Think deeper, achieve more...

Our aim was to help businesses go further online and judging by all the positive feedback from our “Think Deeper, Achieve More” event last Thursday morning, that’s what we did!

We lined up 3 exclusive speakers to give insightful inspiration on everything, from fixing customer problems to writing a content strategy. We thought we would give you a roundup of the day – in case you missed anything!

After tucking into some tasty bacon baps, it was time for business.

First up, we had Mark Lilley – Head of Ecommerce at Chain Reaction Cycles. Mark gave knowledgeable insight into how “driving traffic is no longer enough; customer experience is key”. Mark showed us which google analytics metrics were important and which were not so crucial. We learned how a focus on the detail can help you make decisions that can impact on the bottom line – for example, Mark showed us how tweaking the time Chain Reaction Cycles sends out its promotional e-mail made a different of several £100,000 in sales.

Many businesses are focusing on vanity metrics that have little or no meaning on their own. Mark pointed out a lot of us are getting worried or clapping ourselves on the back about numbers that aren’t helping us to grow. We need to set up analytics correctly and choose the correct reporting set-up to get a full picture of what’s going on our site. The difference can be huge.

He also put a lot of focus on ‘Experiencing the Experience’ as in spending time on your own website as if you were the customer, take note of anything that bugs you and then put together a fix list to get sorted asap. Small things like load time, overly complicated checkout or too many clicks to get to basket can lose you sales. Always choose experience for the customer over what you think looks nice!

Our very own Digital Training Manager, Dean Langasco, took the floor next, with a focus on content marketing, how to use it and the importance of having a structured content plan written down. He shared with us how content marketing should be treated like a first date – it won’t go too well, if all you do is talk about yourself!

Content marketing should be about help rather than hype these days. If you removed the feed of content you are putting out, would you be missed? It isn’t just about the obvious and conventional methods – while blogging and social posts are important, it’s going that little bit further that counts.

To do this however, you need to first know yourself. Understand what your business is about, know what exactly you want to achieve and most of all - understand your ideal customers and what stage of the buying cycle they are at.

Every time someone encounters your organization, it’s an opportunity to help them, so be creative! Work out what they need and what keeps them up at night. Find out what their problems, desires, needs and interests are (not just work related) and give them solutions – this will result in them knowing and trusting you as an organisation. Then, when the consumer wants or needs a product like yours, you’ll be first on their mind.

Last but certainly not least, we heard from Oliver Brierly – Google Development Manager. Smartphones have created a world living in moments, we expect things instantly. Oliver challenged us to think about what we as marketers, are doing to break into each of these moments.

Oliver started off with a fun game of “Higher or Lower” to see if we knew what was being searched most in Google – while we may have guessed correctly that Pokémon was searched more times than Brexit, the other results were extremely surprising. It proved to us, that we need to be at the heart of what consumers are searching for and not necessarily what we deem most important.

Knowing your target audience and getting in front of the right people is the first step.

There are new moments happening, from the “I-want-to-know and I-want-to-go” moments to the “I-want-to-do and I-want-to-shop” moments. It is important for us to know that the intent behind each moment is always different, so we can target correctly. The “I-want-to-know-which-coffee-shop-is-good” moment, has very different intent to the “I-want-to-go” moment which occurs while searching for the nearest coffee shop on a cold day, badly in need of a caffeine fix.

91% of smartphone users turn to their phone for ideas doing a task while 82% look up a product before buying it.

The next thing to consider is the consumer’s context at their time of searching. Where are they? What are they doing? Have you appeared to them in the right moment, when they are in the position to purchase?

Pick your moments. You can’t win them all. Understand your customers. Targeting the correct people, when they have purchasing intent, in context and across the right devices – that’s how to win the moments that matter.