Making Search Ads work for businesses with mobile apps

Mobile search is a powerful channel for businesses to engage with customers that are searching for them or for their application. Last year, we introduced improvements to click-to-download ads, and for publishers, launched Custom Search Ads for Mobile Apps. Today we’d like to share several new features that will make it even easier for AdWords advertisers to promote, track and monetize their mobile app. For the first time, businesses can use AdWords mobile search ads as a holistic solution to promote, monetize and track their app downloads.

Promote your app using the new Mobile App Extension

All AdWords advertisers will receive the option to use a new Ad Extension - the Mobile App extension; a new way to promote their mobile apps. Not all mobile users searching for a business may know that the business has an app. The Mobile App extension allows advertisers to append a mobile app download link to their search ads. With this extension, advertisers can promote their mobile app to users who may simply be searching for their brand, product or service.

The mobile app extension gives advertisers a new distribution channel for their mobile apps and users a new discovery medium. Beta participants saw a 6% lift in CTR for campaigns using Mobile App extensions, compared to control campaigns.

The new Mobile App Extension found in the “Ad Extensions” tab. Use its new ‘app picker’ function to easily find your company’s app in Google Play Store or iTunes App Store

GrubHub, a web and mobile service that connects diners to restaurants and simplifies online ordering for delivery and pick up, was an early beta tester of the Mobile App extension. In addition to pointing mobile customers searching for food delivery services to their mobile website, they used the mobile app extension to add an additional link to their app download page. Abby Hunt from the GrubHub team explains the importance of reaching customers on mobile: “GrubHub is dedicated to feeding our diners anytime, anywhere - this is why it is important for us to reach our diners on their mobile devices. Hungry people are checking their mobile devices on the way home from work or walking to class, and where they are."

  

GrubHub was an early tester of the Mobile App extension, allowing hungry customers searching for their business the option of accessing information on their mobile site or app via an ad. 

Enriching click-to-download ads with more useful app information
Advertisers running campaigns solely focused on promoting and driving downloads of their app will benefit from recent changes that add more useful information to their click-to-download ads. Last year, we added mobile app icons next to the text ad. We’ve now incorporated richer information about your mobile app right in the ad unit itself. When a user searches and your click-to-download ad appears, they’ll be able to see image previews, a description of your app, and when applicable, pricing and rating information.

All this new information in the click-to-download ad is automatically drawn from the Google Play Store and iTunes App Store. We hope that customers will benefit from recent changes that make click-to-download ads more engaging and for users searching on Google.

Quicken Loans Inc., the nation’s largest online home lender and a top five retail lender uses click-to-download ads to promote their Mortgage Calculator App. They’ve seen a rapid increase in the number of customer searching for them on mobile. Greg Broda, Paid Search Partner Manager at Quicken Loans explains: "When it came time to promote the new Quicken Loans Mortgage Calculator app, the decision to utilize Google’s mobile click-to-download ad platform was a no-brainer. The placement has allowed us to share the app with a very targeted and engaged group of users."

Quicken Loans runs click-to-download ads, now complete with app previews and pricing information, that point users to their app download page.

Track Android app downloads through AdWords
Businesses will now be able to track downloads of their Android app from their AdWords campaigns as an AdWords conversion. This means that when a user downloads a mobile app from the Google Play store via a click-to-download ad or a mobile app extension, we will count their download as a conversion. For more information on how to set this up, visit this page.

Monetizing your mobile app with Custom Search Ads for Mobile Apps

We’ve now brought Custom Search Ads to tablet apps via the recent launch of a new AdMob SDK. Tablet and mobile app users will receive ads relevant to what they're searching for inside an app, and businesses running mobile apps will have a new tool to monetize their content and services.

Mobile apps represent a significant opportunity for businesses to reach their customers, and mobile search is an important channel to reach these customers. We’re looking forward to bringing new products in the coming year that will help businesses grow by promoting, tracking, and monetizing their mobile apps with Google.

Posted by Anurag Agrawal, Product Manager, Mobile Search Ads

New Changes to Ad Rotation

AdWords currently offers three ad rotation settings: optimize for clicks, optimize for conversions, and rotate evenly. Using the “rotate” setting for ad rotation is helpful for testing new creatives, but when run indefinitely can inhibit advertiser performance and deliver less relevant ads to our users.

