How to build your content marketing strategy?

When the Content Marketing Institute (CMI) recently surveyed businesses about the state of their content marketing strategies, the findings were revealing – nearly two-thirds reported that their organisations did not have a documented strategy. However, for those working in the industry, this statistic wasn’t a great shock. 'I continue to look at that number and shake my head!' says Joe Pulizzi, Founder of the Content Marketing Institute. 'It doesn’t surprise me, though. I do speeches every week and I’ll ask them that question: how many of you have a documented content marketing strategy? And I’ve never gotten more than 40% of the audience responding ‘yes’, even in what I would call advanced audiences.' Yet with the CMI study also revealing that those with a documented strategy were more effective in nearly all…

Those using automated bid strategies should expect an increase in campaign spend and bids

We've spoken time and time again about how the shift to mobile is impacting ecommerce purchase behavior. Google has been banging the 'Mobile First' drum for some time now, but we still see the vast majority of conversions taking place on desktop despite the fact mobile now makes up a majority of ecommerce traffic. What is happening is that consumers are browsing on mobile devices, making crucial decisions about their purchase, and then switching to desktop to convert. This makes perfect sense. Mobile browsing is great for getting ideas, but when you find something you want, you need something with a proper keyboard to input fiddly payment details rather than attempting to do it on a small screen. Now that discovering and researching products on mobile and converting on desktop has become an extremely common purchase journey, cross-device journey…

Crawl, walk, run: three steps to establishing an effective DMP

As digital marketers we're all too aware of the importance of data. For example, the typical fortune 1000 company that sees a 10% increase in data accessibility generates $65 million in additional revenue, whilst bad or poor quality data costs organisations as much as 10-20% in revenue. Although Big Data is no longer a new area of interest for marketers, the constant change in trends and focus mean that we must always stay up to date, if not one step ahead, of the trends to ensure we hold a competitive advantage. Just consider the sheer complexity of data-related terms: I recently attended a data-driven marketing event run by the Omnicom Group which gave me the opportunity to look at some of the insights and trends from those working at the…

Chart of the Day: Conversion rates of online shoppers by device and platform

Data based on more than 1.9 billion shopping sessions collected by Monetate, clearly shows 'traditional' (desktop) web users still have conversion rates more than triple that of those browsing on Smartphones. It is interesting though that tablet e-commerce conversions are only very slightly behind desktop conversion rates. It seems screen size does have an impact on conversions, since people don't want to fill out fiddly payment details on Smartphone screens. This may mean new tools, like chatbots, can change the mobile user experience and make conversion much simpler. By removing the need to complete complex forms they could lead to a big leap in mobile conversion rates in the coming year. It's also interesting to look at conversion rates by device, where Mac leads with Windows close…

Thinking like Sun Tzu to improve your strategic position

This is the second part to last week's interpretation of how Sun Tzu's Art of War can be applied to digital marketing. Here I'll cover three ways in which applying Sun Tzu's Art of War can help develop your marketing or digital marketing strategy, starting with the 5 elements...

The 5 Elements to defining your strategic position

Sun Tzu defines five key elements to help understand your position that make total sense when applied to marketing too. Your strategic position is never strong or weak... it is only strong or weak in relation to something or someone else. Mission or the way: This is what unites all of the people in the Army (organisation) and the customer. It helps everybody to share the same goals and objectives, it allows everyone to 'get real', to feel that what has been…

Tie your audience down with Anchor content

As the Smart Insights - HubSpot Content Marketing 2016 research shows, content now forms an essential element of nearly everything we do as marketers. Planning, creating and distributing great quality content is not just the domain of content marketers; it covers email, advertising, CRM and just about anything else we’re involved in. Content excellence is now so crucial to how we communicate and gain traction with consumers that it’s become an important priority for many marketers in 2016 and beyond. Yet, despite its importance, gaining consumers' attention is becoming more and more difficult. In an attention economy, that’s become increasingly competitive, ‘content shock’ the incessant deluge of mediocre content that is blinding audiences to brands’ content efforts - means that content has to have genuine quality and relevance to achieve cut-through. The rise of ad blocking software, the decrease in organic reach on…

10 reasons you can’t afford to ignore SMS marketing.

As marketers, we’re constantly thinking up creative ways to get our message out to existing and potential customers; whilst also ensuring we get good results from our efforts. One of the basic practical rules in marketing is to think like your audience, to keep up-to-date with their buying habits and where they are looking. Whatever your product or service is, it’s important to ensure its visible wherever your customers go, with a ratio now of four mobile devices to every computer, it’s clear where our customers are. Mobile marketing is no longer something you can afford to put on the to-do-list for the future; you need to make sure you’re on a mobile device, now. With smartphone users increasing daily, forward-thinking businesses are looking for ways to make their business mobile-friendly. SMS is a tried,…

Chart of the day: 3 of the top 5 Youtube Adverts from January are over 2 minutes long

Earlier this week news came down the marketing grapevine that Youtube/Google was going to no longer support unskippable 30-second ads in a move that they describe as "providing a better ads experience for users online". This change is scheduled for 2018, so there is still plenty of time to use this type of Ads if you already have them in your upcoming campaign plans. Come 2018, Youtube will still offer unskippable Ads but of the 6 seconds variety. Less annoying (and much less mobile data) for the user but will cause a rethink to many brand's video strategies. I am very interested in how brands will adopt to the standard of skippable and 6 seconds unskippable ads and move away from the 2-3 minute mini-movies that are a trend of the last 12 months. This change will also challenge creative agencies be…

The Art of Listening: Put your Influencers’ Needs Before Your Own

Today there are over two billion active social media accounts worldwide, growing by 12 percent in the last 12 months. For all the media hype that still surrounds the world of social networks, there is one thing people have come to accept: it’s not going anywhere. Virtual networks are built on the illusion that everyone likes everyone, and everyone can be “friends.” However, what is truly needed in order for people to build meaningful relationships with each other is the synchronicity of shared experience. That’s because no matter how “friendly” your interactions may be, they are not in person. One challenge organizations often encounter in implementing influencer marketing programs is taking those first few steps to engage with influencers. There’s often this moment of fear that you might not be following best practices, offending someone, saying the wrong thing –…

Practical ideas and tools to improve influencer marketing

Ever wondered why Dr. Phil bears an influence over its audience? The simple answer is because he was able to impose his knowledge and expertise in psychology through an effective medium. There may be better doctors than Dr. Phil. However, the fact that he was featured on Oprah, whose show reaches out to millions of viewers on a regular basis, gives him an edge over other practitioners. As more people hear his advice to his patients and the fact that Oprah vouches for his expertise quickly made him an influential psychologist.

The anatomy of influence

There are lots of things marketers can learn from Dr. Phil as an example of influencer marketing. Being knowledgeable about a particular subject does not automatically make you an online thought leader. Moreover, writing comprehensive and high-quality posts about your…