Why use an 'integrated' marketing platform?

Process data flowsWe're asked this quite often. Many people we talk to were looking to update their web site and CommsBox does a lot more than simply running a very good web site. So why? As a potential client why should you invest in a product like CommsBox rather than go down the traditional route of separate web site, CRM system, email marketing plaform, blogging system?

The answer lies in the information 'flows' within your organisation. Where is data generated and what could you do with it given the right tools?

Where does your data come from?

Information about an organisation's leads has traditionally been captured by people within the organisation and this has often been the justification for a CRM system. A single system into which sales, marketing and other employees can capture information about leads and about customers.

The Internet however opens up a whole lot of new sources of information about your leads, much of which is hard or impossible to capture manually:

Qualifying contacts through Lead Scoring

The task of your marketing activities is to deliver qualified leads to your sales people. The higher the quality of the leads you pass over the more efficient the sales process will be. Ideally you only want to pass over pre-qualified leads that are most likely to generate sales.

Lead Scoring InfomaticIf the number of leads you're generating is small then it's perfectly reasonable to use a manual approach to qualifing those leads, or even just dealing with all of them as potential sales. As the reach of your marketing campaigns grows you'll start to generate more leads than you can comfortably manage by hand.

The solution is a lead scoring process by which each contact is awarded a number of points. The higher the point score the higher the quality of the lead. The number of points each contact has can move up and down depending on how much you know about them and how well they engage with your organisation.

Rather than have to manually score each lead it's generally more practical to automate so [read on]

Building a new web site? Why beauty is only skin deep!

It's time to revisit your web site! Whatever the initial driver it's worth taking a step back and asking "how does my website fit with my overall digital marketing strategy?", which in turn will lead to "what technology could help me meet my marketing objectives?".

CosmeticsMany organisations are waking up to the opportunities of digital marketing, recognising that their web site can be much more than a digital brochure instead becoming part of an active digital lead generation engine.

Despite this recognition I'm quite surprised by the number of organisations that approach us to discuss digital marketing and tell us "we're just developing our new web site, it's almost ready". Often the new website will tick all the visual boxes. It'll be responsive and look really cool. How did they choose the technology to use? There are various reasons including "it's the thing our web developer recommended", "it's what everyone else is using", "our techies liked it".

This is unfortuate. The decision [read on]

The BBC goes 'responsive'

My primary source of news on the Internet has for years been the BBC. They have been at the forefront of the digital revolution. So it's informative that over the last few weeks they've launched a revised beta test version of their news site. Apart from a minor visual redsign this site is 'responsive'.  The BBC was the most popular news provider on a mobile handset (14.5 million users) in April 2014, and a fifth of mobile internet users access news on their handset every day (Ofcom)

CHECK TO SEE IF YOUR SITE IS MOBILE-FRIENDLY WITH THE GOOGLE TOOL

New BBC site on various devicesA responsive design aims to build web pages that detect the screen size and orientation of a device and change the way it looks accordingly. Responsive design has prompted a lot of discussion over the last couple of years as more and more people ditch the traditional computer and use a variety of tablets and mobile phones to browse the web. Looking at traffic to some of our own sites over the last couple of months non-PC users accou [read on]

Tracking Customer Journeys beyond Google Analytics

Commsbox individual contact analyticsOver the late months of this summer, we took to the road and asked people what they thought of the latest version of Commsbox. To our surprise the depth of analytics on individual customers was the key feature that most blew them away.  

Google Analytics is a great tool. This information is fantastic in aggregate for understanding the strength of campaigns and how customers in general reached your site. But what it won't tell you is the exact journey that a specific individual has taken through your website.

A quote from Google's terms of service  is interesting. You may not use the Google Analytics service to track individuals. So it can give you a great overall picture of the performance of your site and, if you use campaign IDs correctly, you can get a measure of success for a particular promotion.  But Google analytics does nothing to help you convert individual visitors into prospective customers.

