October 29, 2018

Figaro Digital Marketing Summit Roundup 25 October (Part One)

On 25 October, we had an insightful and informative day at the Figaro Digital Marketing Summit, held at the Park Plaza Victoria. Experts from across the digital marketing industry came together to share their latest strategies and innovations. Alongside an agenda of varied presentations, covering current topics ranging from SEO to social media, 1-2-1 meetings were also being held between agencies, tech companies, and the brand delegates. If you were unable to attend the summit, or would just like to watch the presentations again, you can catch up on all the talks on our website. If you would like any of the slides shown in the presentations, please email slides@figarodigital.co.uk.

The Biggest Mistakes Search Marketers Make

Laura Crimmons, Founder of Silverthorn, delivers a comprehensive breakdown of the most frequent mistakes that search marketers make. From not gathering feedback, to focusing on empty metrics, Laura talks through the solutions to a number of problems that marketers encounter. She delivers a detailed step by step guide on how to avoid these big mistakes and offers advice on how best to nurture relationships within PR. It is integral for marketers to know how to talk to influencers and journalists, so that they can rely on them for honest and timely feedback on campaigns.

Laura shares her wisdom on topics such as the consequences of staying in silos, the perils of privileging format over ideas, and forgetting to add tracking codes. She offers practical advice on how to sidestep these issues, such as cultivating a pre-launch checklist and communicating across teams.

View Laura’s presentation here.

Human Driven Personalisation Doesn’t Scale

Personalisation is key when executing marketing campaigns. However, having to rely on humans to effectively personalise only works on a small scale. Zach Hemmant-Low, Senior Sales Manager at Emarsys, demonstrates how AI is more beneficial for orchestrating a high level of personalisation and consistency.

Creating a unified customer profile with AI enables you to chart the buying patterns of the consumer and help predict the kind of products that they are likely to buy next. This information can then be used to personalise marketing to target the customer’s interests. AI marketing makes this possible; the speed and accuracy in which it can collect data is unparalleled by human efforts. Companies who wish to advance in this crowded business market should look to adopt an AIM roadmap.

View Zach’s presentation here.

How Social Media Can Support Your PR Campaigns

Increasingly, more and more services are switching to digital. News is no exception, and many journalists are taking to social media to post, or share, their articles. David White, Associate Director of Content Marketing at Edit Agency Ltd, urges businesses to start incorporating social media into their PR campaigns. David explains that social media has already disrupted PR, so marketers need to embrace it and use it to their advantage.

Social listening is an important way of doing this as it allows them to find out what consumers, or journalists, are saying about their brand. This can help inform the kind of content that should be created and which journalist would be best to approach. David gives key pointers on how to work out a clear set of KPIs and how best to answer the questions being asked on social. Focusing on leads, sales, traffic, customer service and reputation will impact businesses more positively than solely concentrating on raising their follower count. David also shares his top tips on how to maintain the reputation of a brand through good PR standards.

View David’s presentation here.

Thumb-stopping; How To Grab Attention With Branded Content

Brían Taylor (Managing Director) and Amy Naughton (Client Services Director), from Jaywing, discuss the best ways to capture interest with content. It is a hard task to stop thumbs from endlessly scrolling and pay attention to the content that brands are putting out there. In an age where digital information is digested so quickly, Brían and Amy introduce some techniques which will grab the attention of the consumer and force them to pause. They offer five tips to achieve thumb-stopping content. Integrating content into the platform which is being used is key; it needs to fit in with the other content featured, whilst still doing enough to stand out.

A good way to increase viewability is to react to recent events, or cultural moments. Marketers need to have a sustained awareness of the device that their content will be viewed on and tailor it accordingly. The use of influencers to advertise content is also important, but they need to ensure that they fit their brand and ethos. Finally, Brían and Amy talk through the significance of optimisation.

View Brían and Amy’s presentation here.

Making Awesome Email in 2018

Elliot Ross, CEO at TaxiforEmail, reveals the intricacies and complications that lie beneath the surface of conducting a successful email campaign. Structures of management and gaining approval across the board can delay the process, making it more unappealing for marketers to use email. Elliot gives three steps to help improve the process and explains why it is essential to start sending better emails. Marketers should audit their current email campaigns and make a strong master template, creating a solid foundation to reinvent their strategy. They can build their email playbook by ensuring that their testing, checklists and documentations are consistent.

Following Elliot’s tips will not only help create better emails, but help to produce them more quickly, ensuring that campaigns have accurate, up to date information. It will also help streamline communications across teams, empowering brands and agencies. Alongside this, audiences will respond to the improved content, resulting in a more loyal customer base.

View Elliot’s presentation here.

Link Building In 2018 – Why Content Is Still King (And Buying Links Will Always End Badly)

Marketers need to reset the way they think about gaining links. Instead of taking shortcuts, and buying them, they need to start creating great content that generates its own links. Dan Yeo, Head of Media and Online Relations at Search Laboratory, illustrates how to grow organic and relevant links. It is important for marketers to ask themselves the question: what exactly am I trying to achieve with my content?

They need to figure out if they are trying to create optimised ranking, or optimised onsite, content. Or if the aim of their content is to gain brand awareness, or link acquisition. If the aim and the content are strong then they should be able to build natural, quality links which will help gain customers. Dan also demonstrates how link building should always be part of a bigger strategy and not an isolated goal.

View Dan’s presentation here.

We will be continuing our roundup of the day’s presentations in part two, so keep your eyes peeled. If you missed the Summit this time round then never fear! You can buy tickets here to attend our next big event, the Figaro Digital Marketing Winter Conference, taking place on 6 December 2018, at The Royal College Of Physicians, Regents Park.