DigitalDay2015 - some thoughts

Yesterday I had the pleasure of attending the Marketing Society's Digital Day 2015.

Held at the The Drygate Brewery in Glasgow, it was attended by over 100 digital marketing people from agencies and brands in Scotland.

I attended all day and was lucky enough to be asked onto a 'Think Tank' Panel session along with:

• Stephen O’Donnell, Director at STV Creative
• Loral Quinn, Head of Digital Strategy and Insight at Aberdeen Asset Management
• Calum Shepherd, Head of Digital Strategy at The Scottish Government 

During the Q&A session we got to chat through some perspectives on the future of digital based upon our own experiences.

Overall it was a good day as a whole and a great 30 minutes on the sofa with some very knowledgeable and friendly peers in the online industry.

Improving Scottish eCommerce

As some readers of this blog will know, I've recently been asked to present on the opportunity for eCommerce across Scotland.  But what value do these events have in the context of encouraging Scottish companies to engage in eCommerce and to do it better?

Well the feedback I have had via face-to-face, email & social channels so far has been very positive. One example that really got a great response was... during my presentation I had a quick interactive session where I got everyone with a website to stand up. They then gradually sat down as I increased the level of sophistication in the use of eCommerce Analytics.

This not only showed people that they weren't alone in not fully utilising one of the most useful digital tools out there, but also demonstrated the next few steps they could take to online maturity.

However... this is just the start of things. As Scotland's only dedicated eCommerce consultancy (I did ask a year ago where all the Scottish Digital Consultants are, and nobody responded), we see a huge opportunity for companies and organisations to not just do things better (improving what they have) but to do better things (innovate, take opportunities, etc).

It is this mix that I believe should help take Scottish eCommerce forward!

Stand up for Google Analytics

I’ve recently been giving a series of presentations with ScotlandIS to the Tourism and Food & Drink sectors. This has been as part of a wider series to improve the overall level of Internet Retailing skills and experience across Scotland, with my particular topic on the opportunities for eCommerce.
During this 25 minute set I take a break from providing statistics, advice and examples, to do something a little more interactive.
In one slide I build the following set of bullet points:

• Stand up please
• Stay standing if you currently have an eCommerce site
• Stay standing if you are using web analytics
• Stay standing if you use it to get regular KPI’s (visits)
• Stay standing if you have ‘goals’ set up on your site
• Stay standing if you are measuring eCommerce values for these 'goals'

Although quite a few people initially stand, it is surprising to see nearly every person sit down as each point appears. And in all three cases where I've given this presentation so far… only one company or site is left standing.

Although this exercise is there to provide a break from ‘death by PowerPoint’ and to show the simple path to analytics maturity, it has been a bit of a revelation to myself and the other eCommerce consultants in the room to see just how many people are not using even some of the more simple digital analytics functions.

What’s more shocking is my final point.
• All of this is free!

Yes, with Google Analytics, all the points I have highlighted are freely available to any internet retailing site. Or as I more succinctly put it… “GA should be the eCommerce practitioner’s best friend”.

Hopefully I have not only communicated how simple and cost effective this tool it, I have also helped some Food & Drink and Travel & Tourism businesses.

Understanding the eCommerce Opportunity

I've been asked to give presentations to different companies & organisations around Scotland on the 'Opportunities for eCommerce'.

The following is therefore my generic set of slides that I have already started to deliver in various locations. The presentation is meant to cover the key industries of Travel & Tourism and Food & Drink.

 

Understanding the eCommerce Opportunity from Hayden Sutherland

Presenting attribution correctly

Today I was not only lucky enough to be invited along to the Strathclyde University Business School's workshop on Big Data and Social Media... I also presented on one of my favourite topics:

The Multi-Channel Consumer And Their Influences To Purchasing

One of the hardest things I wanted to show was the different paths that consumers take on their multi-channel paths to purchase.

This journey (albeit just for one customer) is quite difficult to depict in a linear way and in the end I resorted to showing all the channels as a set of swim-lanes. In the photo taken above, you will see me in the middle of my presentation trying to explain the concept.

I hope the audience understood what I was trying to say.

Content Marketing Optimisation - presentation

To try and explain both the alignment of the typical website delivery process (engage, specify, design, develop, test & launch) with the approach needed to deliver website content, I put the presentation below together.

Both processes need to closely align, but then once content it delivered it needs to be updated in a cyclical process. This content marketing optimisation approach need to factor in not just the brand (e.g. values, voice, etc.) but also other considerations such as the relevant SEO terms to target.

As always, the presentation is a 'straw man' and I'd value any feedback anyone has on this.

Digital Toolkit - A Presentation

I've had a lot of interest in the Digital Toolkit postings I've done recently. So to explain the entire process, I've put up all the diagrams as slides here:

Digital toolkit 1