Facebook is no longer all about B2C
The received wisdom in digital marketing circles has always been that Facebook is great for B2C marketing - and stalking old schoolmates - but not really worth the effort for B2B. This attitude is based on the assumption that the majority of people don’t want to see, much less share and engage with, work-related content on Facebook. After all, it’s where most of us go to blow off steam, watch cat videos, and catch up with friends.
Consequently, most marketers choose instead to focus their efforts on platforms like LinkedIn and Twitter - but they’re missing a trick. In a recent survey of B2B marketers, almost three-fifths of respondents reported that Facebook ads delivered the best ROI of any platform.
If 2016 has taught us anything, it’s that the received wisdom can’t always be trusted.…
Advertising revenue for Snapchat predicted to rise 2873% in the next 3 years
With over 150 million people using Snapchat each day to message friends and catch up with the latest celebrity news, it's primed for marketers to target the 18 to 34-year-old (41% of users) demographic with advertising. According to Statista revenue through advertising is set to rise to over 1.7 billion by 2018, which is truly phenomenal but still has a way to go to rival Facebook's $5.2 billion in the first quarter of this year.
Source: Statista
Brands that are utilising the growth of the Snapchat platform are increasingly joining forces with high-profile influencers to place their products in front of the increasingly difficult to please demographic of 18-34 year olds.
One of the most recognisable marketing activities are the sponsored lenses, which instead…
The 14 top rated digital marketing techniques for 2017 according to Smart Insights readers
[Editor's note: Dave Chaffey has now updated his predictions for 2018: Read Digital Marketing Trends to act on in 2018]
In this article, I'll take an in-depth look at what I see as the most significant trends in digital marketing for the year ahead. But, it's not only my view, since I have 'crowdsourced' the importance of the different trends rated by the popularity of each trend.
For all members of Smart Insights, we also have a more detailed free download of the marketing megatrends for 2017, which are 9 digital marketing and martech megatrends will help give you an edge in 2017. In the download we discuss machine learning and artificial intelligence, which for me is the biggest trend in marketing right now. Machine learning techniques apply across many of the techniques we discuss in this post including Big Data,…
If your app marketing is reliant on a single channel, then you are setting it up to fail
When you develop a new app, all your focus on is how great your app is. But most of the developers forget that once the app is developed you need to have the right marketing strategy in place in order to reach your potential customers. This is the time when you need to decide if you are going to focus on a single marketing channel to promote your app or apply a 360 degree approach. This article will explain you why it’s important to exploit multiple channels for your marketing efforts, but before that let’s get to know what is Single and Multi channel marketing.
What is Single Channel Marketing?
Single channel marketing tends to focus on one type of marketing activity. Let’s say if you want to get more downloads for your app, you are…
Charts of the Day - New Research shows how mobile dominates digital minutes, but multiplatform use is huge as well
You will know that in most consumer marketing sectors, in most countries, we're well past the mobile tipping point where mobile web usage is more important than desktop measured by number of site visits.
Another way of looking at the importance of mobile is looking at the mobile share of digital minutes. This is measured by the large, international panel providers like comScore and in their latest report on Mobile’s Hierarchy of Needs they have a report that shows the importance of mobile in all countries.
So it's no longer a case of asking whether mobile marketing important, we know it is! It's now a question of using the statistics to understand how consumers behave when using different types of mobile devices,…
Your website must convey your value proposition. Here's how to do it.
Web design and online marketing have gotten more complicated than ever before – it’s possible now to add all kinds of bells and whistles to your site, and there are lots of buzzwords about what your site needs to do to engage visitors and capture email addresses and generate leads. But too many company websites are losing sight of what is truly most important about their site’s design and content – showing people WHY they should care and “What’s in it for me” from the customer’s perspective. Simply put: too many company websites don’t really illustrate a value proposition.
Next time you redesign your website, take some time to ask yourself some big-picture questions to make sure your website really has a compelling case for why people should buy from you.
Here are a few questions that your website needs…
Chart of the Day: What is the most popular type of email marketing communication?
In email marketing, there are so many different ways to communicate with your client. But which are the most popular? And if they are popular, does that mean they are correct?
In today's chart, it is unsurprising that most use newsletters at 74%. This is a simple way of keeping clients up to date with news or content and has been an email marketing standard for many years. However, some simple additions to your communications strategy could make dramatic differences. For instance, having a multi-step automation for new subscribers/customers, reactivation emails and automated triggers through a client's lifecycle require a bit maintenance, but only 26%, 10% and 18% of the users surveyed actually use these in their strategy.
It's always good to know what others are doing in…
Pepsi's terrible ad shows the dangers of in-house agencies and leaving creativity to non-experts.
Last week the ad world was all of a flutter over an ad by Pepsi starring Kendall Jenner.
It is probably the worst ad you will see this year. (A competitive field, to be sure).
Or indeed you may never see it, as Pepsi have quite rightly pulled the ad and apologized to everyone involved including Kendall Jenner for “putting her in this position.”
How did a global brand like Pepsi put themselves into this position? The ad it screened is so culturally tone-deaf that Saturday Night Live have done a skit about it and everyone is laughing at them.
Pepsi made one simple, but very significant mistake. They thought anyone could make creative work. They were so very, very wrong.
Have you seen the ad? It’s hilariously bad. In case you were on vacation last week, here’s how it goes: for…
How to boost your social media marketing with the power of visual storytelling
On social media, cutting through the noise is no easy task. But it’s the question you have to ask yourself with every piece of content you aim at your customers — how do we make our story rise above the cacophony?
As Picfair’s community and content manager, working with publishers and content creators across the globe daily, a constant theme in my work has been ensuring images are used to maximise the potency of any social media content. Here are some actionable steps to improve your visual storytelling on social media.
1. Be Human
The need for stories that strike an emotional chord has never been more important. Joe Pulizzi, CEO of Content Marketing Institute recently wrote: “In past years, a term that was frequently mentioned at Content Marketing World was “relevance.” Six years later, that sentiment has evolved…
Chart of the day: social media marketing and content marketing budgets are expected to increase more than any other channel in 2017
Marketers were asked to indicate whether particular types of marketing would either stay the same, increase or decrease in a survey of over 3,000 client-side marketing professionals. The findings show the importance of social, content and personalisation within marketing strategies and budgets.
Personalisation and video marketing are also big priorities for marketers.
Display advertising and paid search are expected to have the biggest decreases (13% each) whilst affiliate marketing budgets are the most likely to stay the same.
Previously we might have expected content marketing to have been top, but social and content are the power duo. This isn't surprising as social media keeps pushing its way to the top of marketing plans. It's also good to see email marketing is at least maintaining…
