Ryan Bonnici // 🏳️‍🌈 🇦🇺 🇲🇹

It’s time to stop talking about “marketing campaigns”. With $83 billion lost to poor customer experiences each year, the critical impact your brand experience has on your bottom line has never been more evident - and this figure means marketers need to revamp the way they think about their strategies.

Earlier this month, ExactTarget (disclosure: my employer) ran a ‘Future of Marketing’ tour across Australia, New Zealand and Singapore. As the tour wrapped up, a thought crossed my mind: while looking to the future is a wise and necessary idea, it doesn’t mean you should ignore everything you’ve done up until this point to grow your client base.

LinkedIn may not make headlines as frequently as Twitter and Facebook, but if you're looking for a social network to build professional connections, it’s far and away the best.

In fact, a recent study from Shareaholic found that though LinkedIn brings in fewer social referrals than its big competitors, it has a lower bounce rate and higher average time spent on site and average page visits than both Facebook and Twitter. In short, this translates to higher quality connections than you… Show more

LinkedIn may not make headlines as frequently as Twitter and Facebook, but if you're looking for a social network to build professional connections, it’s far and away the best.

In fact, a recent study from Shareaholic found that though LinkedIn brings in fewer social referrals than its big competitors, it has a lower bounce rate and higher average time spent on site and average page visits than both Facebook and Twitter. In short, this translates to higher quality connections than you might find on LinkedIn’s more gregarious (and less professional) social siblings. Show less

The CIO-CMO partnership is one that's on the minds of many CIOs, and is seen to offer great potential. But it’s not always peaches and cream; there are challenges that many are still working through.

According to a 2013 Accenture Interactive report, nine in 10 CIOs and CMOs feel collaboration between them is not effective as it could be. The survey also delved into the frustrations both executives have when working with each other.

CIO Australia talks to several CMOs and marketing… Show more

The CIO-CMO partnership is one that's on the minds of many CIOs, and is seen to offer great potential. But it’s not always peaches and cream; there are challenges that many are still working through.

According to a 2013 Accenture Interactive report, nine in 10 CIOs and CMOs feel collaboration between them is not effective as it could be. The survey also delved into the frustrations both executives have when working with each other.

CIO Australia talks to several CMOs and marketing experts to get their perspectives on what frustrates marketing when working with IT. Show less

Marketers that want their brands to thrive in today’s always connected world must plan carefully over the next 12 months to identify new ways to connect with customers on the go.

Here are six key trends marketers should consider incorporating into their strategy to pave the way for success in the new era of the ‘internet of customers’.

There are no shortage of news articles discussing the so-called ‘war’ between chief marketing officers (CMOs) and chief information officers (CIOs). Scanning some of these stories would make you think that these two figures, common in many successful modern businesses, are constantly at odds, and that eventually, only one will reign supreme.

Simply put, this is not the case. CMOs and CIOs are both essential roles that can and should work together, and though they may each focus on… Show more

There are no shortage of news articles discussing the so-called ‘war’ between chief marketing officers (CMOs) and chief information officers (CIOs). Scanning some of these stories would make you think that these two figures, common in many successful modern businesses, are constantly at odds, and that eventually, only one will reign supreme.

Simply put, this is not the case. CMOs and CIOs are both essential roles that can and should work together, and though they may each focus on different aspects of business relations and customer experiences, their end goal is the same: to generate the best return from the technological platforms (mobile, website, apps, and internal platforms) that a company is using. Show less

Creating a successful marketing campaign is like making the perfect meal – you need to mix together the right ingredients, cook the food at exactly the right temperature and serve it up in a way that is appealing both to the eye and the tastebuds.
One little mistake can set the whole plan awry. There’s a singular issue that seems to be more troublesome for marketers than others – that of annoyance. Irritating your customers with your social media habits, taglines, concepts or even the jingle… Show more

Creating a successful marketing campaign is like making the perfect meal – you need to mix together the right ingredients, cook the food at exactly the right temperature and serve it up in a way that is appealing both to the eye and the tastebuds.
One little mistake can set the whole plan awry. There’s a singular issue that seems to be more troublesome for marketers than others – that of annoyance. Irritating your customers with your social media habits, taglines, concepts or even the jingle you use could cause your client base to shrink.
Here are some common ways marketers with good intentions end up annoying their customers, and how you can avoid making the same mistakes. Show less

Now is the time when shoppers are getting serious about finding those last few gifts on their lists, so it’s not a bad idea to do a bit of a reassessment on your marketing campaigns. Here are 12 quick tips to think about when marketing this holiday:

The marketing industry is so full of buzzwords and techy abbreviations that entire conversations can be held using solely acronyms. It can be hard to decipher which of these are simply filler phrases and which are terms that actually matter. But there’s a newcomer on the scene that is absolutely worth some attention: SoLoMo.

With only 140 characters to spend, you’d think Twitter marketing would be simple. However, we’ve seen enough campaigns on the social media site go absolutely haywire, which goes to show it’s not easy to create a successful marketing scheme.