Starting next week, the “rotate” setting for ad rotation will change.  Instead of rotating creatives for an indefinite period of time, this setting will only rotate for a period of 30 days.  After that, the setting will then optimize to show the ads expected to generate the most clicks.  Every time a creative is enabled or edited, the ads in that ad group will rotate more evenly for a new period of 30 days.

This change will be rolling out next week. At that time, ad groups with creatives that haven’t been added or modified in the past thirty days will see this new ad rotation behavior. Otherwise, this change will begin 30 days after your last creative was enabled or edited.

This change will enable us to provide users with the most relevant ad experience and should help advertisers improve the performance of their AdWords accounts. For more information on this change, please visit this article in our AdWords Help Center.

Posted by Karen Yao, Senior Product Manager

6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon...

Greetings...

If you grew up in the late 80's you knew all about Kevin Bacon... its now a common point of relativity to talk about the "6 degrees of separation" as it applies to Kevin Bacon.  Everyone, within 6 connections, is connected to someone that knows Kevin Bacon.

What are your connections? Who are they connected to?

You challenge for today... manage and grow your connections to reach your "A List" customers and prospects.  Set goals, like the following:

• Reach 5 new connections a week
• Have 2 sit down meetings with mentors/friends a week
• Send out 5 "just touching base" emails/notes a week
• Have 3 new prospects that you are trying to reach each week

We all know the tools... From the good old-fashioned handwritten note (which never goes out of style) to the latest and greatest technology tools...get connected!

LinkedIn

The go-to place for connecting to your future...prospect, customer, employer, referral source.  The key is connecting and then nurturing those connections!  We all know people...and we all have that "one friend" that only reaches out when they want something.  Be the friend that is always there and connected!  (See my LinkedIn Profile)

Twitter

Great for sharing info, following someone and reaching out to "ping" people.  140 characters can go a long way to connect you and keep others informed! (See my Twitter feed)

Email

Treat this like gold...use it to communicate and keep tabs.  Ping friends, share information and keep connected.  Just make sure you add value to the conversations!

The key concept is built around...

Adding, nurturing and leveraging your connections!

How?

• Adding value to all conversations
• Not selling but informing
• Not pushing but leading
• Not "showing people up" but taking the reins

Its all about being the person people want to connect with, share insights with, and hang around!

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Cheers!

Bruce Clapp


Want to learn more?  Enroll in the MarketMatch eCollege!  Smart learning online sessions delivered five consecutive Tuesdays with 2.5 CFMP credits for EACH session, tactical advice and a game plan for success!  Enroll here!

MarketMatch is a full-service marketing consulting firm, dedicated to the credit union and community banking community.  We utilize knowledge-based strategies to help you FOCUS on the efforts that will generate MOMENTUM and yield the greatest RESULTS for your bottom line.

Learn more here.

Chat with me LIVE!

Or contact me directly (click here).

To Life, To Love, To Dance: A Spring Celebration

Kate Badgett and Michael Rodriguez delight. Photo courtesy Robert Ivey Ballet

The second post of today - and one I shared on my personal blog, LauraCatherine.co.  I'm sharing with you here as well and hope you enjoy the short break from marketing posts for something that will delight your soul.

The tiniest of sounds – a satin covered pointe shoe ever-so-softly tapping the floor with every Bourré she made – took me back to the time when I was a ballet dancer. I wasn’t expecting it, but I welcomed it. I was taken back to a time when I had dreams of becoming a ballerina and spent much of my high school years dancing ballet, even beginning my college career as a dance major.

Last night my family and I watched the Robert Ivey Ballet performance “To Life, To Love, To Dance – A Spring Celebration” at the Burke High School Auditorium in downtown Charleston. It was a truly delightful show that I hope to share with you. In full disclosure, I was gifted the tickets from the dance company and agreed to share my experience with you on this blog. If you live in the area, I encourage you to treat yourself to their encore performance this afternoon at 4 pm. Details here.

Their spring celebration of a performance was one that included a variety of styles of dance – from traditional ballet to modern to what I’m calling folk. Take a break from your day and follow me on this journey. I’ve included video and photos to awaken your senses, and hope you enjoy!

