digital stats – integration’s worse enemy

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I love digital analytics, but the perceived concreteness can lead to some tricky situations…

Unless you’re only using one channel to showcase your brand (if you are I’m intrigued to hear why!?) your audience is almost certainly seeing you in more than one place. This creates a challenge for Google Analytics and other similar tools. While its easy to generate ‘last-touch’ reporting this doesn’t give you a true sense of why someone responded.

We talk a lot about this at work. We were quite aware during our East Africa emergency activity that integrated channels and messages perform best.

So we’ve been building up our understanding of multi-touch attribution, including using tools like Ignition One. But this doesn’t help if/when you include offline in your media mix. You still can’t fully understand what the impact of the full mix is.

The tricky situation this puts you in is particularly relevant if you’re still trying to build the business case for integrating digital. Individuals can interpret last-touch reporting in terms of ROI (return on investment) on a purely channel by channel basis. This can mean investment is skewed, and integration completely overlooked.

Unless you invest in regular market research studies I’m not sure there’s a real-time answer (until we all get micro-chipped!). So next step for us will probably be considering what ‘closest guess based on historic data’ models we can devise and use.

Where are you with your attribution models? Be great to compare notes!

what does a digital first organisation look like?

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I often mull over whether my digital transformation work will ever been done (in a good way), and what it will look like when we get there. I was thinking this over while scanning through a e-consultancy report on the evolution of agencies. There were a couple of role descriptions which I think go some way to painting a picture of digital first organisation structures:

‘T-shaped’ people
“staff who have a strong, vertical digital skill, but have either a breadth of experience outside of this vertical area or at least a useful level of understanding and empathy with other vertical digital channels and, notably, with traditional marketing practice and techniques.”

Chief creative technologist (More on this theme in the excellent chiefmartec blog)
“The three main areas of focus for the role are:
1. Helping the Chief Marketing Officer translate strategy into technology and vice versa
2. Choreographing data and technology across the marketing organisation
3. Infusing technology into the DNA of marketing – practices, people and culture”

I’m still undecided whether digital teams will cease to exist entirely. I certainly think there will be fewer titles with ‘digital’, ‘web’ or ‘online’ within them. Like the descriptions above, digital and non-digital staff will have more rounded skills-sets all around.

building a digital team

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So, it’s been a little while since I last posted. Don’t worry I’ve still been living all things digital (twitter and instagram prove that) but I’ve been faced with immense writers block. So this is me breaking it quickly and concisely.

Since I last wrote I’ve been to a few digital events, perhaps too many, many are on personal time so that’s one excuse I’ve been using for my lack of blogging. I’ve also spoken a couple of times on the digital transformation work I’m leading at UNICEF UK so here’s the presentation via slideshare.

Building sustainabledigifr laila-june2012

View more presentations from Laila Takeh

the future of digital giving

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This week I was one of a few charity and digital industry types at a roundtable discussion on the future of giving technology hosted by the Guardian. It’ll be written up by the Guardian as an article in mid-May but while my memory is still fresh I wanted to capture a few of my personal take-outs.

  • Technology adoption by charities:
    • Charities are behind the curve in contrast to commercial, partly due to expense of adopting the new while its less consumerised and partly because the technology expertise is missing in many charities.
    • There’s also the technology industry view that the charity sector doesn’t have a strong business case for investment (see previous post by me on Spring-giving).
  • Innovation in charity sector:
    • Some interesting models exist but often innovation comes from the ground up, but only where those ground staff are empowered to express their ideas.
    • In smaller charities the silos that stifle innovation don’t exist (mostly).
  • Giving trends:
    • There’s a question over whether digital channels are fund-catching Vs fundraising.
    • No charity wants to swap a channel which has a higher average gift for one with a lower average gift so sometimes a more convenient channel is a less effective one for the charity.
    • We need to separate the process from the reason, people don’t give because you have an SMS number they give because of the cause and key messages.
  • Some insights from experiences shared:
    • SMS giving has meant a lower average gift for certain charities, choosing ‘slumps’ as focus point for using SMS calls to action is a good mitigation.
    • Unexpected ‘social media’ response as seen with the tragic case of Claire Squires mostly demonstrate that giving is easier than it was before. They pose speed of response and decision-making challenges.

