Author Archives: Pritesh Patel

About Pritesh Patel

Digital Marketing Consultant (Freelance) specialising in the Construction sector. I help marketing departments set objectives, discover goals, set KPI's, plan and develop campaigns to exceed set objectives. I also provide training on Digital Marketing Strategy Planning and Google Analytics.

Businesses need to eliminate the ‘gut feeling’ approach when making business decisions

Ever heard your Exec say “My gut feeling is…..” or “I think we should do it because I have a gut feeling that our competitor….”? Many businesses today still operate on creating and making business decisions based on ‘gut feelings’. Scary I know!

I recently had a debate with my Exec on ‘data driven actions’ rather than relying on the HiPPO’s (Highest Paid Persons Opinion) ‘gut feelings’ to drive business actions (which most often turn out to be incorrect or harmful to the business itself). How can anyone drive action through their own ‘gut feelings’ when they have no data to back up their feelings or tell them otherwise? This lead me onto the question:

“How important is data to a business in order to make better business and marketing decisions?”. Continue reading →

BAM Analytics App for the iPhone

After having spent the last few weeks researching and contemplating which analytics app to download for the iPhone I finally made the choice of downloading BAM Analytics by Blast Advance Media. Was it a bad move? I don’t think so. Having downloaded the app to my iPhone it meant having my web stats with me at all times.I am someone who wants to know web stats NOW! I want to know how my campaigns are progressing NOW! I want to know how many conversions my e-mail campaign which went out at 1pm has generated now that it is 4pm. I want to know NOW! Hence by having my web stats with me where ever I maybe, it certainly helps me and my heart run along smoothly. Continue reading →

Understanding the click paths of your website visitors

By using a combination of the Navigation Summary and Entrance Paths reports you can get a real insight into how your visitors are behaving, what pages they visit and where they started and ended their session. I am going to try and break it down for you so that you can get a better insight into how your visitors are behaving once they a) land on your homepage or b) land on a landing page. Continue reading →

Who cares and so what?

Who cares and so what? Two questions you should always ask yourself when coming up with ideas for any marketing campaign. I love these two questions because every time I have ask these questions, I never get a straight reply. It causes people to think….and think harder about what they are doing or trying to explain.

An idea might be truly great and have all the fancy tinsel and bows on it…but the bottom line is who cares and so what? Continue reading →

Hootsuite’s New Advanced Link Tagging Tool

Hootsuite have just rolled out a whole host of features to their Twitter client and some of which have been blogged about already. But one feature, probably the best feature, has not yet been discovered.

Hootsuite now enables you to add UTM parameters to your links within Hootsuite itself. No longer is an external tool required such as Google’s UTM Link Builder. You can do it all now within one client! Continue reading →

Forget B2B, try P2P instead!

For so long B2B marketers have had the concept of targeting businesses and corporates with their marketing activities and sucess is ultimately achieved by the number of new businesses acquired by a particular campaign.

But things have changed now.

Yes B2B is still business to business but if you think about it, you have always been targeting a person within that business to influence and direct your messaging towards right? It’s that one person who is seen as an influencer or a decision maker, it’s not the business that makes the decisions it’s that one person (together with the influencer) whether it be a buyer or I.T Manager or an Architect. It’s the one person who either engages with your brand or messaging or passes it on. So is this person to person (P2P) marketing or even business to person (B2P) marketing to be a bit more specific? Continue reading →

Tracking Campaigns in Google Analytics using Custom Reports

As with any B2B website or any other content driven website it is important to establish and understand what is the main purpose of your website and what role you want it to play within your business. Many websites were set up years ago as a ‘shop window’ to their business but now with all the advancements in digital marketing it is more than just a shop window. I have always said that a website is not just a marketing tool but a business tool. Everyone within your business should be using the website as resource and every employee should know what content exists and also getting some ‘switched on’ employees to produce and contribute content to your site. Your website is a 24/7 operating lead generating machine. Continue reading →

Is the construction industry ready for social media? No!

Cut to the chase. Is the construction industry ready for social media? My answer is simple…No…..not yet anyway!! After attending the Social Media in the Built Environment workshop on Wednesday and the Construction Marketing event on Thursday it is clear to me that we, as marketers, are still too early for adopting a social media strategy for maximising business benefits and for strengthening relationships. Social media within the construction industry is at the ‘newborn’ stage and people are still unfamiliar with the whole concept, they are still looking around for answers and examples and success stories to build a framework upon. Continue reading →

Only 27% of U.K. businesses think web analytics is useful. What the hell are you measuring?

#WAW? Recognise the hashtag? No? It is the hashtag used on Twitter for ‘Web Analytics Wednesday’ founded by Web Analytics Demystified and every Wednesday, somewhere in the world, there is an event held for web analyst enthusiasts to get members of the web analytics community networking. I so need to get involved but I am a newbie so I can be excused. Continue reading →

How to find industry terms your customers are using to find products on your website

Every industry uses jargon to describe particular types of products or services and it is these niche or specific keywords which change from day to day, week to week and year to year. What an industry term might be referred to today may not be called the same next year. So how do you keep up with your ‘industry jargon’ or ‘niche keywords’ to ensure your prospects and customers keep finding your products or business on the web and to also maintain a healthy position on SERP’s? Continue reading →