Learn best practice for digital marketing
Get structured advice on how to improve your online marketing using our RACE digital marketing planning framework.
Explore our 200+ free Hub pages recommending success factors, tools and stats.
Get structured advice on how to improve your online marketing using our RACE digital marketing planning framework.
Explore our 200+ free Hub pages recommending success factors, tools and stats.
Affiliate marketing is still an essential digital media channel for many transactional Ecommerce sites for retailers, travel and financial services. Affiliate marketing is also a revenue model to consider for site owners, especially online publishers. Here’s the issues to think about it to manage it effectively.
Our recommended links:
Traditional promotional techniques will only get today’s B2B marketer so far. Digital marketing techniques can support B2B marketing well since B2B relationships are rarely about an immediate one-off transaction. Rather it is about building reputation, demonstrating capability and showcasing credibility.
Content marketing is a vital method of engaging online audiences and using social sharing to reach new audiences too. Our content strategy guides and templates give you the tools to support this process.
Of all the areas of digital marketing we cover on Smart Insights, Customer engagement is arguably THE most important and THE most challenging for a brand. It’s crucial to repeat business, but with the choice available online difficult to achieve.
Our recommended links:
Customer relationship management or CRM is a well established approach. Although some argue it’s impossible to achieve and customer managed relationships is more appropriate! Digital media provides new opportunities to tailor customer communications integrated with traditional channels. We also review this for our email marketing tactic.
In the beginning, the web was just flat text and images accessed through desktop computers. In this section we cover emerging technologies and innovation.
Our recommended links:
Your digital strategy provides a foundation for all of your tactical marketing to engage customers across the lifecycle of Reach-Act-Convert-Engage summarised in our RACE digital marketing planning framework.
Our recommended links:
Our content on Ecommerce focuses on techniques to increase sales of transactional Ecommerce sites including retail, travel and financial services.
Our recommended links:
Some say Email marketing is dead. We’re sure there’s a lot of life in yet; it’s still a primary way of engaging customers and one of the most popular topics on Smart Insights.
Our recommended links:
If you don’t know where you’re heading, you’ll never know when you get there or whether you’re on track. Setting the right goals for digital marketing isn’t so easy, but our RACE framework should help you select the right goals.
Our recommended links:
Google Analytics is a fantastic tool, but to get the most from it and so get more commercial value from your Internet marketing needs careful setup. Our guides take you through the steps to customise it for your business.
Our recommended links:
Managing digital marketing will often need new skills, new staff, new technologies and new processes for marketing. It’s a big change! We look at digital marketing governance the – best way to structure teams and update processes in larger organisation. If you’re a team of one you can ignore this section! The bigger the organisation, the bigger the challenge!
Our recommended links:
In this section we show techniques and examples of how to plan and execute effective integrated marketing campaigns to attract more people to your sites or engage with your brand.
Our recommended links:
A business is directionless without a marketing plan, so every business should have one. Creating digital marketing plans can be difficult for many working in digital marketing since there isn’t a solid marketing plan to base it on. So in this section our resources show how to create a marketing plan and examples of what it should contain.
Understanding your customers online is the first step to improving your results from online channels. Next, it’s benchmarking competitors and looking for partners to work with. We’ll show you how to audit your capabilities and identify the best commercial opportunities.
Our recommended links:
Mobile marketing is massive already and forecast to exceed desktop Internet access in many developing countries. So every marketer needs to keep tabs on the opportunities of reaching their audiences via mobile and how to make their mobile sites and presences visible and accessible. To learn more take our free mobile marketing healthcheck
Our recommended links:
We think Online PR is one of the most cost-effective marketing approaches for all types of business. But it’s difficult to get right since it is often managed by different people and there’s the overlap with SEO and social media marketing.
Our recommended links:
The Internet and digital technologies give fantastic opportunities to engage companies with your brand in new ways.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is arguably THE most cost-effective digital marketing technique, but also the most challenging to get right. Our SEO resources are aimed at marketers who need to ask the right questions to get better results from SEO whether they are working on SEO themselves or they have an in-house or agency SEO resource.
Our recommended links:
Here is a selection of the most useful articles on SEO on Smart Insights followed by a listing of the most recent articles.
