Should you just live “in-the-moment” or should you plan ahead using different planning horizons?

At Smart Insights we believe that businesses with a more strategic planning approach to their marketing and digital marketing are more likely to succeed in the long-term, despite the fact that many businesses don’t have a long-term digital or marketing plan. We’re not saying that those with a more ad hoc approach aren’t capable of doing great marketing that can get results, they certainly are. Rather, we’re saying that we’ve seen that they may miss out on core “always-on” digital marketing techniques that need to be prioritised and resourced over ongoing campaign activities which become all consuming and still often get the lion’s share of attention. In our research into how businesses manage online marketing, we were interested to see how marketers plan. We saw that short-term non-strategic planning was most common among businesses who answered. …

Wordpress offers a host of opportunities for marketers. Here are seven essential techniques for managing your Wordpress site.

The primary goal of every online marketer should be to achieve maximum visibility for the site they’re promoting, while also facilitating an optimal conversion rate, in the most efficient way possible. To do this, many marketers have begun using robust, open source content management systems like WordPress to streamline and simplify site creation, search engine optimization, and ongoing content publishing. Wordpress is particularly popular for company blogs, but has suitable functionality and quality for other sites including SmartInsights.com! Whether you've recently made the decision to jump aboard the WordPress bandwagon, or have been using it for years, there are most likely a few tips, tricks, and principles that you may have overlooked in your haste to keep up with the fast pace of online marketing.…

5 trends Email marketers need to stay on top of in 2017 and a couple of things you can safely ignore...

As we move from one year to the next, the heart of (email) marketing remains the same. It is about providing customer-centric experiences. For email experiences, this is the mantra of right message, right person, right time. The closer you get to this the better the results. Each year

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This is simple to say, but has been incredibly hard to deliver. Broadcast email has been so effective because of the high cost and limited accuracy of solutions to get right message, right…

The self-proclaimed "world’s gathering place for all who thrive on the business of consumer technologies", CES 2016 has been as popular as ever. Here's our roundup of the most important new tech innovations relevant to marketers.

More marketers than ever from across industries are now attending the huge Consumer-Electronics show, CES which takes place every January in Las Vegas. Marketers now account for more than 15% of the attendees (26,587 to be precise, according to the CES), so we thought we'd take a look at the latest innovations which we could be using in the year(s) ahead. An increase of 9% attendance from between 2013 and 2015, points towards a trend and highlights the rising importance of digital platforms for engaging consumers. So much so that it lead AdAge to suggest that the “Future of CES Belongs to Marketers”.

"Digital isn't a destination. It's a foundation. What…

Will 2016 be the year of the authentic brand?

The ten-day search for something worth watching on TV during the Holidays is at last over. Time to join what has become an annual crystal ball gazing love fest… So what’s in store leading up to next year’s channel hopping search for an alternative to The Sound of Music? Firstly as brand strategies continue to reflect global concerns and attitudes, the importance of brand psychology will become increasingly important in planning and strategy. (In fact, brand psychology affects every aspect of my following predictions).

1. Brand authenticity

Virtually all surveys concur that public opinion regarding the legitimacy of commercial, social, cultural, religious and political leadership, is at an all-time low. This lack of faith can be directly linked to a list of issues affecting societal norms and shifts. It includes a clear contradiction between what leaders idealistically ‘promise’ and what can actually be realised. This incongruence, comes…

Understanding what local customers really expect when purchasing from an ecommerce site is an essential factor for success when it comes to international ecommerce expansion.

Failing to properly localise a website to be in line with local conventions will not only impact how users perceive a brand and feel about using a website, but ultimately effect how likely they are to buy from it at all. Did you know that German customers expect a wide range of payment options to be available including bank transfer, direct debit and invoice for payment after they receive an order? Did you also know that Japanese customers require input fields for two different scripts when entering their name? Or that French users expect SEPA (single euro payments area) compliant payment options when inputting bank details? Oban Digital has reviewed a number of sites over several ecommerce marketplaces, including Japan, Canada, France, Germany, Australia and the UK to assess…