 

digital marketing optimisation event notes

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Notes from Brand Republic event 17 April 2012

  1. Digital strategy
  2. Share
    “
    “Digital marketing is just marketing” #dmoevent

    John GodslandTheRealMrG

    Tue, Apr 17 2012 04:31:14
  3. Share
    “
    Understand people’s lives if you want to understand how your brand fits in #dmoevent

    Anne-Marie Sheedyamsheedy

    Tue, Apr 17 2012 04:36:50
  4. Share
    “
    We can’t treat the online world and the real world as seperate – J Gatward, Britvic #dmoevent

    Rebecca Waltonrebeccaewalton

    Tue, Apr 17 2012 04:53:22
  5. Share
    “
    Use 1-9-90 influence model. 1 really strong endorsers get them to influence 9 others and make those 9s feels like 1s #digitaloptimisation

    Laila Takehspirals

    Tue, Apr 17 2012 04:46:23
  6. Share
    “
    Once you have the 9s you probably have the 90s #digitaloptimisation

    Laila Takehspirals

    Tue, Apr 17 2012 04:46:41
  7. Share
    “
    Jonathan Gatward, Britvic UK: create hackable content for your brand #dmoevent

    Jean-Baptiste Grairejbgraire

    Tue, Apr 17 2012 05:06:54
  8. Share

    I like this one a lot ‘you have to embrace complexity, it’s actual not complex anymore’ #digitaloptimisation http://twitpic.com/9atmer

    Laila Takehspirals

    Tue, Apr 17 2012 04:57:25
  9. Share
    “
    One of the final takeouts – don’t forget to do internal marketing as well as external. It’s important for buy-in #dmoevent

    Laila Takehspirals

    Tue, Apr 17 2012 12:13:30
  10. Share
    “
    “Digital marketing works. But it will never work on its own” Jacqui O’Beirne @DogsTrust #DMOevent

    PrecisePreciseTweets

    Tue, Apr 17 2012 12:48:25
  11. Campaign examples
  12. Share
    “
    With competitor as event ‘owner’ for Olympics, Britvic goal to own the legacy instead with ‘transform your patch’ #digitaloptimisation

    Laila Takehspirals

    Tue, Apr 17 2012 04:38:00
  13. Share
    “
    Partners needed to take digital promises into the real world #dmoevent

    Anne-Marie Sheedyamsheedy

    Tue, Apr 17 2012 04:59:50
  14. Share
    “
    Pepsi Super Bowl saw over half of the adverts were ‘shazamable’ with shazam tv app #digitaloptimisation cc @willlord

    Laila Takehspirals

    Tue, Apr 17 2012 04:56:08
  15. Share
    “
    Debenhams beta with content network audience retargeted using tracking on brand site, 1month 3k sales #dmoevent

    Laila Takehspirals

    Tue, Apr 17 2012 05:21:11
  16. Share
    “
    MediaCom rep in audience says ‘t in the park’ press ad with aurasma worked really well due to video rich content link #dmoevent

    Laila Takehspirals

    Tue, Apr 17 2012 06:26:11
  17. Share
    “
    Aurasma – results very small but can get very good PR (Debenhams experience) #dmoevent

    John GodslandTheRealMrG

    Tue, Apr 17 2012 06:28:14
  18.            EA campaign…
  19. Share
    “
    Waterloo takeover by battlefield 3: 17 sites, some posters started to get stolen. That’s a great KPI!! #dmoevent

    Laila Takehspirals

    Tue, Apr 17 2012 10:20:20
  20. Share

    Example poster from the campaign #dmoevent http://twitpic.com/9awu5g

    Laila Takehspirals

    Tue, Apr 17 2012 10:25:53
  21. Share
    “
    4k downloads from QR code, Wifi (90% of downloads) NFC in the 2 week campaign #dmoevent

    Laila Takehspirals

    Tue, Apr 17 2012 10:24:06
  22. Share
    “
    Over 9k interactions, over 900 email addresses collected from an interactive digital 6sheet display in cinemas #dmoevent

    Laila Takehspirals

    Tue, Apr 17 2012 10:29:18
  23. Share
    “
    Digital out of home learnings – wifi 92% of interactions and consumers still getting used to the approach #dmoevent

    Laila Takehspirals

    Tue, Apr 17 2012 10:30:53
  24. Search – PPC & SEO
  25. Share
    “
    86% using mobile search while watching TV, debenhams see peak for apps around 10pm. Parts of day strategy important #dmoevent

    Laila Takehspirals

    Tue, Apr 17 2012 05:25:11
  26. Share

    Debenhams using hydra platform to integrate PPC and SEO activity, but only a week in at mo #dmoevent http://twitpic.com/9atw8o

    Laila Takehspirals

    Tue, Apr 17 2012 05:34:28
  27. Share
    “
    J Stephenson, Debenhams. Paid Search Mob Stgy: separate mob campaigns on tablets and mobiles for more control and better targeting #dmoevent