You may have heard of this! It’s transforming marketing, for the better most would say. We’ll help you navigate social media with a strategic approach sharing approaches from the leading commentators and companies.
Our recommended links:
The tools and techniques for creating a compelling user experience are constantly changing. With today’s websites and social networks offering interactivity and rich media we couldn’t have dreamt of a few years ago, there are great opportunities to produce an effective experience.
Our recommended links:
Traditional promotional techniques will only get today’s B2B marketer so far. Digital marketing techniques can support B2B marketing well since B2B relationships are rarely about an immediate one-off transaction. Rather it is about building reputation, demonstrating capability and showcasing credibility.
Content marketing is a vital method of engaging online audiences and using social sharing to reach new audiences too. Our content strategy guides and templates give you the tools to support this process.
Conversion rate optimisation (CRO) isn’t only important for Ecommerce and transactional sites. Every site should have clear conversion paths to marketing outcomes which contribute to the business.
We’ll show you how to increase your conversion, no matter what your type of site through using the right measures and using the right best practices.
Our recommended links:
In the beginning, the web was just flat text and images accessed through desktop computers. In this section we cover emerging technologies and innovation.
Our recommended links:
Your digital strategy provides a foundation for all of your tactical marketing to engage customers across the lifecycle of Reach-Act-Convert-Engage summarised in our RACE digital marketing planning framework.
Our recommended links:
Our content on Ecommerce focuses on techniques to increase sales of transactional Ecommerce sites including retail, travel and financial services.
Our recommended links:
Some say Email marketing is dead. We’re sure there’s a lot of life in yet; it’s still a primary way of engaging customers and one of the most popular topics on Smart Insights.
Our recommended links:
If you don’t know where you’re heading, you’ll never know when you get there or whether you’re on track. Setting the right goals for digital marketing isn’t so easy, but our RACE framework should help you select the right goals.
Our recommended links:
Google Analytics is a fantastic tool, but to get the most from it and so get more commercial value from your Internet marketing needs careful setup. Our guides take you through the steps to customise it for your business.
Our recommended links:
Online lead generation creates new selling opportunities by converting site visitors to prospects. Prospects are classically qualified through completing a profile form and then tailored communications delivered.
Our recommended links:
Managing digital marketing will often need new skills, new staff, new technologies and new processes for marketing. It’s a big change! We look at digital marketing governance the – best way to structure teams and update processes in larger organisation. If you’re a team of one you can ignore this section! The bigger the organisation, the bigger the challenge!
Our recommended links:
In this section we show techniques and examples of how to plan and execute effective integrated marketing campaigns to attract more people to your sites or engage with your brand.
Our recommended links:
Understanding your customers online is the first step to improving your results from online channels. Next, it’s benchmarking competitors and looking for partners to work with. We’ll show you how to audit your capabilities and identify the best commercial opportunities.
Our recommended links:
Mobile marketing is massive already and forecast to exceed desktop Internet access in many developing countries. So every marketer needs to keep tabs on the opportunities of reaching their audiences via mobile and how to make their mobile sites and presences visible and accessible. To learn more take our free mobile marketing healthcheck
Our recommended links:
We think Online PR is one of the most cost-effective marketing approaches for all types of business. But it’s difficult to get right since it is often managed by different people and there’s the overlap with SEO and social media marketing.
Our recommended links:
The Internet and digital technologies give fantastic opportunities to engage companies with your brand in new ways.
Creating usable sites is important, but an effective marketing site overlays persuasion to encourage visitors to engage and follow a journey to conversion. So understanding user psychology and knowing the persuasion principles we describe here is helpful.
Our recommended links:
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is arguably THE most cost-effective digital marketing technique, but also the most challenging to get right. Our SEO resources are aimed at marketers who need to ask the right questions to get better results from SEO whether they are working on SEO themselves or they have an in-house or agency SEO resource.
Our recommended links:
Here is a selection of the most useful articles on SEO on Smart Insights followed by a listing of the most recent articles.
You may have heard of this! It’s transforming marketing, for the better most would say. We’ll help you navigate social media with a strategic approach sharing approaches from the leading commentators and companies.