The Opening Act: “Toys”
A gold-covered box sat in the middle of the stage with dancers surrounding it for the opening performance, called “Toys.” For some reason, I wasn’t expecting the tiniest of dancers to emerge from the toy box. Watching her pirouette on top of the box reminded me of a different box - the jewelry boxes that little girls cherish with the spinning ballerina. She was a living doll. This sweet little dancer (Satya Tranfield), no more than 7 years old, delivered a brilliant dance - both technically and in the way she captivated the audience. Her long little legs and arms made it look easy, but I knew the precision and practice that were put into every step. Every relevé and pirouette made the audience melt.


I’m sharing a short video snippet below of one of her later performances of the evening, called “The Doll.”


(Youtube performance link for those reading by email here).

A Modern Performance, “Sail”
I turned to my mom after a modern performance called “Sail” (short snippet below) featuring the Robert Ivey Junior Company to ask her what she thought. She knew I struggled with “getting” modern during my freshmen year at Columbia College. I liked the discipline and beautiful restraint I sometimes felt when dancing ballet. Modern felt too much like “anything goes” to this 18 year old. Years later, not only do I “get” modern dance, but I love it. I like that it pushes the boundaries a little. I like the edgy music, a far cry from the soundtracks behind most traditional ballet performances. Maybe it’s the rebel in me, after all these years. Or the creative soul. My mom said she liked it too, but couldn’t get over dancers rolling on the ground. That’s what makes it fun!

(Youtube performance link for those reading by email here).

Ballet – A Classic
Speaking of beautifully traditional ballet, there was some of that, too. Just when my mind was thinking about how much I loved modern and that maybe it wasn’t too late for me to take an adult class, I was pulled into a pas de deux danced by Katie Badgett and Michael Rodriguez (snippet below). Katie and Michael were both stunning. I especially liked that they both took the stage individually to put on their own performances within the pas de deux. I expected that for Michael (and was impressed), but Katie took me by surprise when she covered the stage by herself for spans of time. Her grand battements surprised me. Together and individually, they were wonderful.


(Youtube performance link for those reading by email here)

First of Autumn
Later, the stage was covered in deep hues of red (worn by the dancers). Not a detail left untouched, the warm yellow leaves on the tops of their buns caught my eye as they moved about the stage. “Was that jazz or modern?” my mom asked me. I’m not sure, but it was yet another performance that I enjoyed. The soundtrack to this dance in particular was especially entrancing.

Photo courtesy Robert Ivey Ballet

The Second Half
After a short intermission, the second half of the show began. This part felt more like a cohesive performance instead of individual dances. The stage, with a white picket fence and tulips, was the same throughout (unless my memory has failed me). The Junior and Children’s Company put on this half of the show, and did a great job keeping the audience’s attention. The costumes were well done, the dancers were animated.

There was another modern/jazz performance sprinkled in, called “Friends” that was a nice change of pace leading into another beautiful pas de deux. Then, the finale. It was impressive to see the stage filled with so many enthusiastic dancers in their grand attire, proud of the show they’d given us.

Today's Performance
If you’ll be in Charleston today, they’ll be performing at 4 pm. Visit http://www.robertiveyballet.net/ for details. Tickets available at the door - $15 adults, $10 senior/student rate. The Burke Auditorium is very close to the Citadel, but is located at Burke High School in the downtown Charleston area at 244 President Street. Allow yourself a few extra minutes to make your way around the school.

"Like" Robert Ivey Ballet on Facebook and Follow them on Twitter (@RobIveyBallet).

I hope you enjoyed this (my first official) dance performance review! It was fun to stretch my writing muscles with something new.

 Photo courtesy Robert Ivey Ballet

Laura is a marketing professional and blogger who has been active in social media since 2005.  If you enjoyed this post, please consider subscribing to this blog via Email or  RSS. Laura can also be found on Twitter (@LauraCatherineO), Facebook, and LinkedIn. 

New Favorites: Blogs I’m Reading

I’ve been doing some housekeeping to my trusty iGoogle reader lately.  Adding in new inspirational / DIY / marketing / crafting / you-name-it blog feeds to keep me motivated and feeling creative. This reminded me that I have been thinking about sharing some of my favorite new blogs with YOU, in the hope that you'll also enjoy their offerings and spark your inner creative self.

