If your creating B2B content for social, have you stopped and asked yourself what your audience actually uses social for?

You create content, you publish it and you promote it on social media. Create, Publish, Promote, Repeat. Yet have you ever thought to consider how your audience are actually using social media whilst they are at work? Are they using it to relax during a tea break? In which case humorous and easy to read content will do best. Or are they using it to learn more about their industry and discover new trends, in which case detailed thought leadership and posts providing industry specific stats will go down well. New research from Pew Research Centre asked over 2000 American adults how they use social media at work, to discover what people are looking for when browsing during working hours. The results are interesting, and show how no one reason dominates. The most common reason was…

How to engage your audience by optimising every feature of your email

Every email that you send to your clients has distinct elements. There’s the subject line, of course, as well as  headline and body, to name just a few. And every single one of those elements has a distinct role to play in emails that are either engaging and often read versus those that quickly land in the “trash” folder. Take the body of an email: If your customers feel like they’re reading a generic piece of information that’s crafted for everyone, and not specifically for them, they’ll be turned off. That points to the importance of data gathering as a part of the email-crafting process. The more you know about customers beyond that email address—who they are, how old they are, what they like and don’t like—the more likely you can create sub-groups of emails that offer benefits and reasoning…

Less than half of marketing know their ROI from Content marketing

For the past 3 years that we have been asking Smart Insights readers which is the marketing tactic which marketers that will give them the most incremental growth. In each of those 3 years, Content Marketing has been identified as the trend which will have the most impact. Given the popularity of content marketing as an activity and increased investment in this area, using the right measures to assess return on content marketing is essential. We asked this question in our recent report on content marketing in Europe asking marketers based in Europe about the content marketing techniques they have used. In the question on KPIs used for content marketing summarised in the infographic below we asked which measures are used for measuring content marketing effectiveness. You…

A good relationship with your agency is key to creating solutions to your marketing efforts, both yourself and the agency are happy with.

As an extension of yesterday's post, today we are looking at the top challenges of working with an agency. The work comes from Clutch who surveyed 500 respondents all of whom work in companies with over 500+ employees for their 2016 Enterprise Marketing Survey. They asked marketers, "What is the biggest challenge of working with an outside agency?”. Unsurprisingly "communication" came top of the list, with 18% if respondents claiming it to be the toughest thing about working with an agency. Whether there is a lack of, or complete miscommunication, it is something that has to work for a successful business relationship. On the agencies behalf, it can be tough to juggle multiple clients emails and phone calls, whilst…

A true omnichannel strategy makes the most of offline not just online

Consider the main ingredients to a sale when a customer is in your place of business. You have product placements that suggest what a customer should buy, education on the products and services you are selling, the ability to experience your brand firsthand, and most important, people available to educate buyers and make a sale. All these make up the customer experience, and digital is just another component. Clearly, bricks-and-mortar businesses that aren’t yet capitalizing on their digital channels were successful before the internet took over their industries. There are reasons for that success, and those can give you an edge over your internet-born competitors.

Digitizing Your Offline Strategy

A successful online strategy shouldn’t be a matter of abandoning old tactics and replacing them with a trend. It should…

84% of companies hire at least one agency for a marketing or advertising service.

Not only this, but companies are choosing to hire 2 if not 3 agencies across the multiple disciplines. Clutch highlight that this is hardly surprising given the vast amount of disciplines and channels the average CMO is having to work across. Given this, it makes sense that they are choosing to hire multiple agencies, as well as their own in-house teams to tackle the multi-channel campaigns targeting multiple audiences, sometimes across different sectors. Data: Survey of 500 respondents who work in a marketing role at companies with at least 500 employees. About half come from companies with 1000+ employees. 88% are manager level or higher Source: Clutch Enterprise Marketing Survey Date: Aug 2016 …

Mobile websites aren't just desktop sites on wheels. Plan your mobile strategy accordingly

In the latest in our series of videos with sticky marketing, Dave talks about mobile strategy and tactics. He goes over some the common mistakes marketers often make with mobile, so you can avoid them. If you can't watch the video for whatever reason, we've got a transcript for you below! Grant Leboff: Dave of course one of the biggest things that have happened in the last few years is the impact of mobile on marketing and how that's affecting the way people communicate and some of the things they have to consider when they're putting communications together. What for you are perhaps the biggest things that marketing managers, business owners have to start considering in a mobile age? Dave Chaffey: Well, yeah, certainly a massive impact, and in particular we're looking at smartphone because I think…

How to target your customers at the very moment they want your products

Does your data tell you when and why your customers are most in need of your products and services? Can it deliver that insight right at the time the need arises? We explain how marketers can use data and insight to target home movers, ensuring they reach them at the time they’re most likely to engage. Marketers are always looking for better ways to acquire prospects, retain and engage their existing customers. Each year, UK companies lose over 20 per cent of their customers, according to our research with nearly 200 of the UK’s leading marketers. The research also highlights the fact that 45 per cent of UK marketers say replacing these losses with new customers is their biggest challenge. For the remaining 55 per…

A study by YouGov in association with Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) has found that ad blocking use has declined between February and July, previous to that ad blocking software use was increasing. The fall of 0.5% between February and July, which is from 21.7% to 21.2% came from a representative sample of 2011 adults aged 18+ in the UK. The findings are announced as Facebook are taking action to stop ad blockers from working on the social network, which works by making the ad blocker unable to tell which is advertising content or isn't. Facebook also isn't the first website to trial anti-ad blocking software and it probably won't be the last. Another study found that ad blockers are actually breaking the internet, for example the research by Oriel (a technology company) reported problems with the British Airways website and with Vodafone's site too.…

How to go about transforming your business in a competitive market

We live in a time of digital Darwinism, an era when technology and its impact on business and society are constant with varying, but inevitable, degrees of both evolution and revolution. The effect of digital Darwinism is real and it’s enlivened though changes in people (your customers, employees and partners) and how markets are advancing as a result. To thrive in these times, many companies are investing in digital transformation to drive business evolution and modernization. In fact, all the big research firms and consultancies from Deloitte to Accenture to CapGemini and also my team at Altimeter Group are dedicating significant resources to study how companies are changing because of digital. For all of its exposure (or over exposure), digital transformation is relatively young and still developing with much still to understand. For example, in my previous research, I found that…