As App Downloads fall and engagement stalls, PWAs look set to be the future of the mobile web experience.

Google has generated more than it's fair share of TLAs (Three Letter Acronyms) in its time. AMPs are still fairly new but have been enthusiastically taken up by many publishers for the faster mobile experiences they offer. But now Google are pushing new kind of web page, which comes with its own TLA and offers the possibility of radically changing the way many consumers use the internet. Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) Progressive Web Apps are web pages that work more like an app (hence the name). Being web pages means they don't need to be downloaded from an App Store like Google play or Apple's App store. This removes friction from the user's journey (which Google is very keen on) and also keeps users within the Google ecosystem (If they're using a Chrome browser), which…

How you can replicate the success of the most engaging brands on Instagram

When it comes to social media marketing, Instagram continues to be one of the most successful platforms available to brands. But with so many users and so many different brands using it, some more successfully than others, it can be difficult to stand out from the crowd. In this blog post, I’m going to share with you some of the best examples of successful brands on Instagram and what you can learn from them to improve your own Instagram presence.

Oreo: speed drawing

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Chart of the Day: Sainsbury's Stop Motion Animated "The Greatest Gift" races to 14 million views

Christmas is only days away - retail stores are competing for consumer attention with high profile multichannel marketing campaigns, all hoping that they can report a successful holiday period with increased sales in the new year. It seems that every year the competition to create the best Christmas advert - popularised by Coca-Cola in the the eighties with the Coca-Cola truck advert (still my favourite every year since) is getting fiercer. In the last few years the John Lewis advert has been the one that every other retail brand is trying to match - this year the retailer who is coming closest is Supermarket chain Sainsbury's with their Stop Motion Animation ad "The Greatest Gift" voiced by James Corden which tells the story of Dave, a hard-working and devoted Dad, who realises that the greatest gift he can…

The Marketing Hall of Fame: The Very Best Campaigns of 2016

It's getting that time of year when the nights draw in, the Christmas Ads are on the telly and you're mulling over when to bother bringing that tree out the loft and covering it in sparkly things. Well, that's what most people are mulling (along with some wine of course), but us marketers are thinking about our 2017 marketing plans and what we can learn from a year that's rapidly slipping through our fingers. With only a few weeks left to go of 2016, we thought it would be a good time to look back at the year and think about what we can learn from the most successful marketing and advertising campaigns of the year, what they have in common and what they did to stand out. We've focused on the campaigns that either did something innovative, broke the mold or integrated…

Snapchat and Instagram battle over the future of online video sharing - marketers need to utilise the platform most relevant to their audience.

Marketers aiming to attract a millennial audience need to implement and actively engage with social media messaging apps to reach this active yet time-poor target audience. Millennials are those aged between 18 and 35 who have grown up as digital natives where they access technology at the touch of a button. Their time-poor nature means visual communications and particularly video is the format that can capture their attention quickly and effectively.

Video as a Marketing Tool

Video has become the single most important online format. According to Cisco it is predicted to account for 80% of all global consumer internet traffic in 2019. As a result, marketers have to constantly look at ways at integrating video into their social media marketing mix to keep up with the pace of…

Chart of the Day: Most businesses address just three or more market segments with their content marketing

Marketers who are focused on campaigns, creative and marcomms can get a narrow view that marketing communications (that's content, social, ads, SEO, outdoor, video, you name it) are actually only one part of the marketing puzzle. But the smart marketer knows that spending time to develop accurate buyer personas and properly plan different strategies for targeting market segments and buyer states is also crucial. The results of a survey which asked over 600 B2B Marketing professionals about their use of content marketing shows that plenty of content marketers are wising up to the need to properly segment their market and target different buyer personas and stages with different messaging and content formats. Half of the companies were addressing three of more market segments, whilst almost half were addressing three or more buyer personas…

Use these stunning designs and useful tools to improve your Ecommerce UX

Just about anyone can create their own ecommerce store, with the ecommerce site builders available today, it's a 'piece of cake'. Creating a good ecommerce store, now that's a bit harder. But creating one exceptional enough to stand out from the infinitely large crowd and wow your audience. That takes a special something. The key to building a loyal base of customers and attracting more at the same time is building a genuinely exceptional user experience. Achieving this requires sensational visuals, beautiful design, elegant and intuitive menus and features which actively help your users. Doing this for your ecommerce store is not easy by any means, but it is possible, and learning lessons from the most innovative online stores in business is a great way to give your ecommerce stores user experience a big boost. So we thought we'd showcase 3 of the…

Your LinkedIn and social media audience is an asset. Focus on nurturing relationships with them before you start worrying about how well you're managing your social media channels.

Between 75% and 97% of buyers are on-line, researching the type of services you provide right now and approximately 52% of them will buy something, immediately, as a result of this research. In fact, a recent study of social media demographics by author, marketer and speaker @WarrenKnight, indicates that 88% of all Pinterest users purchased a product they'd pinned. However, with many Pinterest users following big brands, it's not going to be easy for you to be included in the list of companies who benefit from this activity unless you've built and nurtured an audience. There is a growing movement, on the web, of marketing experts, who are suggesting that even some of the most revered social…

Make sure you aren't making any of these costly ecommerce marketing mistakes

Competition is fierce in the ecommerce sector, so to get an edge, you need a planned approach, with clear priorities and a relentless approach to optimisation. It’s likely Ecommerce Marketing is already a massive investment in your business and this will only grow in future as you look to compete. Creating a robust multichannel marketing strategy that balances your business goals with your available resources can be difficult to achieve, but when you succeed, the benefits are immense. Over the last 20 years as we have consulted and trained with many Ecommerce businesses and we have seen many different mistakes which hinder growth. Yet there are some common mistakes we see often, which we have summarised here so you can compare against your approaches.

Strategy Recommendation: Plan, Manage, Optimise!

This is our mantra at Smart Insights and it is shared by many of the…

Chart of the Day: Content marketing continues to be a key tactic for B2B lead generation.

Over 600 B2B marketing professionals were asked "How is your content production going to change over the next 12 months?", a whopping 71% said they plan on increasing production, with a quarter saying they will increase production significantly. Content marketing will continue being a major focus for B2B marketers in 2017. For those implementing an inbound marketing strategy in the year ahead, it is important that you find the right balance between quantity and quality. The production of only a handful of highly engaging pieces of content has the potential to keep you in leads for months with the right amount of promotion. Source: BrightTalk Data:over 600 survey responses from B2B marketing professionals. Recommended Resource: Content Marketing Checklist …