    Jean-Baptiste Grairejbgraire

    Tue, Apr 17 2012 05:36:19
  28. Email
  29. Share
    “
    When and whe emails are checked makes a big difference – optimise for this #dmoevent

    Laila Takehspirals

    Tue, Apr 17 2012 05:48:54
  30. Share
    “
    Progressive disclosure using CSS to include expandable areas in emails can help – works on most devices #dmoevent cc @teminamoledina

    Laila Takehspirals

    Tue, Apr 17 2012 05:50:14
  31. Share
    “
    Open rate significantly improved by using social info in subject line eg ‘share with your 123 friends’ #dmoevent cc @teminamoledina

    Laila Takehspirals

    Tue, Apr 17 2012 06:02:08
  32. Share
    “
    Optimise for snippets- gmail and outlook summary that appears before open. Use gif with alt being tagline #dmoevent

    Laila Takehspirals

    Tue, Apr 17 2012 06:03:24
  33. Share
    “
    Segment by most responsive and target them with a social campaign to help optimise a launch #dmoevent

    Laila Takehspirals

    Tue, Apr 17 2012 06:04:51
  34. Share
    “
    You can download the @BrandRepublic event slides by @marcmunier on email marketing here – ow.ly/akzAQ #dmoevent

    Pure360Pure360

    Tue, Apr 17 2012 07:08:51
  35. Mobile
  36. Share
    “
    #dmoevent More mobile Internet than desktop Internet by end 2013

    Anthony Thorntonanthonythornton

    Tue, Apr 17 2012 06:32:36
  37. Share
    “
    “Mobile technology changes so fast. Be aware, but check whether it is relevant to you” @bansahaUK #dmoevent

    John GodslandTheRealMrG

    Tue, Apr 17 2012 06:11:34
  38. Share
    “
    80% of ftse100 companies do not have mobile sites & 65% fail to use device detection #dmoevent

    Anne-Marie Sheedyamsheedy

    Tue, Apr 17 2012 06:35:19
  39. Share
    “
    Get that @magusblog report about FTSE 100 mobile websites here: magus.co.uk/knowledgebase/… #dmoevent

    John GodslandTheRealMrG

    Tue, Apr 17 2012 06:44:27
  40. Share
    “
    “Companies that optimise their mobile sites outperform those that don’t by 80pc” Tom Golden Magus #dmoevent

    Louise BriceLouiseEBrice

    Tue, Apr 17 2012 06:33:07
  41. Share
    “
    Responsive web design not widely adopted at all – tech challenges still a barrier at mo but this does seem to be the future #dmoevent

    Laila Takehspirals

    Tue, Apr 17 2012 06:43:16
  42. Share

    Most #mobile sites are full of #usability errors #dmoevent #ux http://twitpic.com/9audwu

    Laila Takehspirals

    Tue, Apr 17 2012 06:35:48
  43. Share
    “
    BMI baby being taken to court by @RNIB for #mobile website lack of #accessibility #dmoevent #ux

    Laila Takehspirals

    Tue, Apr 17 2012 06:40:18
  44. Social media and insights
  45. Share
    “
    We’re speaking after lunch at #dmoevent on turning social data into social insight. Find out more about our thinking: (http://bit.ly/ztKbI1)

    PrecisePreciseTweets

    Tue, Apr 17 2012 07:50:35
  46. Share
    “
    Value in social media is in the insights it gives into customers thinking #dmoevent

    John GodslandTheRealMrG

    Tue, Apr 17 2012 09:54:21
  47. Share

    When you make a promise always deliver on it. The effect of not is amplified through social like BA eg #dmoevent http://twitpic.com/9awicv

    Laila Takehspirals

    Tue, Apr 17 2012 09:59:47
  48. Share
    “
    Pre-TV buzz is created by a digital debut – and TV debut is amplified by this #dmoevent

    Laila Takehspirals

    Tue, Apr 17 2012 09:56:42
  49. Share

    RT @spirals: Sum up – use insight to plan, optimise, create .. #dmoevent http://twitpic.com/9awjmx

    PrecisePreciseTweets

    Tue, Apr 17 2012 10:14:04
  50. Video
  51. Share
    “
    Not about keeping people in a single environment anymore. It’s about streamlining the experience for the user #dmoevent #ux

    Laila Takehspirals

    Tue, Apr 17 2012 10:46:51
  52. Share
    “
    Successful video strategy is based on views, consumer engagement, and finding your video dubbed into Russian! #dmoevent

    John GodslandTheRealMrG

    Tue, Apr 17 2012 10:38:19
  53. Share
    “
    Exclusive video content might be all you need to make an audience feel valued #dmoevent

