#google garage

Email marketing is a strategy used to target both new and existing customers and let them know about new products and services or perhaps to invite them to an event or enter a competition. It gives businesses the platform to compile a list of customers and not only reach out directly to the customer but see what they do once the email arrives in their inbox.

The module covered the basics of email marketing, different ways of crafting your email, testing what email template or style is the most successful and then how to measure the success of the email. As with previous digital garage modules which I have spoken about on this page, each of the 5 sections contained an informational video explaining the processes and then a test your knowledge button which challenged the user to test their knowledge on the subject using scenarios like the below.

 This module was probably the most relatable to my current role. For those who are new to the blog, I currently work in Fáilte Ireland’s Meet in Ireland team bringing international conferences to Ireland. 75% of these conferences are brought in by what we call conference ambassadors who are industry leaders and experts in their field. It was in a project involving these ambassadors where I used a lot of the tools outlined in this module and I will highlight some areas which we missed which could have made the project run smoother.

So, what was the project? 

It entailed an award’s dinner for 250 people which took place in Christchurch cathedral. The event was to honour conference ambassadors who had brought conferences in between the years 2016 and 2018 to the regions of Cork, Dublin, Kerry, Galway and Shannon. 83 ambassadors were recognised on the night and they were invited via a formal invitation. Amongst the other attendees would be stakeholders but also potential ambassadors or “hotties” who we had identified as having the potential to bring in an international conference. We had to build an email marketing campaign for the awards which would first invite the “hotties” but then emails to remind them closer to the event and a post event follow up email.

The first step was to compile our list of potential ambassadors as outlined in the module. These were people who had expressed interest in bringing an event in the future but who had not yet. Our team uses an internal CRM database where we keep our contacts. We worked to identify the suitable people in the system who had not yet brought in an event. As it was said in the module, we wanted to develop a relationship with these potential ambassadors, and this would be the first point of contact. We compiled a marketing list on our crm database which included the potential ambassadors who we had tagged as hotties on our system. This would mean we would be able to send out on mass email instead of doing each one manually. This would also allow us to see who would open the email and click through on the relevant links.

We then had to draft the email and make sure it complied with company design policies and get it approved by management. We then made sure that the invite and the respective pages where the invite links brought you were compatible on all devices.  The ezine (below) had a subject line of you are “Fáilte Ireland is pleased to invite you to the National conference ambassador awards”. The use of Fáilte Ireland in the from field but also in the opening line of the subject line meant people would see the email and be able to trust it and clearly identify us. Having completed the module, you could argue that the word invite would have the potential to trigger spam folders. We did make sure to avoid the use of exclamation marks however, and I do remember one draft had an exclamation mark and there was an internal debate on the matter.

I found the part about keeping in mind how busy they are very relevant as these ambassadors were very time poor and bringing in a conference would not be their fulltime job with many of them full time lecturers in universities. We made sure we kept their attention with a clear call to action being to RSVP for this prestigious event. The email did contain too much content as the course outlines as we did not want to overwhelm them. As you can see below, it simply had a line explaining that they had been invited, what the awards were for and that they would be hearing from current ambassadors on their experience and then the specific time and place details.

The email contained two links, one which brought them to an online form where they could fill out their dietary and accessibility requirements or to a direct email address. We also attached a phone number as many phoned to enquire what it was about.

Finally, we made sure that there was a link to unsubscribe from our emails at the bottom. We did not need to do AB testing as we solely wanted an RSVP and it was a once off. Likewise, we did not really research what day of the week to send it.  

We measured the success of the email by both the physical responses but also by using our analytics system on our CRM database, this told us whether they had opened the email, if the email had bounced and if they had clicked any links. It meant that when we were doing our follow up calls, we would know if they had seen the invite. Likewise, if the email had bounced, we knew we had to change the details on our server for future communications.

Overall, the strategy which the team took really followed the guidelines on this google garage course but I found the very insightful for situations where you may be looking to reach out to existing customers and or form a loyal customer base. I would highly advise doing this course.

References

https://www.meetinireland.com/conferences/ambassador-programme

This module was part of google garages digital marketing course and invites you into the world of the digital analytics. I rarely use or analyse analytics in my current role, seldom on my own personal LinkedIn and social media posts. We have a specialised marketing team within Meet in Ireland who are responsible with tracking the analytics of our website and social media platforms. This meant that this module was very useful and interesting for me. I will highlight my key learnings and experience of completing the course below.