Our recommended links:
The tools and techniques for creating a compelling user experience are constantly changing. With today’s websites and social networks offering interactivity and rich media we couldn’t have dreamt of a few years ago, there are great opportunities to produce an effective experience.
Our recommended links:
Affiliate marketing is still an essential digital media channel for many transactional Ecommerce sites for retailers, travel and financial services. Affiliate marketing is also a revenue model to consider for site owners, especially online publishers. Here’s the issues to think about it to manage it effectively.
Our recommended links:
Traditional promotional techniques will only get today’s B2B marketer so far. Digital marketing techniques can support B2B marketing well since B2B relationships are rarely about an immediate one-off transaction. Rather it is about building reputation, demonstrating capability and showcasing credibility.
Content marketing is a vital method of engaging online audiences and using social sharing to reach new audiences too. Our content strategy guides and templates give you the tools to support this process.
Conversion rate optimisation (CRO) isn’t only important for Ecommerce and transactional sites. Every site should have clear conversion paths to marketing outcomes which contribute to the business.
We’ll show you how to increase your conversion, no matter what your type of site through using the right measures and using the right best practices.
Our recommended links:
Customer relationship management or CRM is a well established approach. Although some argue it’s impossible to achieve and customer managed relationships is more appropriate! Digital media provides new opportunities to tailor customer communications integrated with traditional channels. We also review this for our email marketing tactic.
In the beginning, the web was just flat text and images accessed through desktop computers. In this section we cover emerging technologies and innovation.
Our recommended links:
Your digital strategy provides a foundation for all of your tactical marketing to engage customers across the lifecycle of Reach-Act-Convert-Engage summarised in our RACE digital marketing planning framework.
Our recommended links:
Our content on Ecommerce focuses on techniques to increase sales of transactional Ecommerce sites including retail, travel and financial services.
Our recommended links:
Some say Email marketing is dead. We’re sure there’s a lot of life in yet; it’s still a primary way of engaging customers and one of the most popular topics on Smart Insights.
Our recommended links:
If you don’t know where you’re heading, you’ll never know when you get there or whether you’re on track. Setting the right goals for digital marketing isn’t so easy, but our RACE framework should help you select the right goals.
Our recommended links:
Google Analytics is a fantastic tool, but to get the most from it and so get more commercial value from your Internet marketing needs careful setup. Our guides take you through the steps to customise it for your business.
Our recommended links:
Online lead generation creates new selling opportunities by converting site visitors to prospects. Prospects are classically qualified through completing a profile form and then tailored communications delivered.
Our recommended links:
In this section we show techniques and examples of how to plan and execute effective integrated marketing campaigns to attract more people to your sites or engage with your brand.
Our recommended links:
Understanding your customers online is the first step to improving your results from online channels. Next, it’s benchmarking competitors and looking for partners to work with. We’ll show you how to audit your capabilities and identify the best commercial opportunities.
Our recommended links:
Mobile marketing is massive already and forecast to exceed desktop Internet access in many developing countries. So every marketer needs to keep tabs on the opportunities of reaching their audiences via mobile and how to make their mobile sites and presences visible and accessible. To learn more take our free mobile marketing healthcheck
Our recommended links:
The Internet and digital technologies give fantastic opportunities to engage companies with your brand in new ways.
Creating usable sites is important, but an effective marketing site overlays persuasion to encourage visitors to engage and follow a journey to conversion. So understanding user psychology and knowing the persuasion principles we describe here is helpful.
Our recommended links:
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is arguably THE most cost-effective digital marketing technique, but also the most challenging to get right. Our SEO resources are aimed at marketers who need to ask the right questions to get better results from SEO whether they are working on SEO themselves or they have an in-house or agency SEO resource.
Our recommended links:
Here is a selection of the most useful articles on SEO on Smart Insights followed by a listing of the most recent articles.
You may have heard of this! It’s transforming marketing, for the better most would say. We’ll help you navigate social media with a strategic approach sharing approaches from the leading commentators and companies.
Our recommended links:
The tools and techniques for creating a compelling user experience are constantly changing. With today’s websites and social networks offering interactivity and rich media we couldn’t have dreamt of a few years ago, there are great opportunities to produce an effective experience.
