Our entire 68-point workflow for setting up and presenting a successful webinar

Do you use webinars and want to make them more effective, or are you considering using them for the first time in 2014? In this post I'll share what we have found works for us, grouped into 11 steps. What you’ll get in this blog post: Three reasons why we host webinars—and why you probably should too. Some great technology that will hugely improve the quality of your webinars. Proven templates for all the documents you’ll need to create (emails, blog posts, etc.). Pre-webinar tasks you must complete before you start. Some easy-to-make embarrassing webinar blunders we’ve made, and how you can avoid them. How to edit the slides and video and post them to your blog.

Why you should consider hosting webinars

Webinars are highly effective for communicating with your target market. In fact, this year we have experimented with turning down almost every conference speaking request…

From social media marketing to Google Analytics

Feeling jolly at Christmas, I wanted to be useful . And thought, if you find a little time in-between now and the New Year, it’s a good opportunity to do a little social media housekeeping. Here are immediate future’s top 14 recommendations (seriously, we are doing our tidy up too!) that will improve your social footprint no end. Get them all done and you’ll hit the ground running in January!

Verify your Google profile – Google+ made huge advances this year but try some simple updates. If you haven’t already, customise your URL so your company page is legitimate and easier to find and share.

Prepare for a crisis – While it’s quiet, take a step back and look at the risks and vulnerabilities in social. Where could you improve? How will you go about making change? Who else in your company could you tempt…

An introduction to the benefits of CRM systems for small and medium businesses

Opportunities can be fleeting without the correct tools to serve your clients. Unfortunately, many smaller businesses are falling behind in their use of technology and missing out on potential sales opportunities. According to a recent survey, only 34% of small business owners use technology for customer relationship management, and only 18% have marketing data fully integrated with their CRM. To remain competitive, your business must be able to compile information, analyze data to create dependable leads, and actively build relationships with customers. A marketing-driven CRM has the power to simplify these time-consuming tasks and take your company’s sales strategy to the next level.

A marketing-driven CRM can help you:

 1. Analyze relevant data

To help qualify a lead, a CRM tool can track demographic and risk-related information for an agency. If you’ve…

We're fast approaching 2014, the year when mobile analyst Mary Meeker predicted that mobile Internet traffic would overtake desktop traffic. Her latest annual KPCB Internet trends report from May 2013 showed that we're not quite there yet, with mobile traffic up to 15 per cent of global internet traffic in May 2013 – up from 10 per cent in May 2012, and six per cent in May 2011.  This compilation of mobile marketing statistics to consider for your 2014 planning shows that in many consumer sectors, the importance of mobile marketing is obscured by this average figure. In this talk for Smart Insights I started by showing that 2013 was the year that many businesses started to prioritise integrating mobile marketing with other channels to the level it deserves. Retail week reported that 60% of retailers listed omni-channel as their top  business priority for 2013. Meanwhile Joseph Tripodi of Coca Cola…

Thank you to all our readers and writers for sharing in 2013!

In our last monthly round-up of the year I want to thank all our writers who have shared their insights across the year, particularly our regular writers, so in this summary of advice from December, I have thanked some of our most regular contributors alongside their most popular posts on the latest developments.

The most significant platform for developments this month to be aware of this month are in the SEO (mobile) and Email (Gmail) sections.

Many thanks also if you’re a regular reader too, especially if you have shared, asked or answered questions or commented via the site or a social network. Through “spreading the word” you have helped us grow and share our advice and insights more widely - 82% YoY on uniques the analytics tells us - so many thanks!

Do let us know of anything you'd like to…

Check you’re not making these 5 mobile SEO mistakes to get your SEO right in 2014

Importance: [rating=5] Recommended link: Google’s new advice covering mobile SEO mistakes

December 2013 update

We originally alerted readers to Google's new advice on mobile SEO in June 2013. This is a BIG deal since more searchers are performing mobile searches and your mobile SEO traffic may fall if you get the user experience wrong as explained below. In this update, Google have again highlighted the importance of a seamless mobile experience by releasing a new tool to help site owners review mobile SEO errors. We also advise comparing your mobile/desktop SEO traffic in analytics to see whether you may be missing out on mobile SEO visits. Here is the output from the new Google Webmaster's tool taken from Google's new announcement:

June 17th…

A personal End of Year Review of Digital Marketing

You cannot escape the end of year reviews for pretty much everything at this time of year. You’ve got your best songs of the year, the best programmes, sports personality of the year (Andy Murray = best sports personality really?!!), best film….like we said, everything! I am not complaining though, because here at MMT Digital we enjoy a good end of year review as much as anyone which is why I have decided to do one of my own.

A 12 months summary of my world of technology, web design and build, and marketing

Below is a summary of some of the most interesting subjects in the world of technology,web design & build and marketing that have caught my attention in the last 12 months…

January – March

Give me a slice of Rasberry Pi As this is the season…

Alert - new research shows popularity of sharing types for different content types and formats

Value: [rating=3] Recommended link: The Social Intelligence Report: Adobe Digital Index Q3, 2013 Interested in finding out how content is shared across Facebook and how to improve engagement, then Adobe Digital's regular consumer research report will provide some of these answers. Adobe Digital's quarterly report analyses consumer Facebook data, over two years, from retail, media, entertainment, travel and websites. Their survey analysed 131 billion Facebook ad impressions, 400 million unique visitors, 1.04 billion Facebook posts and over 4 billion Facebook comments, shares and likes. These are some highlights on Facebook engagement, though the full report shares information on ROI, click volume, geo-targeted posts, geographical and industry social sentiment.

Types of Facebook posts that engage?

Social engagement increases when posts include an image or video; posts with an image increase by 600% compared to a…

A step-by-step guide to creating rich snippets for e-commerce sites to help boost your SERPS CTR

Google's Structured Data Mark-up Helper appeared in May 2013 and it can be an effective tool in your structured data arsenal that will help you improve your CTR (clickthrough rate).  The benefits, according to Google are that:  'If you mark up these pages, Google may make the information available as rich snippets on search result pages or in other Google properties. Information such as a product's name, price, and review ratings can help users decide which pages to click on in search results'. In plain English, if we have an e-commerce site, why have a basic snippet appearing on search results (like the one below), when we can have a better one that is going to improve our CTR?

With the implementation…

How to create a water-tight email marketing strategy for building customer loyalty

The traditional definition of customer loyalty is a financial one– your most loyal customers are clearly those who keep returning to do business with you. But loyalty in the digital world has much wider implications.  For some organizations it can be the bald metric of how frequently their customers do business with them. For others, such as online retailers, it is also a measure of how often customers share favourable reviews or feedback on the organization or brand. However you define and measure customer loyalty Customer satisfaction vs. loyalty At the heart of any loyalty-driving campaign lies the need to raise customer satisfaction levels.

Ten steps to building customer loyalty

Step 1. Gain senior management and cross-business commitment to raising customer satisfaction across the enterprise.

Focus on the channel that lets you build intimacy. One of the most effective…