Spending time as a designer (web, print, social, etc.) means finding colorful inspiration in sometimes surprising places is good for me.  I think that’s part of the reason I enjoy DIY craft and style blogs.  Lots of color, texture, creativity.  Although they leave me with more than a few too many “I want to do that” projects on my list, I enjoy them!

One of my favorite new finds? A Beautiful Mess blog.  She can transform a white t-shirt into a sophisticated part of your “look” or show you how to make wall art of out paint samples. 

Hop over to her blog for your daily fill of creative goodness: http://abeautifulmess.typepad.com.

Enjoy!

Laura is a marketing professional and blogger who has been active in social media since 2005.  If you enjoyed this post, please consider subscribing to this blog via Email or  RSS. Laura can also be found on Twitter (@LauraCatherineO), Facebook, and LinkedIn. 

European Google Analytics User Conference in Belgium, Sweden and Spain

We’re excited to announce 3 upcoming Google Analytics User Conferences in Europe. The first will be in Brussels on May 3rd, the second will be in Stockholm on May 8th and the third will be in Barcelona on May 10th.

You can find further information, such as the agenda and speakers, on the links below. In our experience these events quickly sell out. So act fast if you want to take part, otherwise it is possible that you have to wait another year for the next event!

Key benefits of attending a Google Analytics User Conference:

• Meet members of the Google Analytics team, experts, and other users like you
• Learn through tangible examples how to measurably impact your business
• Find out how others solve the challenges you are facing today
• Have your business questions addressed by Google and Google Analytics Certified Partners

Brussels:

View the full agenda and register at www.gabc.be. 

This is the first Belgian User Conference! You will get to hear from some of our local Belgian Partners as well as Google speakers. Topics will range from learning how to take action using diverse data sets, creating tailor made dashboards, how to optimize your ROI with advanced campaign tracking, to measuring the value of social analytics.

Stockholm: 

View the full agenda and register at www.analyticsconference.se 

This is the second Google Analytics User Conference in Sweden. You’ll learn from national and international Google Analytics specialists to use the tool for maximum impact. You will meet speakers from Google as well as speakers from Google Analytics Certified Partners such as inUse Insights, Klikki, iProspect, Guava, and Relevant Traffic.

Barcelona:

View the full agenda and register at www.googleanalyticsconference.es 

Building on the successful User Conference last year in Madrid, some of our Spanish partners have decided to do the same in Barcelona! Meet and share your experiences with other users of the tool, experts in the field of Analytics, and of course meet the Google speakers. Make sure not to miss the hands-on workshops that are being offered! 

User Conferences are part of a global series of events hosted by Google Analytics Certified Partners. This series brings together Partners from each region to present content that is relevant to local Google Analytics users.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Posted by Jon Day, Google Analytics team

Making Priorities

We all want to be successful and we do a lot to get there. Yet we easily become overwhelmed by what it takes to be successful. If you are at all like me, you take care of the low hanging fruit, the easiest tasks first and leave the more difficult for a later time. Well sometimes I feel like that “later time” never comes. For me it’s about setting priorities every week. Between my professional life and my personal life my days are pretty full, not unlike most of you. You have to figure out what is most important to you. Is it family, money, business, wellness, friendship, and the list can go on and on. From there it seems to become a juggling act. It seems to be easy to take care of everything else before you take care of yourself. Sometimes you have to put yourself first and when you do that everything else falls into place. At some point this weekend, be your own #1, put yourself first. Have a great Friday.Debbi

MarketMatch is a full-service marketing consulting firm, dedicated to the credit union and community banking community. We utilize knowledge-based strategies to help you FOCUS on the efforts that will generate MOMENTUM and yield the greatest RESULTS for your bottom line.

Design+Message=Team

Which is more important, the message or the design? 

Trick question. The design is what catches the attention and the message is what's conveyed. They're a team. 

A good message may never get read if the design is bad, and a good design can be overshadowed by a bad message. But, if both the design and the message are good, you have yourself an effective marketing tool. 

So instead of focusing on one or the other, focus on both. Put them together, see if they work, change as needed until you have a clear, concise, memorable campaign. 

In case you need some inspiration, here are some of my favorite examples of effective advertising:

1. "A Diamond is Forever" Debeers

2. "Just Do It." Nike

3. "Think Small" Volkswagen

Until next time, 

Gail 

Sources: http://www.colormatters.com/blue, http://www.color-wheel-pro.com/color-meaning.html

MarketMatch is a full-service marketing consulting firm, dedicated to the credit union and community banking community. We utilize knowledge-based strategies to help you FOCUS on the efforts that will generate MOMENTUM and yield the greatest RESULTS for your bottom line.

Learn more here.

Webinar: Driving Online Conversions with Remarketing

Join the UK Google Online Media Specialist team for a live "Driving Online Conversions with Remarketing" webinar on Tuesday May 1st at 3:00 PM GMT (10:00 AM EST / 7:00 AM PST).

97% of website visitors do not convert the first time they visit. Remarketing can help you re-engage with your potential customers and bring them back to your website to buy your products. Join our live webinar to see how you can use remarketing to increase your online conversions by helping close the deal with customers who were not ready to make a purchase the first time around.

Key areas that will be covered include:

• What remarketing is and how it works
• Reasons to use remarketing
• A step-by-step set-up guide
• Campaign optimization tips

This webinar will be presented by a Google Online Media Specialist and will include Q&A. The session is suitable for advertisers who are already running campaigns on the GDN, as well as those who have not yet used the GDN.

 Register now!

Post Posted by Allison Sommer, Inside AdWords crew

Making campaign planning and build-out faster and more accurate

We've been listening closely to your suggestions on how to reduce the guesswork involved with building new campaigns. To help improve the campaign building process, we’re rolling out improvements to the Keyword Tool and Traffic Estimator.

Improvements to the Keyword Tool
To help improve campaign management, we’ve made improvements to the Keyword Tool including:

• See keyword ideas grouped by themes: With the updated Keyword Tool, you can easily view suggestions for new ad group themes and quickly choose to add ad groups directly to your account. 
• Seamless Traffic Estimator integration: Easily view Traffic Estimator data for the keywords you select in the Keyword Tool to make better campaign strategy decisions.

Click to view larger image

Improvements to Traffic Estimator
We’ve updated the Traffic Estimator to help advertisers build a more effective bidding and budgeting strategy. Changes to the Traffic Estimator include:

• Graph your performance estimates:
We’ve introduced a graph to the Traffic Estimator to make it easier to gauge traffic and bid estimates and develop an effective bidding strategy. 
• Structure your keywords into ad groups: You can now create draft ad groups within the Traffic Estimator and easily view traffic and bid estimates for each of your draft ad groups. 
• Add campaigns to your account: When you’re satisfied with your campaign structure, you can add the draft campaign directly to your account. 

Click to view larger image

We’re also improving the quality and accuracy of the traffic estimates by using performance history to better gauge traffic estimates. This means that going forward you’ll have to log in to AdWords to use Traffic Estimator.

You’ll find the updated Keyword Tool and Traffic Estimator in the AdWords interface over the next couple of weeks. To learn more about the updates to the Keyword Tool, you can visit this article in our Help Center and this article to learn more about the Traffic Estimator.

Posted by Deepti Bhatnagar, AdWords Product Manager

Introducing Featured Apps: Diptic App

I’m excited to tell you I’m adding area of focus to my usual blog writing – favorite apps.  This is just one of the new features I'll be adding to the blog, so expect more posts and some new twists this year! Useful apps, sometimes with ties to design/marketing, sometimes those that make life more beautiful or are just plain fun! One of my favorite things to ask my tech friends when we get together is “what are your favorite apps?”  I’ve found many apps this way – sort of like an old “word of mouth” referral for a relatively new tool. 

Some of the apps I’ll be sharing are free, others are just a few dollars.  I may not cover the apps that we’ve been using and hearing about for months – unless I can think of a new twist or way to use them that we may not have thought about yet!

It’s always a bit scary when introducing a new (to this blog) concept. For some reason I feel a bit of pressure and am not sure how to launch it just right! I’m going to jump right in by sharing one of my favorite apps!