Our recommended links:
Traditional promotional techniques will only get today’s B2B marketer so far. Digital marketing techniques can support B2B marketing well since B2B relationships are rarely about an immediate one-off transaction. Rather it is about building reputation, demonstrating capability and showcasing credibility.
Content marketing is a vital method of engaging online audiences and using social sharing to reach new audiences too. Our content strategy guides and templates give you the tools to support this process.
Conversion rate optimisation (CRO) isn’t only important for Ecommerce and transactional sites. Every site should have clear conversion paths to marketing outcomes which contribute to the business.
We’ll show you how to increase your conversion, no matter what your type of site through using the right measures and using the right best practices.
Our recommended links:
Of all the areas of digital marketing we cover on Smart Insights, Customer engagement is arguably THE most important and THE most challenging for a brand. It’s crucial to repeat business, but with the choice available online difficult to achieve.
Our recommended links:
Customer relationship management or CRM is a well established approach. Although some argue it’s impossible to achieve and customer managed relationships is more appropriate! Digital media provides new opportunities to tailor customer communications integrated with traditional channels. We also review this for our email marketing tactic.
In the beginning, the web was just flat text and images accessed through desktop computers. In this section we cover emerging technologies and innovation.
Our recommended links:
Your digital strategy provides a foundation for all of your tactical marketing to engage customers across the lifecycle of Reach-Act-Convert-Engage summarised in our RACE digital marketing planning framework.
Our recommended links:
Some say Email marketing is dead. We’re sure there’s a lot of life in yet; it’s still a primary way of engaging customers and one of the most popular topics on Smart Insights.
Our recommended links:
If you don’t know where you’re heading, you’ll never know when you get there or whether you’re on track. Setting the right goals for digital marketing isn’t so easy, but our RACE framework should help you select the right goals.
Our recommended links:
Google Analytics is a fantastic tool, but to get the most from it and so get more commercial value from your Internet marketing needs careful setup. Our guides take you through the steps to customise it for your business.
Our recommended links:
Online lead generation creates new selling opportunities by converting site visitors to prospects. Prospects are classically qualified through completing a profile form and then tailored communications delivered.
Our recommended links:
Managing digital marketing will often need new skills, new staff, new technologies and new processes for marketing. It’s a big change! We look at digital marketing governance the – best way to structure teams and update processes in larger organisation. If you’re a team of one you can ignore this section! The bigger the organisation, the bigger the challenge!
Our recommended links:
In this section we show techniques and examples of how to plan and execute effective integrated marketing campaigns to attract more people to your sites or engage with your brand.
Our recommended links:
Understanding your customers online is the first step to improving your results from online channels. Next, it’s benchmarking competitors and looking for partners to work with. We’ll show you how to audit your capabilities and identify the best commercial opportunities.
Our recommended links:
Mobile marketing is massive already and forecast to exceed desktop Internet access in many developing countries. So every marketer needs to keep tabs on the opportunities of reaching their audiences via mobile and how to make their mobile sites and presences visible and accessible. To learn more take our free mobile marketing healthcheck
Our recommended links:
We think Online PR is one of the most cost-effective marketing approaches for all types of business. But it’s difficult to get right since it is often managed by different people and there’s the overlap with SEO and social media marketing.
Our recommended links:
The Internet and digital technologies give fantastic opportunities to engage companies with your brand in new ways.
Creating usable sites is important, but an effective marketing site overlays persuasion to encourage visitors to engage and follow a journey to conversion. So understanding user psychology and knowing the persuasion principles we describe here is helpful.
Our recommended links:
You may have heard of this! It’s transforming marketing, for the better most would say. We’ll help you navigate social media with a strategic approach sharing approaches from the leading commentators and companies.
Our recommended links:
Affiliate marketing is still an essential digital media channel for many transactional Ecommerce sites for retailers, travel and financial services. Affiliate marketing is also a revenue model to consider for site owners, especially online publishers. Here’s the issues to think about it to manage it effectively.
Our recommended links:
Traditional promotional techniques will only get today’s B2B marketer so far. Digital marketing techniques can support B2B marketing well since B2B relationships are rarely about an immediate one-off transaction. Rather it is about building reputation, demonstrating capability and showcasing credibility.
