Digital Marketing - My Thoughts

My dedicated blog for my thoughts and learning as part of the Digital Marketing module.

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Digital Analytics

Analytics is an area of marketing which I have shied away from in the past. I have recently grown to appreciate the importance of evaluation and quantifying projects and actions. This module helped reinforce this idea and the importance of using data to help achieve marketing goals. Specifically, the data helps you keep focused, set targets, monitor effectiveness, and allows you to provide a measurable benefit for a project.

The following snippet outlines the data cycle which I found very interesting. Simple guidelines such as ‘plan, do, check and act’ can be easily remembered and implemented.

Another learning which I took from this module was the importance of conversion rates. Nielsen (2013) defines conversion rate as the “percentage of users who take a desired action.” A common example of this is the percentage of website visitors who buy something on the site. The conversion rate measures what happens when people are actually on your site. I learnt that conversion rate is of greater significance than conversion count.

Furthermore, the area of reflection and continual monitoring is imperative in digital marketing analytics. The below snipping focuses on the importance of reviewing the content to understand ‘why’ there has been a change in the data. Analysis of trends in the data plays a key role in this area of digital marketing. As a marketer you must step back from the project at hand and consider all elements in order to understand what is causing a change in the data. Finally, once again the statement of ‘quality over quantity’ rings true in this instance.

Module completed:

Reference: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/conversion-rates/

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Email Marketing

The ‘Connect Through Email’ section of the module really related to the work that I carry out on the Meet in Ireland team. I led a recent St. Patrick’s Day integrated communications campaign, which used social media and email marketing. I sent a St. Patrick’s greeting to a range of stakeholders including international meeting planners, Irish trade partners, association ambassadors and corporate ambassadors. We reached 5,987 of our target market through this campaign. I then in turn used our ClickDimensions system to analyse the ezine communication in isolation. The screen grab below shows some key statistics from one particular ezine send.

An area of specific importance for us at the moment is ensuring that we continually clean our database of contacts as many members within our industry have sadly been made redundant or moved to a different job. To do this I analysed the hard and soft bounces as shown below and amended our database accordingly.

As social media marketing has grown in popularity in recent years I feel that email marketing must not be overlooked. The following blog published by Hubspot outlined the following statistics which highlight the power that email marketing may still hold, if executed correctly:

73% of millennials prefer communications from businesses to come via email.

99% of consumers check their email every day and it is by far the preferred way to receive updates from brands.

Additionally, I also learnt from this blog the importance of timely campaigns and the benefits of conducting feedback surveys. Feedback surveys help a business “keep a pulse on customer experience” whilst helping the business identify key brand ambassadors who hold positive connotations towards the business and their product offering.

https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/benefits-of-email-marketing

I was excited to learn more about the area of Search Engine Marketing as due to the implications of COVID-19, we had to pause many of our marketing activities on the Meet in Ireland team as we could not actively promote travel to Ireland in 2020.

Whilst I haven’t had any hands-on experience in this area yet, I can see how I would be able to divide Ireland’s business tourism offering and also identify separate campaign groups. For example, in my industry I would identify the following key groups:

incentive travel

corporate meetings

association conferences

Module completed:

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The Professional Profile

My time on the Fáilte Ireland team has provided me with many opportunities to post and engage with my connections on LinkedIn. I have found myself predominately in a sales and marketing role and I have found LinkedIn to be one of the most useful tools in which to support this role. I can connect with people that I meet at a networking event and keep in touch, in subtle ways such as commenting on their posts.

LinkedIn has been especially useful during COVID-19 when I could not travel to meet international buyers and I had to rely heavily on virtual communication.

I have found that a LinkedIn post with relevant personal images, especially a post including a picture of me, receives much greater levels of interest. See below clippings for a comparison. The first post in which I shared images of myself and colleagues at a networking event in Barcelona received nearly seven times more views in the feed than the second post in which I was sharing that I had attended a virtual networking event for St. Patrick’s Day.