"You will not (and will not allow any third party to) use t [read on]

    Responsive Websites Explained, Marketing Review interview with Peter Wilson

    Peter Wilson discusses Responsive Web Design on Star Radio's Marketing Review programme and why it's a necessary requirement for effective marketing automation.

    Enhancing Customer Lifetime Value through Automation

    Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) predicts the nett profit attributable to each contact. See how Marketing automation can increase CLV through planned campaigns.

    Top 5 Digital Marketing Trends for 2015

    Extract from the Keynote talk by Caroline Wright on the Top 5 Digital Marketing Trends for 2015 at the Smart Digital Marketing for Growth Seminar October 2015

    5 Steps to Convert Email Subscribers into Customers

    A replay of the Commsbox and Brainstorm Digital webinar onthe 5 key Stages to convertemail subscribers into customers. Watch the webinar

    Qualifying contacts through Lead Scoring

    A robust lead scoring strategy can improve your sales process, delivering marketing qualified leads to your sales team

    Smart Digital Marketing for Growth

    Buyers are changing their behaviour, are you? Free half day seminar Grow your Business with Smart Digital Marketing, 15th October, Welwyn Garden City

    How to give your website a responsive makeover in 24 hours

    Upgrade a tired, old fashioned, dated web site into a fully responsive, refreshed design... in a day? Challenge accepted!

    Building a new web site? Why beauty is only skin deep!

    A web site should be a key element of any digital marketing strategy. Understand how the right technology can support your marketing activities.

    CommsBox at the 9th Cambridge Digital Marketing Conference 9th July 2015

    Commsbox will be speaking with digital marketers about marketing automation at the CIM 9th Cambridge Digital Marketing Conference at Duxford, 9th July

    Key Learnings from Malcolm McDonald's Address to the CIM Small Business Conference 22nd May 2015

    How to develop a strategy to grow sales and profits. A look at Prof. Malcom McDonald's talk from the CIM Small Business Marketing Conference - 22nd May 2015.

    What is Marketing Automation and What Are The Benefits?

    Marketing automation is any software package or web development that allows an organisation to automate some or all of its online communications.  

    Driving Small Business Growth - CIM Conference 22nd May

    The Chartered Institute of Marketing announce speakers for their East of England Small Business Marketing Conference 22nd May. Commsbox are exhibiting at event.

    Small Business Marketing Automation Trends Software Advice Research

    In our series on marketing automation for small businesses we report on recent research by Software Advice which showing trends digital marketing trends in SMEs

    Is Marketing Automation Relevant to SMEs in the UK?

    In preparation for the CIM Small Business Marketing Conference on 22nd May, Commbox presents marketing personas for SMEs using marketing automation.

    How Has Mobilegeddon Hit Your Website Traffic?

    From 21st April, Google has expanded it's use of mobile friendliness as a ranking signal. Commsbox looks at how you can see if you are affected.

    Commsbox at CIM Small Business Marketing Conference 22nd May 2015

    Commsbox is at the Chartered Institute of Marketing Small Business Marketing Conference, 22nd May, University of Hertfordshire. 

    Step by Step Inbound Marketing Success

    A well planned and executed inbound digital marketing strategy will help you engage your target audience. Here we take a look at how to get there!

    How Ocado Markets to a Segment of One

    A study by Teradata shows 90% of marketers want to embrace one-to-one personalisation. Here we analyse Ocado's ongoing, automated customer engagement process

    What's New in CommsBox Version 8?

    CommsBox Version 8 introduces enriched customer journey tracking, CMS support for responsive sites, enhanced email marketing tools and much more.

    About Us

    CommsBox was designed by YellowHawk Ltd in response to the needs of some rather large corporate and government clients. But then we realised we had something that small and medium sizes businesses could also use to fuel their growth.

    It's really important that you know, like and trust the businesses you deal with. So we promise that you can always get to know us, and hopefully grow to like and trust us. We have an open door policy at our offices, and you can drop by any time (just drop us a line first – so we can get the kettle on!).

    Want to know more?

    Contact Us

    © YellowHawk Ltd 2024