10 Awesome Career Pages Worth Taking Inspiration From

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I’ve been recently thinking about the duties of a marketer.

Most marketers I know of, and based on my own experience as an in-house marketer, would be 100% focused on the target audience (prospects) and existing customers. Retention and acquisition.

But 0% was focused on making the company look attractive to new talent. You know, the next Procurement Manager or the Software Engineer or the Marketing Assistant.

Typically, a website would have a half arsed Careers page built with a very short piece of text (so dull it’s almost a cure for insomnia) and a list of current vacancies.

And that’s about it.

So I decided to check out a few sites and collate some interesting approaches which others have taken and put it into a bit of a list for you – maybe you can take a few of these ideas from others and start allocating budget towards improving the image and perception of your company on your website?

Maybe one of your website goals in 2015 is to generate 2000 organic applications via the website. In other words, not via any agencies. (Tip, use campaign tagging and separate landing pages). Continue reading →

5 Common SEO Questions I Get Asked by Construction Marketers

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SEO has changed massively over the last 3-5 years.

There used to be a time when you would pick some keywords and then stuff them into as many pages as you can then…..voila!

There used to be a time when Google would release a major update to it’s algorithm twice a year. Now it’s like almost every month.

There used to be a time when you could pay someone, or an agency, who would build you 50 links per month……regardless of where those links are placed. Trust me, I’ve found links to a Quantity Surveying business from a site that sells boats in Australia. I’ve found links to a Construction Consultancy from a cosmetic surgery site. I don’t blame anyone other than the marketers of the businesses – put it down to ignorance and naivety?

There used to be a time when SEO was always about pagerank. Now it’s useless but you’ll still here agencies selling you this metric. Continue reading →

Tips for Capturing Construction Project Information for Marketing & Bid Proposals

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The latest episode of Construction Marketing Podcast is now live. Joining me on episode 7 is Mike Reader, Head of Bidding and Proposals for Pick Everard and Freelance Bid Writer Leonie Thomas.

In this episode, we talk about capturing construction project information to then enable marketers to use the info to produce better and more relevant bid materials and case studies. Leonie and Mike share their tips and challenges they face when collating information to help them win more construction projects.

[button link=”http://www.constructionmarketingpodcast.co.uk/2014/11/episode-7-capturing-project-information-mike-reader-leonie-thomas/”]Listen To Episode 7[/button]

construction marketing podcast episode 7

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60% of respondents feel that social media is not being used appropriately by the construction industry

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I recently stumbled across a report [link at bottom] called “Inspiring the next generation” which had just been published by the Construction Industry Council following a survey they conducted earlier this year to find out if people are satisfied with working in the industry and what inspired them. They gathered views in four key areas:

  1. Attitude to the industry
  2. Progress on Sustainability
  3. Social Media
  4. Innovation

Over 700 people took part in the survey representing a good cross section of professions including FM’s, academia and sales and marketing. Continue reading →

5 Tips to Help You Get That Digital Marketing Job

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Over the past few months I’ve been helping a few construction and non-construction clients find their next Digital Marketing person. I’ve been helping them vet CV’s and conduct interviews, advised on questions they should be asking and what tasks they could and should be giving applicants.

I’ve been a little bit disappointed to be honest (finding balance between academics and real life experience) and so I’ve decided to write some tips to help those looking for a role in digital marketing get that job and what employers will be looking for. Continue reading →

Compare Your Google Analytics Data with Other Construction Websites

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Google Analytics recently announced they are bringing back Benchmarking reports for all Google Analytics users. If you login to your account you should see “Benchmarking” within the Audience category of reports as shown below. google analytics benchmarking data I’ve just spotted the reports appearing in my accounts as of today and here’s a quick glimpse of what data is available to compare. If you don’t see the reports yet in your account then scroll to the bottom for a quick video on how to set it up. Continue reading →

A Quick Look at the New Twitter Analytics – Now Open to All

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Twitter announced this morning that Twitter Analytics is now open to all users – it was already open to all users but there’s been a complete revamp in the data available.

Here’s a quick look around:

Overall tweet performance and monthly comparison:

Useful to see if this months activity has generated more impressions than previous month – but remember this needs to be put into context or viewed alongside other metrics such as clicks, retweets and favourites. Continue reading →

Born To Build – Attracting the Next Generation into Construction & Why I Chose Construction

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Some of you maybe aware of a new campaign launched last week by the UKCG (UK Contractors Group) titled “Born to Build” with the aim of attracting the younger crowd to take up careers in construction.

I think everyone in the industry has a duty of care to make every effort possible to make the industry attractive to work in. It’s a great campaign and I’m glad to see that the focus is on the young professionals, not the brands or people behind the campaign. Continue reading →

M&S Website “Settling In” Blamed for Poor Sales

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M&S released its latest trading update this morning and blamed the poor sales mainly on the website moving to a new platform.

Let’s just remind ourselves that they spent £150m on the new website.

“Marks and Spencer has reported a big drop in online sales after its move to a new website platform hit trading. Sales at M&S.com were down 8.1% in the 13 weeks to 28 June, with M&S chief Marc Bolland admitting the new site had an impact on sales.

Mr Bolland blamed teething problems with the website for the fall in sales. The latest results mark the 12th quarter in a row that sales at M&S’s homeware and clothing division have fallen” Source: BBC

Other sites also reported the news this morning:

“General merchandise sales were impacted by the ‘settling in’ of a new .com website, with online sales falling 8.1%. The business is now focused on optimising the website commercially.”

Shouldn’t optimising be done during and continuously after a launch? Which incumbent agency does this?

What’s interesting is the auto-suggests provided by Google:

m&s website problems

By looking at what Google is suggesting the developers and the agency should’ve had a fair idea on what the sentiment was like for the new website right?

What about the in-house marketing team?

Google related searches also suggests problems:

google auto suggest m&s website problems

It seems as though these problems were being encountered way back in March. Read this forum on Money Saving Expert website.

Screen Shot 2014-07-08 at 10.28.32

Also some comments this morning via journalists and influential retail analysts:

And some responses:

And some people now giving feedback:

So where has it all gone wrong?

Since publishing this post this morning I have had some positive comments, especially by Dan Barker:

Is it the usability? Is it the magazine type design putting people off? Was it the user experience? Too difficult to navigate and checkout?

Can these factors really cause a 8.1% drop in sales? Could it have been a lot worse?

Somebody at some point (e-commerce manager, analytics folk) will have noticed the fall in sales/revenue from the site since launch.

Wonder what changes had been made to improve conversion rates?

I’ll pass this one over the UX and UI experts who will probably follow this one up with a few posts on Econsultancy maybe?