Get started with Analytics- Setting your goals

The module begins with the “Get started with analytics” section.  As I have no previous real experience with analytics, my approach was to watch the informational videos underneath each heading and write down notes as I was listening. The information in the videos was conveyed clearly and it was not too fast, meaning I felt like I was keeping up. You also were able to check that you had understood the content with the “Check your knowledge” activity after each video, providing you with a scenario and multiple options.

This module in particular outlined the basics of analytics which was very useful and went through the different important terms such as “metric”, “dimensions” and “conversion” and then dove deeper into the “online arsenal” you can possess if you use analytics correctly. My favourite fact was that you can find out how long your customers are spending on your website before they click the back button which, lets be honest, we all hover over when landing on sites.

The section really highlighted the necessity of not only setting goals for your business but using information collected by analytics to achieve these goals. I enjoyed two examples in particular which were used in this section.

The first of which was regarding there being no difference between 5,000 clicks and 10,000 clicks on your website if the conversion rate is the same. If anything, having more clicks with the same conversion rate was more worrying. It was something we found on our own website where we had a high number of visits but the form which we wanted the client to fill out was hard to find, thus our conversion rate was very low and the visits meaningless as they were not fulfilling the goal of our page, thus are conversion and click rate were very different.  

I also liked the real life example of Mike who runs a hot air Balloon business, it was easy to see how by measuring the results of his online marketing, it was making the results and goals they had set out for more tangible.

Find success with analytics- SEM

The second part of the module was about finding success with analytics and had a huge focus on search engines and search engine optimization (SEO).  I found it interesting that you can manipulate the way people use search engines and analyse what is bringing them to your website. I was unaware that google analytics can tell you the key words which people are typing into Google’s search engine before they come to your website and being able to decipher whether it was an organic search result or through another channel. I also found the point interesting regarding making changes to your website content to better direct people to your site and then using analytics to see if this change is translating into more clicks and more conversions.  I think a big learning for me was that it is quality over quantity which matters in analytics.

I found the video on Search engine marketing very informative. I was unaware that analytics could tell you whether the money you were spending on SEM was bringing a return on investment, even measuring how much you would have paid per each click. They also point out that google analytics and google ads naturally integrate well both being owned by google. The scenarios in this section made understanding the concepts a lot easier while also refreshing what you had learnt with the quiz at the end of the section

How to turn data into insights

The last section addressed turning data into insights. Although it did touch on segmentation at various parts, I found the video on the difference between qualitative and quantitative data eye opening. I enjoyed the initial point highlighting before all the analytics tools we have now, it was a case of gathering data in person. The course defined and explained the two methods well and made it clear that business should not only use the method which best suits their business scenario but by combining the two, you will obtain a rich overall picture of your business. This will provide explanation for your numbers, allowing you to make informed business decisions on when you should be posting or how you can improve on your products and services.

The course advises that you should not just collect as much data as possible but target data samples that are relevant to your goals and or queries that you have. One situation which I did not think about was using past data to inform your decisions. Nowadays, people become obsessed with the new figures and statistics, but the course makes it clear that by simply analysing past data, you can make informed decisions. Then by combining past data and current data analytics, you will get a rich sample of information.

I found the section on presenting data quite interesting, as a bit of an excel nerd, it frustrates me when excel sheets are just used to store data and nothing else, when there is a range of functions and different way of manipulating your data to see what changes and improvements can be made. I agreed with the presenting your data section regarding content, in any presentation regardless if I am presenting data or not, I try to limit the amount of heavy content on the slides or in the script, as you want the person to stay engaged.

The Actual Garage Where Google Was Founded

Most huge internet companies these days have more than likely come from humble beginnings, with Google being one of them. It all started when Larry and Sergey were both college students looking for a cheap place to rent in Silicon Valley, San Francisco. Fortunately for them, they come across Susan Wojcicki’s home.

Susan, who was also a student at the time, was approached by Larry and Sergey who…

As part of my digital marketing module, I am undertaking some lessons with Google Garage, a useful tool that allows you grow your knowledge of all things digital. The lessons I focused on were concerned web analytics, what they are and how they can help businesses grow through insight.

Web analytics, according to Google Garage, involves using data that you can collect from your website to give insight about your business. The amount of data that can be tracked through a company’s website is staggering, and there are many vital lessons that can be learnt through analysing this data in an effective way.

