As an industry, how are we finding the process of recruiting new talent?

We recently conducted some research where we asked over 700 professional marketers about their current digital skills, how they wanted to develop and what trends they saw in the industry. That research resulted in our Digital Skills report 2016 which you can find here. When we asked "How easy is it to recruit people with the right amount of digital skills based on the experience of your organisation?" we got quite an array of answers. On initial inspection, it clear to see that, the digital marketing industry finds recruitment more troubling than easy. Whether this is as a result of unreasonable expectations, or a flaw in the system we are using, it's something to be conscious of when looking for your next hire. Looking at the…

Introducing Expanded Text Ads.

Previously, the standard AdWords text ads that appear at the top and bottom of Google search results had a headline of up to 25 characters, and then two description lines of up to 35 characters each. They looked like this: or, if you put a full stop at the end of your first description line, Google would move that description line up to be next to the headline, and your ad would look like this: With the introduction of Expanded Text Ads, advertisers can now have two headlines of up to 30 characters each, plus a single description line of up to 80 characters. So the total space you’ve got available to put your message across has leapt from 95 characters to 140 characters. That’s nearly a 50% increase! The display URL that appears in the ads has changed too – instead of being…

Using video content on your blog will make you a search engine favourite

Ranking on search engines is the top-most priority for all content creators. Chances are you’ve landed here to read this article to learn what more you can do to outshine others in the SEO-race. Extensive keyword research, targeted topics and flow of link-juice to your articles is what you’ve all been doing for a while. Right? However, with evolving audience types and decreasing attention span, diversification is important. You cannot just stick to the written word. This is where video content comes in. Accompanying the text with a high-quality video makes it stand out. Almost 80% of users recall watching a video in the past month, and 46% report taking some action on it! This alone is the biggest reason why you should start creating video content. A video not only lends credibility to your message, it also showcases authority to the…

Email retains its position as one of the most powerful marketing channels

It's two chart's of today instead of one today, for the simple reason that I couldn't include one without the other. One is great news for marketers, the other for consumers. The good news for marketers is that ROI from email remains extremely strong. Long regarded as one of the most cost effective marketing channels, it's lead over others shows no sign of falling away. Email thus remains a key channel for investing in for 2016 and 2017, with newer tactics like personalization, dynamic content, and embedded gifs & videos helping to increase engagement on the part of users. The worry of course is that the effectiveness of email will cause marketers to ruin it with overuse. As more and more attempt to use the platform users will feel increasingly bombarded…

Does your blog or site run on Wordpress? If so, use these WordPress Plugins to optimise your content marketing, SEO and more

WordPress is the most popular CMS (Content Management System) due to its ease-of-use, flexibility, and scalability; especially for entrepreneurs, aspiring bloggers, and businesses looking to expand online. But one feature of WordPress where it really stands out from other content management systems is the sheer availability of different Plugins. Some are well known, others are diamonds in the rough. Certainly, there are plenty that are more trouble than their worth. But by using Plugins selectively you can achieve better results more efficiently than without them. Without further ado, here are 37 of the best WordPress plugins will want to consider for your business website:

Search Engine Optimization

1. Yoast SEO Plugin for WordPress

The Yoast SEO plugin covers everything you need for on-page SEO. It helps you optimize ranking factors…

How to build and nurture online communities

A surefire way to build trust and foster brand loyalty is to establish an online community or membership site. It provides your audience with a sense of belongingness, exclusiveness, and the reassurance that your company is looking out for your valued customers. However, before you get ahead of yourself, remember that a successful community is not easy to establish. It requires extensive planning, research, and time and effort in order to set up an engaging platform. The first step in creating an evergreen community is understand the how the best in the business have done it in their respective markets. Below are seven of the best online communities or membership sites operating today:

1. Blogging on Your Own Terms

Membership sites do not have to be complicated. For example, Blogging on Your Own Terms by Daniela Uslan is built completely on Facebook. It is a community…

Jakob Bignert examines the spectre of automated merchandising and tries to reassure us that there is nothing to worry about – no seriously, you’ll be fine!

Since the industrial revolution, automation in the workplace has been met with extreme reactions. As a business owner you would rub your hands in glee as you realised you could punch out more widgets, more quickly while employing fewer people. However, if fate had dealt you a different hand, you’d be quaking in your boots as you realised your widget making skills were no longer required and unemployment beckoned.

Retail automation

Retail, though, has seen remarkably few significant step changes when it comes to automation. And understandably; buy products, display them attractively, take the money, count it, bank it and repeat. OK, an oversimplification I grant you, but you get the point. There are some though: Cash registers and subsequent EPOS systems have removed the need for a counting…

Which digital marketing activities you should keep in-house or outsource?

The companies that continue to move to a more integrated digital model while managing their Digital Transformation process, may be left wondering which activities are best to be outsourced and which are preferable to keep in-house. It is very common for companies to outsource at least part of their digital capability, but this is likely to affect how well they can move to an integrated model. But what are the particular disciplines most suited to outsourcing and what is preferable to keep in-house?

The ‘Slow Burners’ vs. Campaign Based

When we think of digital marketing activities, there are many that need to be managed, but let’s consider the following eight key disciplines covering paid-owned and earned media and managing the customer experience should sit within an organisation: 1. Email marketing 2. Social Media 3. Paid Search 4. SEO 5. Display advertising and retargeting 6.…

Simon Swan interviews Digital Marketing consultant David Sayce

One thing remains consistent for the role of the digital marketer, whether client side, agency or as a consultant – disruption. The need to embrace change, continuous learning and help mentor and coach colleagues and businesses to digital best practice are the skills needed to help develop your career. There are a number of factors why pursuing a career in digital is a good choice, take a look at this article in The Drum which highlighted the UK is facing a major digital skills gap. I caught up with digital marketing consultant, David Sayce to question him on some real life questions as to the role of the digital marketer and how this has changed. We discuss a number of areas including the key challenges for businesses and what they need to be doing to retain digital marketing staff, the advice David would offer brands…

Marketers know the strategies that are most effective but have trouble implementing them.

For me the most interesting finding from our recent research into digital skills wasn't that only 14% of marketers think their any good at mobile marketing, or that there is evidence of a major skills gap with employers reporting difficulties hiring for a number of digital marketing roles. From my perspective the single most interesting finding was the huge disconnect between what marketers think are the most effective strategies for improving digital marketing effectiveness across their organisation, and what the organisations are actually doing. The chart below shows what over 700 marketing professionals think are the most effective methods for improving digital marketing effectiveness across their company. We see that top is a planned approach which uses analytics and continuous optimisation, and bottom reactive unplanned approach. Only 14% thought the unplanned approach was effective. …