    Laila Takehspirals

    Tue, Apr 17 2012 10:53:15
  54. And just for the heck of it – a few comments from the twittersphere…
  55. Share
    “
    @ActonPies @brandrepublic seems it went well – liking the skysports twitch pick up #DMOevent #PWNEDonwardsandupwards

    bluemonkaybluemonkay

    Tue, Apr 17 2012 14:03:07
  56. Share
    “
    So I think that went alright – lot of fun. Thank for having me @BrandRepublic #DMOevent

    Kevin FlynnActonPies

    Tue, Apr 17 2012 11:09:00
  57. Share
    “
    @ActonPies great energy presentation at @brandrepublic #dmoevent really enjoyed it!

    Emily Brooksemilybrooks

    Tue, Apr 17 2012 12:30:49
  58. Share
    “
    @actionpies fantastic presentation. Really enjoyed. Well done #DMOevent

    Lucy Wilsdonlucywilsdon

    Tue, Apr 17 2012 10:59:07
  59. Share
    “
    Seeing nothing but positive comments for @marcmunier ‘s presentation at the #dmoevent – nice work! @pure360 #emailmarketing

    Hannah Wardbtown_han

    Tue, Apr 17 2012 06:15:51
  60. Share
    “
    Lovin some of the comedy pic slides @marcmunier #DMOevent

    Anirban SahabansahaUK

    Tue, Apr 17 2012 05:53:56
  61. Share
    “
    At the Digital Marketing Optimisation event in London. Some interesting insights into digital and it’s future #DMOevent

    Faye Kenny-BroomFKB_Photo

    Tue, Apr 17 2012 07:06:17
  62. Share
    “
    Disappointed that interactive fridges are not the future 😦 #dmoevent

    Jamie GreenMisterJamie

    Tue, Apr 17 2012 11:48:08

the challenge of digital in flux

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Recently I met a few colleagues from UNICEF offices all around the world to share experiences and build working relationships. The conversations flowed thick and fast so I’m sure I’ll be drawing on them for blog posts over the coming weeks.

One of the most fascinating things for me was how similar the challenges digital specialists are experiencing.

No matter where the person I spoke with came from, digital appeared to be in a state of flux with confused governance. Digital teams being seen as service delivery and often struggling to get a voice in strategy. And where digital channels are delivering ROI already there were more difficulties in influencing strategically unless someone on the Senior team really understood the future potential beyond the current ROI.

What intrigues me is whether this is just the pattern you see with any media change. You could probably replace the subject in most of these sentences and agree the paragraph still applies. So I’ve been trying to think back to the introduction of the printing press…

I think the key differentiator is where the change stems from. Many have already written that the centre of control is now people powered and organisation structures which are traditionally hierarchical are at odds with this.

This doesn’t explain the lack of understanding of the fact that pinning all your digital activity on an immediate ROI means you’re missing the full potential. I almost (almost almost) think the measurability of digital is its own worst enemy. Printed marketing wasn’t measurable from the start and so brands had to take a risk. With digital being more measurable from the start the line was drawn in a different place.

The pace of change in digital is also a challenge to articulating the potential – some organisations must now have around 10 years worth of web stats but they’ll illustrate the change in digital adoption more than any change in the audience relationship with the brand.

With all my pondering I’m not sure that print didn’t go through the same cycle of change. It’s just the fit with organisation structure was better so it didn’t feel so disruptive.

One final thought… Printing has an ‘end product’ but that stage is just the beginning with digital.

how to build digital literacy in your charity

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This week I was lucky enough to be a facilitator at the first CharityComms digital leaders roundtable. There were a few familiar faces but the strategic level promised also attracted many new people too. The topic of the evening was digital literacy in charities.

We spent quality time debating the current state of digital literacy, the impact of this and the approaches being used to build capacity while also handling existing challenges. All a very relevant topic for me personally since my job description tasks me to “mainstream digital at UNICEF UK over a period of 5 years”.

Vicky’s blog sum’s up the key points well so I won’t repeat them here. But I promised to share more information on a few of the capacity building approaches I’ve been taking.

