Recommended reports
The State of Digital Marketing in the Middle East and North Africa 2012
The State of Digital in MENA report, published by Econsultancy (and supported by ArabianBusiness.com), looks in detail at use of different traditional and online marketing channels in the Middle East and North Africa. The report also looks at how companies are using social media for marketing, how businesses are measuring marketing effectiveness and examines the barriers to digital marketing and e-commerce in the region.
Digital Marketing and E-commerce Careers Guide: For Students and Graduates
The Digital Marketing and E-commerce Careers Guide for students and graduates provides valuable advice for those considering or looking to work in the digital industry. Tailored for the UK, the guide discusses how to look and prepare for job opportunities, advice on graduate programmes, and what kind of work experience you should look to do to give you the best chance of securing the job you want. It also provides interview advice. It is free to download.
eCommerce manager at Identity Direct / Ortega
26 April 2006 10:14am
So you are saying that some of the best people in the industry are leaving and going to Google, because they dont want to play by the rules? Sounds like the rules are wrong. Google isnt actually doing much wrong.
Director at ISSEL
26 April 2006 10:28am
One of the themes of the last 2 Emetrics conferences in London has been about getting buy-in from the business and being able to demonstrate results. What we are talking about here relates to this.
There is still a level of senior management, who even if they ‘get’ the value of Online don’t really understand it. And things they don’t understand scare them. At the same time online people traditionally have had a strong technical background and have gleefully talked ‘techie’ with lots of data etc. (I know these are stereotypes but the reason that stereotypes are useful shorthand sometimes is that there’s more than an grain of truth in the characteristics!)
The result is a conversation of the deaf with aggro on both sides. To mitigate this the protagonist who is looking to make the jump up has to learn to speak the business language and even adopt some of the, maybe, time consuming methods to create visibility for their achievements in the way that those with the power currently can understand. The nuts and bolts of conversion, clickthrough cost, SEO vs. PPC etc are vital activity metrics in operational terms but how are you performing against the business objective of ‘Decrease the cost of customer acquisition’ or ‘Enhance the life-time profitability of existing customers’?
Start answering these questions and the Online guy is now an ally not a threat and gets listened to – and promoted.
To quote DomWynn – ‘Integrate to dominate’
Colin Cooper
ISSEL – Pilot Software: Aligning Execution with Strategy
Tel: +44 (0)870 166 2435
Freelance Web Consultant at architxt.net
26 April 2006 15:08pm
I'm in a similar situation, the difference being I'm not a 'Head' but a humble Web Manager.
I think it would be useful for me to be reporting to a Head of Online rather than the Marketing Director, a very capable person but with limited understanding of online. Such a person would be much more effective than I am to make a case for investment in e-commerce. Not necessarily on a strategic level but a political one. My feeling is that there are too many Web Managers and not enough Heads of Online around.
I am suprised about the 'e-Heads' jumping ship. The way I see it the case for investing in online is so strong that anyone with half decent vision and persuasion skills should be able to progress.
Perhaps the ones emailing their CVs to Google and Yahoo! don't make the cut?
CEO at SciVisum.co.uk
28 April 2006 16:13pm
I like the cut of your jib!
Words like measurement, ROI, analytical - that's exactly what is needed IMHO.
Certainly looking at my clients, the 'fuzzy' ones are not very good at sorting out their portal problem... just today a major client (high street giant) has lost several hours of trading through 'small' application tweak.
Everything on the site works fine - you can search and choose products OK - but hit the BuyNow and you get pushed back to a searcing page... ouch. NO way to be able to buy what you want.
Whereas more analytical clients - thinking KPIs, SLAs, measuring/comparing.
Well last week, our KPI based User Journey monitoring helped a Client (high street giant) identify that their web farm was for 5% of users, serving a 6 month old version of a core page - complete with 'special offers' that said 'offer available until November 2005' !!
But maybe it's just *easier* being a new dotcom than being a traditional business... to be a traditional business, you need to be able to be good at both the traditional as well as the online - twice the challenge!
Deri
SciVisum Ltd
web monitoring KPIs
On 10:48:41 25 April 2006 anne_onymous wrote: