result of what they learned. Is your influencer marketing programme at risk of being gamed? Listen in and learn how one innovative startup is tackling the issue and seeking out genuine advocates, rather than just chasing gamed and fake influence. Useful Links:- You can read an original, in-depth article, "The 744 Million Influencer Marketing Scam" that we discuss the results from here.

Exploring Instagram Influencers and Fake Social Influence Part 2

"Fake it till you make it" is how the old saying goes, but have too many social influencers taken that old adage too much to heart in the race to look as popular and as influential as possible? In the wake of some interesting in-depth research into levels of fakery on popular social media channels, Ciaran and Daniel explore fake social accounts and followers and fake interactions. We’ve spent some time investigating the dark side of Social media metrics so we can explore how they get gamed. Ever felt that the reach metrics of influencers don't quite tally with actual business results? Is your influencer marketing programme being scammed by influencers gaming social algorithms with fake followers and fake interactions? Listen in and learn how shady social media practices could be skewing your results and what you might do about it to correct course. Useful Links PRWeek Article https://www.prweek.com/article/1590362/majority-uk-instagram-influencers-engage-fakery-landmark-new-study More detailed write up of this research by Anders Arkalid. https://medium.com/@aa_88162/influencerstudy-agoodcom-4c7ac6c27fae Google Trends https://trends.google.com/trends Keywords Everywhere https://keywordseverywhere.com/ Google Keyword Planner Tool https://ads.google.com/intl/en_uk/home/tools/keyword-planner/ Hype Auditor Slide Deck https://www.slideshare.net/pmievents/influencer-marketing-without-the-proper-checks-transparency-will-not-work PR week Autumn research Endelbach https://www.prweek.com/article/1494118/influencer-campaigns-focus-social-proof-not-reach Instagram crackdown on fake accounts https://techcrunch.com/2018/11/19/instagram-fake-followers New York Times investigation into celebrities buying fake followers https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/01/27/technology/social-media-bots.html What is a click farm? https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-03-30/farming-for-likes-fake-social-media-engagement/10944078 Spark Torro Twitter Follower check https://sparktoro.com/tools/fake-followers-audit Hype Auditor https://hypeauditor.com/en/ Fakecheck.co https://www.fakecheck.co Fakecheck worst offenders https://www.fakecheck.co/bot10-social-engagement#report Fakecheck 10 best accounts https://www.fakecheck.co/top10-social-engagement#report Moz Link Explorer https://moz.com/link-explorer Ubersuggest https://neilpatel.com/ubersuggest/

Exploring Instagram Influencers and Fake social Influence Part 1

Discover how can you get the most out of the traffic you already have with effective CRO. To aid us with this task, we speak to Jeff White, a leading conversion optimization specialist from Kula Partners in Canada who focus their work helping B2B organisations and manufacturers. We explore what Conversion Optimization is, and what it can offer marketers brave enough to admit their website and content could be working much harder. If you are interested in learning more about Conversion Optimization and how to go about practising it effectively, Jeff provides a whole host of useful tips, tools and resources to help improve what you are measuring and to help you learn and improve your skills around conversions. Kula Partners Kula Ring Podcast   Google Analytics   Hotjar   Optimizely   VWO   Conversion XL - Peep Laja’s blog   Conversion Rate Experts   Also as a bonus thank you for taking the trouble to read our podcast notes- Check out the full audio of their new book Making websites win which they are giving away for free at the moment as a podcast

B2B Conversion Optimization

An advert free, weekly digital marketing podcast with listeners in over 190 countries worldwide, The Digital Marketing Podcast combines interviews with global experts, together with the latest news, tools, strategies and techniques to give your digital marketing the edge. Perfect for your daily commute, the podcast aims to be both entertaining and informative. Produced by Target Internet and hosted by Digital Marketing and Ecommerce Expert, Ciaran Rogers and Award Winning Author and Speaker, Daniel Rowles. Find out more at TargetInternet.com

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The Digital Marketing Podcast

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