Content marketing is a vital method of engaging online audiences and using social sharing to reach new audiences too. Our content strategy guides and templates give you the tools to support this process.
In the beginning, the web was just flat text and images accessed through desktop computers. In this section we cover emerging technologies and innovation.
Our recommended links:
Your digital strategy provides a foundation for all of your tactical marketing to engage customers across the lifecycle of Reach-Act-Convert-Engage summarised in our RACE digital marketing planning framework.
Our recommended links:
Our content on Ecommerce focuses on techniques to increase sales of transactional Ecommerce sites including retail, travel and financial services.
Our recommended links:
Some say Email marketing is dead. We’re sure there’s a lot of life in yet; it’s still a primary way of engaging customers and one of the most popular topics on Smart Insights.
Our recommended links:
Google Analytics is a fantastic tool, but to get the most from it and so get more commercial value from your Internet marketing needs careful setup. Our guides take you through the steps to customise it for your business.
Our recommended links:
In our coverage of Internet advertising we focus on display advertising, still more commonly known as banner ads. These get a bad rap because of low clickthrough rates, but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t worthwhile. We have separate advice on paid search (PPC) marketing strategy.
Our recommended links:
Online lead generation creates new selling opportunities by converting site visitors to prospects. Prospects are classically qualified through completing a profile form and then tailored communications delivered.
Our recommended links:
Managing digital marketing will often need new skills, new staff, new technologies and new processes for marketing. It’s a big change! We look at digital marketing governance the – best way to structure teams and update processes in larger organisation. If you’re a team of one you can ignore this section! The bigger the organisation, the bigger the challenge!
Our recommended links:
In this section we show techniques and examples of how to plan and execute effective integrated marketing campaigns to attract more people to your sites or engage with your brand.
Our recommended links:
Mobile marketing is massive already and forecast to exceed desktop Internet access in many developing countries. So every marketer needs to keep tabs on the opportunities of reaching their audiences via mobile and how to make their mobile sites and presences visible and accessible. To learn more take our free mobile marketing healthcheck
Our recommended links:
We think Online PR is one of the most cost-effective marketing approaches for all types of business. But it’s difficult to get right since it is often managed by different people and there’s the overlap with SEO and social media marketing.
Our recommended links:
The Internet and digital technologies give fantastic opportunities to engage companies with your brand in new ways.
Paid search marketing opportunities includes Pay Per Click Ads via Google and Bing plus ads on the display network – a third of Google’s revenue. The cost of pay search can be high, so we discuss how to make sure you’re getting the most value from PPC by maximising your Google Quality Score.
Our recommended links:
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is arguably THE most cost-effective digital marketing technique, but also the most challenging to get right. Our SEO resources are aimed at marketers who need to ask the right questions to get better results from SEO whether they are working on SEO themselves or they have an in-house or agency SEO resource.
Our recommended links:
Here is a selection of the most useful articles on SEO on Smart Insights followed by a listing of the most recent articles.
Search engine marketing is now a core marketing activities. We have a lot of details on the techniques for search marketing in our separate Quick Guides on SEO and PPC Adwords. Keyphrase analysis is important for both paid and natural search, so that’s covered here.
Our recommended links:
You may have heard of this! It’s transforming marketing, for the better most would say. We’ll help you navigate social media with a strategic approach sharing approaches from the leading commentators and companies.
Our recommended links:
The tools and techniques for creating a compelling user experience are constantly changing. With today’s websites and social networks offering interactivity and rich media we couldn’t have dreamt of a few years ago, there are great opportunities to produce an effective experience.
Our recommended links:
Statistics on mobile usage and adoption to inform your mobile marketing strategy “Mobile to overtake fixed Internet access by 2014” was the big headline from the widely shared infographic at the end of this post summarising the bold prediction from …..
Mobile marketing analytics Read moreLanding page examples and best practice advice Most discussion of web design in companies who don’t know the power of landing pages still tends to focus on the home page. But, for companies who are running a lot of online …..