LinkedIn post #1:

LinkedIn post #2:

Recently, when I was looking for a new position as it is soon time to move on from Fáilte Ireland, I ensured that I followed companies on LinkedIn so that I could receive their updates on my feed, and I especially kept an eye out for posts in which they announced they were hiring. I also consider my future career plan and make an effort to follow those individuals within my industry especially those in higher positions, should I ever cross paths with them in the future. For example, I would love to return to Northern Ireland to work in the business tourism industry at some stage, so I have made a conscious effort to follow those individuals in the relevant organisations.

I have also been responsible for the Meet in Ireland LinkedIn account and I find that posts in which my colleagues share to their networks preform significantly better. Our communications team now sends out an internal email to all Meet in Ireland members when we have a relevant post from the business page. This further highlights the importance of personal connections and networks on LinkedIn and the true value they have.

I have also found the below piece of advice very useful. Whilst I try to do it, this is something which I will strive to include more of on my LinkedIn. It is very possible, whilst remaining professional to show your personal interests and accomplishments and allow professional connections to get to know you that bit better through your personal brand.

Key piece of advice:

The power of a successful LinkedIn profile cannot be underestimated. I have found myself going to look for an individual on LinkedIn and I find myself very shocked when I learn that they do not have a profile. The Harvard Business Review highlights the importance of a LinkedIn profile as being the “centrepiece of your online career persona” and that this platform should be used to tell your tell your story, in order to “reach your vision faster.”

https://hbr.org/2020/04/how-to-tell-your-story-on-linkedin

Éilis McNamee LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eilis-mcnamee/

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Online Content

As an avid web and social media user, I was particularly intrigued to learn more about content marketing, particularly social media content marketing. The first key piece of information which I felt resonated specifically with me was the importance of an organisation creating social media content that their audience will want to share. I can relate to this as a social media user, in that if I see a friend or family member at a new coffee shop and they post a picture in a nice location, holding a coffee cup with an appealing logo, I HAVE to go there as soon as possible and check it out.

Exhibit A:

This is effective in that when someone sees a person they chose to follow on social media, someone they likely trust post something they will consider it as reliable content. Such user generated content promotes authenticity around the organisation and will further create awareness for the organisation. Additionally, Moran and Muzellec (2013) state that content has a direct impact on message credibility.

Secondly, I felt that the following snippet of information successfully summarised some key pointers which need to be considered when taking part in social media marketing. I couldn’t agree more, in that social media is the perfect place in which to create a conversation with your target audience. Although from personal experience I feel it is important stress two-way meaningful conversation between the organisation and the social media follower. Now more and more customers are turning to social media during their information search of their consumer journey, and it is both efficient and effective for organisations to assist on social media at this stage, whether it is by providing this information or responding to comments and direct messages to provide such information.

Posting regularly, also helps with algorithms especially on Instagram as well as keeping the conversation going.

The final highlighted point is an issue which I found myself stressing to colleagues in my current role. Quality over quantity needs to be considered at all stages of content planning. Content must be relevant, timely and in order to do so it must not get ‘lost’ or ‘monotonous’ for social medial followers.

In regard to strategically choosing which social media channels to be active on, this is something which I learnt a lot about in my current role. The Meet in Ireland team communicates with a range of stakeholders including international event planners, Irish trade partners and association ambassadors, to name a few. We feel that we communicate best with international event planners on LinkedIn and Irish trade partners on Twitter. We are still new to Instagram so this is a channel strategy which we are continually working on.

I see LinkedIn as a very effective corporate networking platform. For this reason, I actually question the following clip which I came across during completion of this module. The theory suggests that a carpenter would be active on LinkedIn, but due to my own knowledge and experience, I would find this hard to understand.

Reference: Moran, G. and Muzellec, L. (2017) eWOM credibility on social networking sites: A framework. Journal of Marketing Communications, 23 (2), 149-161. professional

Module completed: