The CIM East of England Summer Marketing Conference: a Crafted review

Last week, Crafted attended one of the most anticipated marketing events in East Anglia - the CIM East of England Summer Conference.

Our Search Director, Ian Miller, held a workshop at the event, running through his tips to Google Analytics mastery. Thursday’s conference was the second CIM training day that Crafted has supported this year, with Ian holding a talk on Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) back in April. If you missed it, you can download his presentation from SlideShare. You can also watch the video from his Google Analytics presentation below. 

Hosted by the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM), this year’s East of England Summer Marketing Conference focused on evaluation, monitoring and metrics. It explored an entire range of marketing performance measures, from ROMI to social media sentiment, in one action packed day held at the Ashcroft International Business School at Anglian Ruskin University.

The day kicked off with a welcome and introduction by Dr Todd Landman, Professor of Government and Director of the Institute for Democracy and Conflict Resolution at the University of Essex. In his short speech, Professor Landman examined branding and marketing from the perspective of the academic sector - post tuition fees hike.

With students now increasingly seen as clients and degrees as products, Dr Landman emphasised that universities must market themselves to compete. He explained how digital marketing has helped his department to increase its exposure across the globe (from 30 to more than 100 countries) through topical blog posts, online PR and clever social media management.

Next on the agenda was a talk by the authors of the Marketing Director’s Handbook, Tim Arnold and Guy Tomlinson, entitled ‘how to keep the CFO happy’. The pair highlighted the complex relationship between a typical Chief Finance Officer (CFO) and Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), anecdotally reminding us that, although those Rottweilers with the purse strings sometimes perceive marketers to be “fluffy bunnies”, CEOs always see both the CFO and the CMO as members of the board.

In essence, to maintain a strong relationship with the boss, both marketers and those in finance must get along. Tim and Guy ran through their factors of CMO success, arguing that marketing departments must get their figures right, shout about their achievements, and never forget the importance of branding.

To close the morning’s sessions Mark Hirst, of Insight and Engagement Group, took to the stage to outline the latest developments in consumer and B2B research. Standing in for his colleague Sinéad Jefferies, Mark explained how ‘gamification’ is making marketing research more engaging for respondents. Using the example of a supermarket online game, in which respondents select groceries from a virtual supermarket, Mark explained how digital marketing is enabling researchers to collect valuable data in innovative and effective ways.

After breaking for a quick coffee, Suzanne Cleal of uscreates lead a session entitled ‘Evaluating the Long-Term Benefits of Social Marketing’. In her short session, Suzanne outlined how marketing can be used to change or maintain people’s behaviour and achieve a positive social impact.

Tosin Osho finished off the second part of the day by explaining her views on how companies can improve their advertising effectiveness through econometrics, a discipline which uses statistics to improve marketing spending. Tosin, a Consultant Manager at BrandScience, emphasised that analysis always depends upon good data, a theme that was echoed throughout the day.

Next it was time for lunch, with the Crafted team taking time to have a bite and catch up with friendly faces, as well as meeting many new ones.

After everyone was suitably refreshed, Crafted’s Search Director, Ian Miller, opened the afternoon’s programme with a workshop in which he ran through 7 ways people could get more from Google Analytics. An evangelist for big data and a Google Analytics Qualified Individual, Ian ran through some features of Google Analytics that delegates might not be aware of to enable them to better understand their customers.  If you need help getting the most from your SEO campaigns, Google Analytics or any other digital marketing activity, don't hesitate to get in touch. 

You can take a look at Ian’s presentation on our SlideShare account, or watch his full presentation below.

For those already possessing a detailed grip of Analytics and wanting to learn more about social media, Oli Watts of Fresh Networks also held a session on social media marketing. Highlighting how companies need to ask the core questions around “Why social?” he also explained how critical it was to define success. With ten years’ experience in building online communities, Oli outlined how organisations can tap into social networking to further their business successes.

For the final workshops of the day, delegates could choose between an explanation of paid search or email analytics. Darren Bond, Head of Online Marketing at Coast Digital, lead the talk on search marketing, advising marketers to use the keywords diagnostic tool, search query reports and search funnels to fuel their PPC research and analysis.

Alternatively, delegates could listen to Rechenda Smith, Head of Email Marketing at little green plane, discuss some practical tools for measuring the success of email campaigns. Rechenda ran through some of the most common email KPIs, including customer retention, customer acquisition, brand awareness and lead nurturing, before exploring some useful email analytics resources.

You can take a look at some of the pictures of the event on our Facebook page.