Latest report on marketing hiring from McKinley Marketing Partners shows strong demand for digital skills

We hear from plenty of thought leaders that we are now in a 'post-digital' age, that we shouldn't be siloing digital and so digital is a pointless term. Whilst we agree digital should permeate the entire organisation and marketing department, rather than being a 'silo', that doesn't mean the word digital is irrelevant. In fact, specifically digital skills are in demand like never before, and this is highly apparent in the latest hiring trends. Looking back at the data from 2015, we can see that digital marketers are highly sought after, being the most hired type of marketing professional in 2015. Of the companies surveyed 39% hired a new digital marketer, whilst only 1 in four hired a new project manager. This is interesting as in 2014 project manager was in the top three most hired positions in…

New research shows the growing importance of social media in influencing purchase in younger demographics

Global Web Index, asked Internet users between the ages of 16 and 64 to compare their use of search engines and social media when selecting products: "Which of the following online sources do you mainly use when you are actively looking for more information about brands, products or services?" According to this research, search is still the go-to place, particularly amongst older audiences. However, the gap is closing for those aged between 16 and 34, since over one third of the respondents indicated they research products over social media. As expected, as the age of respondents increases, the usage of social media for research decreases. Users between the ages of 35 and 44 lean more heavily on search, with only 29% of respondents saying they research brands,…

Setting specific objectives that help dictate your online marketing budget

Deciding on a budgeting strategy for SEO and PPC can sometimes be tricky. There is not necessarily a one-size fits all blueprint that organizations can follow. It is oftentimes a balancing act between the organization’s long-term and short-term goals. Developing a SMART objective that can be measured is an effective technique to budget for both PPC and SEO. Once specific objectives are set, it becomes much easier to determine how much money should be allocated to each online tactic.

Managing a budget for SEO

SEO is a long-term strategy. It takes time to develop and implement an onsite/offsite SEO plan. Most good SEO firms can cost $1000-$5000 a month; even more in some cases depending on the complexity of the business. The important thing to remember with SEO is that contrary to popular belief,…

A quick briefing on the 6 new Google services announced at Google I/O 2016

It's important to keep up to date with the new spiel and jargon within #martech and media, to identify new marketing opportunities, or even if it's just to avoid any embarrassment in the office when you're asked for your view on the latest. Google and the other platform providers certainly keep us on our toes, especially their latest raft of announcements. You could say that with their new Alphabet parent, it reminded us of Alphabet soup. Google's annual I/O event certainly had more new platform announcements than most. Here's our look at the 6 new services we counted.

1. Google assistant

This is Google's next step in machine learning and artificial intelligence and is a conversation-based tool designed to control smartphones, smartwatches and other devices. It's not a new product…

How to use financial data to win over stakeholders to your email marketing strategy

LinkedIn hosts 2.7 million+ profiles for people with 'Email Marketing' skills. Our field is growing constantly growing in what to me, is inarguably one of the most versatile and creative areas of digital marketing. Whilst there are some amazing resources, such as Litmus who write the gospel for designers and coders, we wanted to create something focused on the the challenges of the email marketing manager.

We had an itch. We spoke to a lot of people who had this itch too. We wanted to scratch it. Thus, the No BS Email Marketing guide was born. 

In Edition One we hired nine Email Marketers across a range of industries. From Financial Service Tech to Retail, MMORPG to…

The way people use social sharing is changing markedly. Does this mean the 'collapse of context'?

That we see changes in the way people use social networks is hardly surprising since social media demographics have changed. Networks once dominated by teenagers are being 'invaded' by the middle-aged and elderly. The fastest growing segment on Facebook is the over 65s. Not just that, the very college students that started out as Facebook's core user base are now in their 30s, and probably settling down, starting to have kids. But some of the ways Facebook is changing could prove to be a threat to the very characteristics that make Facebook so successful. The latest figures on social sharing from GWI show what Facebook itself calls the 'collapse of context', where people are sharing far less about their personal lives, and instead tend to share things not personal to them, such as news articles. The number of…

Out with the old and in with the new

The idea of scheduling all your appointments on large excel sheets or overfilled diaries is a thing of the past. Small businesses are now gradually switching to digital calendars and online appointment scheduling and in turn improving their business output as customers have the ability to make appointments online, anywhere, anytime. To get to this stage, it is recommended to follow the next 7 steps for success as a small business.

7 methods for a small business to boost adoption of online booking

1. Promotion, Promotion, Promotion

When committing your business to a CRM / Online booking system you need to “go big or go home”. Meaning, you need to promote the fact that you are now accepting new appointments through online booking. This should be advertised anywhere your customer has most interaction within your business. For example, good places to advertise would be next to your cashier,…

Facebook wants to leverage the power of its personal data to challenge Google for online Ad dominance

Importance: [rating=4] (For online advertisers) Recommended source: Facebook for Business Facebook is announcing a big extension to its audience network, which was launched in 2014 to let advertisers use Facebook's data for targeting customers with ads outside of Facebook. Facebook will start selling video ads to cash in on this valuable section of the ad market. Ads purchased through Facebook's audience network can appear on the sites of any publishers signed up to use audience network, and can be targeted based on the data Facebook have from their users profile and activity within the platform. Facebook will let marketers know the number of views so brands can get an idea of the number of impressions which will have helped build brand awareness. Taking…

What is the industry standard click-through rate (CTR) in AdWords for your company?

When you're running an Ad Campaign from scratch, or even if you've been running one for a couple of years, it can be tough to know how you're comparing to your competition. Wordstream recently used their huge dataset to show the average click through rate, across 16 industries (Advocacy, Auto, B2B, Consumer Services, Dating & Personals, E-Commerce, Education, Employment Services, Finance & Insurance, Health & Medical, Home Goods, Industrial Services, Legal, Real Estate, Technology, and Travel & Hospitality). The search results confirm an age old saying - "Sex Sells", Dating and Personals leading the way with an average click-through rate of 3.4%; over 1.5% higher than the average CTR across all industries. Understandably, it's easier to write emotional copy, capturing the imagination of a lovesick audience. Other noticeable CTR's include the Financial industry (2.65%) who…

Adwords/ PPC marketers need to make sure they're optimising for mobile- it makes up more than half of clicks!

We've seen the share of web traffic from mobile devices explode in recent years, with mobile overtaking desktop late last year. Now PPC has caught up, in America at least. In the 1st quarter of 2016 the combined tablet and phone PPC clicks outstripped desktop for the first time ever. Exciting times for mobile marketers, and an important moment for all PPC marketers, who need to make sure they are thinking about mobile as an integral part of their plans, rather than an ad on or appendage. Source: Marketing Charts Date released: May 2016 Data set: US Merkle clients Related resource: Adwords guide   …