Name of app:

Diptic.  

How I heard about it:

The lovely Kim Jamiesonintroduced me to this fun app over dinner!  

About the app:

Diptic allows you to create a collage of 1, 2, 3 (or more) photos and save it to your phone as a single photo.  At the time I’m writing this, there are 52 layouts to choose from! There are also lots of sharing possibilities with just one-click (such as Twitter, Facebook, etc.). 

If you’re an Instagram addict (or just love taking photos with your phone), you already know there are lots of great ways to make otherwise ordinary phone photos look a bit more magical. 

Think about this:

Since you can save the Diptic collage to your phone photo gallery, you can then take that collage and “instragram-it” to add photo effects. 

Cost of app:

Just 99 cents! Look for it in the App store. 

Tweet them:
Tell them how much you love it by tweeting @dipticapp.
Here are a few photos I created with Diptic recently using photos I’d already taken on my phone.  Totally transforms the look of things! (I usually tweet and instagram my Diptic photos - follow me @lauracatherineo).

 
Laura is a marketing professional and blogger who has been active in social media since 2005.  If you enjoyed this post, please consider subscribing to this blog via Email or  RSS. Laura can also be found on Twitter (@LauraCatherineO), Facebook, and LinkedIn. 

Increasing transparency in Quality Score

Today, we’re introducing more details about your Quality Score in AdWords.

Using the status hover for a keyword in the Keywords tab, you’ll see the traditional 1-10 numeric score and new ratings for each main factor in Quality Score. The new ratings have a relative scale so you’ll understand whether your performance expected clickthrough rate, ad relevance, and landing page experience is average, above average, or below average compared to other advertisers.



We’ve heard from advertisers that having more insight on Quality Score can help you better focus efforts to improve performance. Improving ads quality is great for users, too.

One final note: This launch gives you information you can use to improve your Quality Score, but it doesn’t change how Quality Score or ad rank are calculated.

Posted Jen Huang, AdWords Product Manager

More ways to measure your website's performance with User Timings

As part of our mission to make the web faster, Google Analytics provides Site Speed reports to analyze your site’s page load times. To help you measure and diagnose the speed of your pages in a finer grain, we’re happy to extend the collection of Site Speed reports in Google Analytics with User Timings.

With User Timings, you can track and visualize user defined custom timings about websites. The report shows the execution speed or load time of any discrete hit, event, or user interaction that you want to track. This can include measuring how quickly specific images and/or resources load, how long it takes for your site to respond to specific button clicks, timings for AJAX actions before and after onLoad event, etc. User timings will not alter your pageview count, hence,  makes it the preferred method for tracking a variety of timings for actions in your site.

To collect User Timings data, you'll need to add JavaScript timing code to the interactions you want to track using the new _trackTiming API included in ga.js (version 5.2.6+) for reporting custom timings. This API allows you to track timings of visitor actions that don't correspond directly to pageviews (like Event Tracking).  User timings are defined using a set of Categories, Variables, and optional Labels for better organization. You can create various categories and track several timings for each of these categories. Please refer to the developers guide for more details about the _trackTiming API.

Here are some sample use cases for User Timings

• To track timings for AJAX actions before and after onLoad event. 
• A site can have their own definition of “User Perceived Load Time”, which can be recorded and tracked with user timings.  As an example, news websites can record time for showing the above fold content as their main metric instead of onLoad time. 
• Detailed performance measurement and optimization of sub components on a page, such as time to load all images, CSS or Javascript, download PDF files and time it takes to upload a file.

Want to check out User Timings Report in your account?
Go to the content section and click the User Timings report under Content section. There are three tabs within the User Timings report for you to review: Explorer, Performance, & Map Overlay. Each provides a slightly different view of user timings reported.

The Explorer tab on the User Timings report shows the following metrics by Timing Category, Timing Variable, or Timing Label (all of which you define in your timing code).

• Avg. User Timing—the average amount of time (in seconds) it takes for the timed code to execute
• User Timing Sample—the number of samples taken

The Explorer tab also provides controls that you can use to change the tabular data. For example, you can choose a secondary dimension—such as browser— to get an idea of how speed changes by browser.