Google Analytics is a powerful tool and vital to any company who have a digital marketing strategy and an online presence.

The below are my main takeaways from undertaking web analytic lessons on Google Garage:

Vital to Business:

As previously stated, there is so much insight that can be gained through web analytics. It can provide metrics on pretty much everything you can imagine to do with your website, such as visitors, where those visitors are from, what kind of device they are visiting the site on, how long they browse for, what pages they visit – and the list goes on. When analysed properly, this data can provide valuable insight into the online performance of your business.

Need to have Goals:

In order to make the best use of web analytics, business owners must have clear goals that they wish to achieve and understand how analytics can help them achieve these goals. The data gained from analytics is powerful, but you need to make informed decisions, underpinned by this data, in order to make meaningful progress in your business.

Importance of Understanding Your Data:

Using Google Analytics can be an over-whelming experience due to the sheer amount of data accessible to you. It’s very easy to get caught up in metrics that don’t have as much of an impact on your business as others would. Due to this, it is very important to identify early on what areas and type of data will give you meaningful information that you can put into action to help grow your business’s online presence.

Action needs to back up Data:

Cara Google Jaga Ide Kreativitas Karyawannya

LINES – Agar kreativitas karyawan tetap terjaga, ternyata Google memiliki cara khusus. Hal ini dilakukan agar karyawan Goole terus mampu melahirkan inovasi spektakuler.

Seperti dikutip dari Detik, jika ada gelagat ide mentok atau sekadar mencari inspirasi untuk (more…)

In this week’s Search In Pictures, here are the latest images culled from the Web, showing what people eat at the search engine companies, how they play, who they meet, where they speak, what toys they have, and more. Android Mini Golf: Source: Google+ Google Top Contributor Summit Awards:... Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.

Google Drive gives you 5GB of online storage for free. All you need to do is go to your Google Docs account and follow the instructions. Gmail users can purchase more storage space (i.e., 25GB additional GBs for $2.49 a month, 100GBs for $4.99, etc...) and can store anything that will fit. Inexplicably, Google Apps for Business licenses are more expensive when purchased as Domain Storage (i.e., $7.50 for 50GBs), but individuals who purchase storage on their own pay the lower, more realistic rates.

It's an improvement because, like DropBox, your Drive folder is no different from any other folder on your computer, with the exception that anything you put into that folder is synced to the cloud. This is a very good thing. For one, you don't have to download files to edit them, which leads to confusion over which version of the file you last worked on. Just use your Drive folder instead of your Documents folder, and everything you create and edit gets saved in the cloud. It takes some effort to make sure that you work in your Google Drive folder all the time, but if you are diligent it becomes second nature. That may be great for maintaining copies in multiple locations and revision control, but Drive is still lacking the latter. DropBox has access to revisions on your desktop when it is installed, but Drive does not. In order to examine revisions of your files, you must go online, but this is the same with Microsoft's recently updated SkyDrive service (but that's for another review). DropBox also allows you to create public links to files from desktop where Drive cannot. Hopefully these are just temporary little headaches that Google will rectify soon. To be honest, there's not a lot more than just that. Google Drive is a folder that you can put stuff into and it gets copied to the cloud. Just like Google Docs, you can still create documents, slide decks, spreadsheets, and whatnot, and you can now store anything at all in the cloud. Also like their competition, Google provides the desktop app as well as apps for it's own Android OS (2.1 and up) and Apple's iOS (5.0 or better). For Windows, it will work on XP, Vista, and 7, and for the Mac you need 10.6 or 10.7. There appears to be no word on Windows 8 or Phone support. Now, since I'm an Apple guy, I have iOS devices, so update 1.0.1 of Drive for iOS was quite welcome. In the new version you can now create and edit documents of the Google Docs variety, engage in real-time edits, create folders and move files around, and upload photos and videos. The presentation engine has also been updated to work better. I have 105GBs. That's the 5GB free and 100GB I added for a mere $5 a month. I save all of my documents and important files in my Google Drive folder and it's extensive warren of sub-folders. I even set Office 2010 various folders to use Google Drive. Right now I'm using 24GBs of space which can be quite a bear when I set up desktop sync on a new system. Drive has to download everything all over again and cannot just use the folder that you may already have a copy of.

If you are a Gmail user, have setup Google Drive, and buy additional storage (which starts at 25GB for $2.49/mo.), Google will expand your Gmail storage capacity to 25GBs. Nice.