  • Digital competencies framework: a table showing what we expect everyone to be able to do, and then three other levels based on whether you’re external facing or identified as a champion or super-user. This will form part of the organisation’s personal development and recruitment processes in the near future.
  • Training and stimulus sessions: we’ve been hosting external speaker sessions to stimulate interest and learning plus we’re building training programmes based on the competency framework.
  • Internal stakeholder group: with reps from all external facing teams, and key partner teams such as IT and CRM, we meet to shape the strategic direction jointly, and to provide a forum for concerns to be expressed so we’re always listening.
  • Contact management approach: we’ve paired a member of the digital hub with a contact point in another team to ensure a regular dialogue happens. The contact pair discuss plans and opportunities but there’s also capacity building discussions in the regular catch ups.
  • Just doing it: we’ve been modelling the behaviours we want to see by stating ‘digital first’ in project objectives upfront. One example of this is our ownacolour project, it pushed many teams outside of their usual working processes and we’ve all learnt a huge amount from it.

I’ve said before that digital teams needs to be impassioned tutors and coaches and that’s certainly true for my team who are helping to deliver this. Alison, another facilitator from the event, has reaffirmed another perspective for me with her reflection on how digital roles have changed – we also need persuasion and change management skills.

what are you feeding your digital content army?

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I think we need to rewrite one of the oldest digital sound bites there is:
Content is king the kingdom.
Users are the king …
…staff, volunteers & influencers are your army.

Digital content challenges actually haven’t changed that much since the early days of digital being established in organisations. To name the key ones:

  • Being audience centric rather than organisation centric.
  • Removing the bottlenecks.
  • Balancing quality Vs timeliness and value Vs effort /cost.

But what has changed is the context. Content creation tools have been ‘friendly’ for a while, they’re more accessible in cost, and many individuals come with experience of creating digital content either personally or professionally. So the key challenge now is actually motivating the whole organisation to take their place in your organisation’s digital content army.

So how do you motivate your content army?
You need to feed them, coach them, and reward them. An audit or plan around these themes is probably a good starting point.

My experience is that there are some commonalities but specific tactics need to differ based on organisation culture, each team’s objectives and individual content contributor preference. So do tell… what are you feeding your digital content army?

social media week 2012 – my take outs

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Social Media Week logoThis is the first year I’ve actually managed to attend some social media week events in person. I even co-organised one too (Barcampnfp here’s my earlier blog post). I’ve got a few ideas for future posts and discussions but here are a few key take-outs rattling around in my brain.

Strategy & management

  1. Global organisations (all?) face challenges around Local Vs Global knowledge and leadership.
  2. Having a global resource to ‘mine’ and share any locally created assets is a valuable investment.
  3. Local teams should be trusted to understand their market, global teams should not dictate an approach.
  4. Be brilliant at the basics.
  5. Digital ownership challenges still exist. Digital intersects with many areas but specialists don’t always get the appropriate level of input or influence.
  6. ‘Social Media’ is a fad, it will just be a normal communication method soon. Think ‘make your media social’ instead.
  7. Open data is something the charity sector needs to explore, it could save money and increase impact.

Engagement in social media

  1. It’s easier to ‘ride a meme‘ than to create one.
  2. Don’t think about campaigns, think about relationships.
  3. Quality over quantity counts with influencer engagement; niche and upcoming Vs broad and established – choose wisely.
  4. Global org’s see significant difference in engagement style and tactics by market.
  5. For games – Females want to collaborate, Males want to compete.
  6. Human behaviour hasn’t changed, just expectations and the medium.

Stats and measurement

  1. Telemarketing wasn’t measurable when it started. Social media is already more measurable relative to its age.
  2. 95% of facebook traffic is to the news feed, only 5% of people return to a brand page after their first ‘like’.
  3. Sponsorship pages that are connected to facebook get higher conversion, 40% Vs 7%.
  4. Justgiving see £6 return for each facebook share.

Please feel free to add your amends, key take-outs or thoughts in the comments 🙂

going from innovator to controller

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I was chatting with someone today and we hit upon something I think I’ll be pondering for a little while. I thought I’d put it out there so hopefully some of you can join me!

We were chatting about the phenomenon where a particular digital tactic becomes something everyone thinks they should do without question, yet it’s previously been something no-one outside the digital team gave the time of day to.

The example we talked about was twitter in advocacy calls to action. But we started to see a potential pattern…

  1. Early adopters take a chance on a tactic after some risk and value analysis, and/or small scale pilotting. The digital team assumes the role of ‘drum banger’ and innovators.
  2. Assuming it works, and / or other charities have made it work, the tactic ‘drum banging’ is at its noisiest.
  3. Everyone then wants to do it but doesn’t (always) consider the value and risk appropriately. The digital team find themselves having to switch to more of an overseeing role, typically perceived as controlling rather than empowering.
  4. Moving from perceived innovator to controlling in a short period of time causes challenges, both in team and across teams.

So is there a way around this? Can you avoid the challenges?
When a tactic becomes mainstream should it move out of digital?

… the pondering continues.