To learn more about which timings are most common for user timings, switch to the Performance tab. This tab shows timing buckets, providing you with more insight into how speed can vary for user reported timings for selected category, variable and label combinations. You may switch to Performance tab at any point of navigation in the Explorer tab, such as after drilling down on a specific category and variable, to visualize distribution of user reported timings.  The bucket boundaries for histograms in Performance Tab are chosen to be flexible so that users can analyze data at low values ranging from 10 milliseconds granularity to 1 minute granularity with addition of sub-bucketing for further analysis.

The Map Overlay tab provides a view of your site speed experienced by users in different geographical regions (cities, countries, continents).

-  Satish Kambala & Mustafa M. Tikir, Google Analytics team

Where Does Marketing Fit in the Org Chart?

Ahh …. What to do with Marketing?!?!

Who should you answer to?  Who are your best friends?  What department are you closest aligned with?

As marketers, we’ve all been called “crazy.”  And you know what?  They’re right!  We’re absolutely, out of our mind, certifiable … in one very specific area … we all NEED split personalities.  We must think like a CEO, CFO, Retail Manager, Lender and Commercial & Investments gurus … and still be the Marketer with the great ideas.  We are the one department who needs to be comfortable in EVERYONE’S office and who should visit each office regularly.

CEO

Everything we do as Marketers needs to be aligned with the business objectives of the bank or credit union.  The very first question we should ask in planning is, “what will our institution consider success at the end of the year.”  Then, we need to track and report the progress against those objectives regularly. 

We also need to make sure that the brand we portray is in line with the direction that the Board and CEO have set for the institution.

FINANCE

We need to think like a CFO.  Based on ALCO decisions, what products do we need to be focusing on?  You should be meeting with your CFO during planning to agree on variables to include in ROI analysis.  Then, meeting regularly to discuss any changes in the financial situations of the institution or market.


As Marketers, you should be able to look at your Call Report and make some educated assumptions on direction and easily gain specific tracking data.

RETAIL/OPERATIONS

Marketing must be involved in branch-level training and processes.  How do your campaigns affect the branch delivery?  How can you work together with Operations to streamline processes and improve the customer experience?  What do the branches see that can give you ongoing insight into changes in market conditions, perceptions and needs?  Does the team need more effective tools to facilitate meaningful conversations and better discuss what we have to offer with customers?

Our branches are often Marketing’s greatest allies.  It’s not just our job to drive traffic to them; it’s our job to help maximize every interaction at them.  A close connection with the Operations people will help you to keep your finger on the pulse of the institution.

LENDING

Certainly it’s our job to increase loans with existing customers and drive new interest from potential customers.  But which loans and to what audience?  A close relationship with your Lending Manager will help you to understand who to target.  Who are you likely to approve or deny … and why? 

COMMERCIAL/BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT

Commercial is a personal sell.  The most successful Commercial and BD professionals leverage one-on-one relationships with businesses.  But communication and targeting are still involved.  Marketing can help Commercial in identifying the best companies to pursue, acquiring new business and growing existing business.  We can provide communication campaigns to specific industries or produce materials for one-on-one meetings.

INVESTMENTS

Like Commercial, Investments are a relationship-driven department.  And, like Commercial, the Investment folks should be partnering with Marketing for more efficient growth, segmentation, communication and measurement.

Between regular meetings with the CEO, CFO and the rest of the Senior Management Team and your continued visits to the branches to talk with front-line staff, the Marketing Manager should rarely be found at their desk.  We are literally the tie that binds all of the financial institution’s departments and initiatives. 

Where does Marketing fit in the org chart?  Smack-dab in the middle!  Driving growth everywhere and being included in most major decisions.

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MarketMatch is a full-service marketing firm, dedicated to the credit union and community banking community.  We utilize knowledge-based strategies to help you FOCUS on the efforts that will generate the greatest  MOMENTUM for your organization and demonstrate RESULTS with our written ROI Guarantee.

Want to learn more?  Enroll in the MarketMatch eCollege!  Smart online sessions delivered with CFMP credits, tactical advice and a game plan for success!

Learn more about us here. (click)
Chat with me LIVE! (click)
Or email me directly (click)
937-426-9848