Landing page optimisation Lead generation strategy Read moreA summary of Amazon’s business strategy and revenue model I’ve used Amazon in my books for over 10 years now since many companies, from startups and small businesses to large international businesses, can learn from their focus on the customer …..
Online business and revenue models Read moreUse the RACE Planning System to get ahead in your digital marketing The first edition of my Internet Marketing: Strategy, Planning and Implementation book from 2000 included a popular template for creating what we then called an Internet Marketing Plan. …..
Digital marketing strategy Read moreSelecting the best revenue options for Internet startups I’m often contacted by site owners with an idea for a new site who are trying to work out how much revenue they’ll be able to raise depending on the number of …..
Online business and revenue models Read moreSearch and social media marketing advice for travel marketing It’s not an uncommon process for a firm at start-up level to take their passion for a product or a service and jump head first into an enterprise that can very …..
Digital marketing strategy Read moreWhat are you your plans to trial new tactics in the Year of Content Marketing? 2013, if you haven’t realised it as yet is the year of Content Marketing. Study after study have shown that content marketing can turn the …..
Content marketing creative and formats Read moreUsing customer surveys and feedback data as part of a methodology for improving customer journeys If you want to improve your customer’s experience, listen to what your customers are saying. Like any cliché, it is easier said than done… Over-simplification …..
Findability Read moreIncrease conversion through 5 psychology principles Pardot have released a useful whitepaper on ‘Using Psychology to Increase Conversions’, and this associated Infographic to summarise the key findings of their research. As the marketing landscape is evolving they remind us that the …..
Persuasion-marketing-principles Read more6 Essential steps to create a content marketing plan Last Friday, Stephen Bateman took us through his 6 Steps to creating a content marketing plan in the latest Smart Insights-BrightTALK Digital Marketing Priorities 2013 webcast. At the end of this post we …..
Content marketing tools Read more10 permission marketing principles and campaign examples integrating web, email and social media marketing It is now nearly 15 years since Seth Godin launched his permission marketing mantra. Yet it remains highly relevant – I still recommend newcomers to online …..
Email communications strategy Permission marketing Social media strategy Read moreWhat has email got to do with website conversion? “WTF?” – That’s most people’s first reaction when I try and explain how important email can be for site conversion. But if you think about it logically; email is a great …..
Behavioural-email-marketing Read more12 practical tips for customer preference centres Preferences centres have never really caught on have they? Many of the big retailers like this one from Amazon or Tesco have had them for years, but they’re still not used so widely. …..
Email list management and ECRM Read moreTechniques for retailers reviewing their email marketing communications Whether it’s online sales for mulitchannel retailers, etailers, big chains or independent stores, everyone knows the power of using email marketing to prospects and customers to boost profits. Used in conjunction with …..
Behavioural-email-marketing Read moreAn introduction to using personas to create more customer-centric websites Creating personas of website visitors is a powerful technique for helping increase the usability and customer centricity of a web site as part of a user-centred design (UCD) process. I’ve …..
Customer research & analysis Marketing personas Read moreDifferentiation vs Amplification We shared Seth Godin’s Circles of Marketing blog post a couple of weeks ago, it captured our attention because of the simplicity of the message, the focus on the fundamentals, Seth’s always good at that. The marketing …..
Digital strategy development Read moreBulmers: Facebook fans are worth £3.82 more than non-fans “What is the value of a Like?” is understandably still a common question. There’s some interesting coverage regarding Facebook Fan value at the moment, the ‘ROI of social media’ is always …..
Facebook Marketing Read moreApplying SOSTAC® planning to digital marketing SOSTAC® is a planning model, originally developed by PR Smith in the 1990s to help marketers develop marketing plans. Paul is my co-author on Emarketing Excellence, so when we created this book it was natural to work …..
Capability and performance review Read moreA definition of paid, earned and owned media With the rise in importance of social media and online PR, we’re seeing more companies change their method of budgeting, reporting and investing in media to reflect the types of sites where …..
Customer acquisition strategy Read more5 types of tools for a more customer-centred website and brand Web analytics tools such as Google Analytics are used by nearly every company since they provide valuable quantitative data on site visitor behaviour. No surprise there. But web analytics …..
Customer feedback Read more