As 2013 comes to a close, let’s look back at some of examples of campaigns that went swimmingly – hopefully, they can be inspiration for the year to come.

You’re approaching guru status when it comes to marketing automation. You’re already using relational data to deliver dynamic and highly relevant email content, and your drip campaigns nurture prospects to sales-readiness over time. You have several employees actively engaging in social media conversations, and your social posts alternate between real-time and scheduled posts to maintain consistent levels of engagement over time. With fully integrated CRM, web analytics, and marketing… Show more

You’re approaching guru status when it comes to marketing automation. You’re already using relational data to deliver dynamic and highly relevant email content, and your drip campaigns nurture prospects to sales-readiness over time. You have several employees actively engaging in social media conversations, and your social posts alternate between real-time and scheduled posts to maintain consistent levels of engagement over time. With fully integrated CRM, web analytics, and marketing automation platforms, you can profile each prospect based on individual activity and target him or her with an appropriate campaign. Now you’re ready for tips on how to develop a truly sophisticated marketing program. There are still plenty of new and exciting areas of marketing automation that you can explore to further improve your marketing efforts, from advancing and optimising your existing campaigns to testing out new avenues like dynamic content. Show less

You’ve mastered the basics of marketing automation and have begun reaping the rewards of your initial efforts. At this stage, your triggered and auto-response emails are going out like clockwork. You’ve streamlined your marketing efforts by integrating all of your email, social, search, CRM and web analytics systems into one platform.
You’ve built a strong foundation for sophisticated marketing automation and data aggregation – but how do you take it to the next level?

You’re just getting started with marketing automation and want to learn how you can use it to strengthen customer relationships, improve lead generation and boost ROI. At this stage, you probably have an email marketing solution in place, and you’ve likely dipped your toe into the social media pool. You may be capturing some customer and prospect data in a database or CRM system, and you might even be trying out web analytics and keyword monitoring tools from Google and Adobe. But you haven’t… Show more

You’re just getting started with marketing automation and want to learn how you can use it to strengthen customer relationships, improve lead generation and boost ROI. At this stage, you probably have an email marketing solution in place, and you’ve likely dipped your toe into the social media pool. You may be capturing some customer and prospect data in a database or CRM system, and you might even be trying out web analytics and keyword monitoring tools from Google and Adobe. But you haven’t really put all the pieces together – yet. Show less

With social media and mobile dominating the current digital marketing landscape, email marketing strategies can easily get left behind. Many marketers now consider it an outdated medium.

You’ve all read the stats and seen the infographics – consumers are awash with technology and mobility is leading the charge.

Most marketers already have mobile marketing strategies in place. For those who don’t, now is the time to prioritise. It’s no longer a matter of just being mobile friendly – you have to think mobile first.

Econsultancy has been discussing digital excellence on an ongoing basis for a while now, as digital concepts increasingly permeates business operations, capabilities and structures.

Ahead of ExactTarget's Connect tour, where Econsultancy is a media partner, I managed to catch up with one of the key members of their APAC operations, Regional Marketing Manager, Ryan Bonnici, to get his thoughts on the topic, as well as the peripheral issues of digital innovation, data and technology.

These days, nearly everyone I know owns a smartphone. People (myself included) are switched on 24/7, accessing email, social media and other online content anytime, anywhere. Marketers are finally catching on to this trend worldwide and are starting to target mobile devices in their planning. According to reports, marketers will be dedicating up to half of their marketing budget to digital activities in 2013. How incredible is that – and for a channel that wasn’t even on most marketers’ radar 5… Show more

These days, nearly everyone I know owns a smartphone. People (myself included) are switched on 24/7, accessing email, social media and other online content anytime, anywhere. Marketers are finally catching on to this trend worldwide and are starting to target mobile devices in their planning. According to reports, marketers will be dedicating up to half of their marketing budget to digital activities in 2013. How incredible is that – and for a channel that wasn’t even on most marketers’ radar 5 years ago. Show less

Today’s consumers are highly connected and expect brands to adapt rapidly to their needs, communicating across email, mobile and social media.

For marketers, it’s very important to understand what customers expect from their interactions with your company. Successful marketers know that customers want brands to create relationship-driven experiences through the channels they use most.

With 92 per cent of Australians aged 14 and over using a mobile phone* it is the perfect channel… Show more

Today’s consumers are highly connected and expect brands to adapt rapidly to their needs, communicating across email, mobile and social media.

For marketers, it’s very important to understand what customers expect from their interactions with your company. Successful marketers know that customers want brands to create relationship-driven experiences through the channels they use most.

With 92 per cent of Australians aged 14 and over using a mobile phone* it is the perfect channel to connect with your customers. But how do you build a successful mobile campaign? Here are some quick tips to get you on your way. Show less

“Bring Your Own Device” is a term we hear more and more as technology advances. BYOD’s the reason why there is heightened security on personal devices. It’s contributing to the increased productivity and the workaholic mindset of employees. But most importantly BYOD is blurring the lines between personal and professional use of smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices.