Marketing can suffer from a lack of flow, especially when it's interruptive in nature, but the results are impressive when the two concepts come together

As a self-confessed app junkie who automates everything possible, it’s safe to say I’m a fan of things like web personalization and marketing automation. When lead scoring, triggered emails, personalized experiences, reusable nurtures, multiplatform integration, and analytics come together to form a holistic strategy, that brand of beautiful synergy gets me excited. All this automation doesn’t come without a cost, however. Automated engagement strategies focus primarily on email, which has inherent flaws. Email can be a highly effective channel, but it's not without its shortcomings. Those who do agree to exchange their email address for something of value don’t always see, open, or click the content they receive. [si_guide_block id="5676" title="Download FREE Resource – Digital marketing plan template" description="Our popular marketing planning template built on the Smart Insights…

If recent trends like “conversational marketing” and “social selling” have anything to teach us, it’s that social media has matured a great deal as a pure prospecting platform since its early days

Not to imply that anyone has truly reinvented the wheel here. For the most part, brands on social media have always used it as a means for finding and educating prospects, raising brand awareness and building communities of fans. On the other hand, B2B marketers’ objectives in general, and on social media specifically, have been evolving. [si_guide_block id="82119" title="Download FREE Resource – 10 common social media marketing mistakes guide" description="Our actionable guide to avoiding common social media marketing mistakes to help you avoid the pitfalls that limit engagement with your target audience."/] Bizible’s most recent State of Pipeline Marketing Report demonstrates that instead of prioritizing demand and lead…

Deciding on analogue vs digital is a crucial step in the ABM process

Although it’s a key phrase on the lips of many a Martech professional in Silicon Valley these days, account-based marketing (ABM) hasn’t always been about technology. In its purest form, ABM is a strategy at the business marketing level - it’s about identifying the big white whales you want to snare, and investing time, money and effort into doing that, rather than casting a wider net for the minnows. In the past, it’s been largely thinking about selling to companies as a market of one. However, the innovations of the last decade or so around IP-to-company matching, automation and retargeting, led by the likes of Kickfire, Demandbase and Terminus, have made the conversation about ABM very much one about technology. As we know, technology is often about making things easier to do at scale. Enter “ABM at scale”. Now that ABM is…

Key steps and best practices to win with Amazon - digital advertising

In the previous post in this series (key steps and best practises to win with Amazon - Ecommerce) we looked at the exponential growth of Amazon and the share of mind it has gained globally over the last ten years, surpassing many older, more established brands with an unwavering focus on innovation and the customer experience. [si_guide_block id="5676" title="Download FREE Resource – Digital marketing plan template" description="Our popular marketing planning template built on the Smart Insights RACE planning system."/] Amazon’s drive to become the ‘everything store’ has led the company to move into many new and different areas, including technology, original content and web services (BBC iPlayer and even Netflix run on Amazon!). Whilst Amazon is more widely known as an ecommerce platform, the company’s move into media and its burgeoning advertising business is starting to cause tremors…

Are you following these simple long-tail keyword research steps to improve your SEO?

Long-tail keyword research is fundamental to SEO. It has become a focus for achieving high rankings on google search and when strategized and executed carefully, it can produce very rewarding results.

Why are Long-tail Keywords Important?

A long-tail keyword is descriptive in nature and normally consists of three or more words. More descriptive phrases are low in cost and risk, yet offer a higher probability of conversion. And, as much as 40% of all search traffic on the internet is driven by long-tail keywords.

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Don't fall short of these common search marketing mistakes

It seems almost too easy at first. It really does. You find a keyword tool and you type in whatever search term that comes to mind. Voilà! Like magic, you find out how many people are searching for your keyword, as well as a whole slew of other useful statistics like the keyword’s average cost per click, competition, suggested bid, and other data – depending on which keyword tool you’re using. However, before you get too ahead of yourself and pick a keyword to target, know that there is more to keyword planning than meets the eye. There are a lot of nuanced factors you might not have accounted for that can entirely change your keyword strategy. To make sure you get it right from the get-go, here are ten common mistakes that you’ll want to steer clear of.

1. Not realizing that Google…

If art is beauty, is science the beast?

 

Many corporations think so, judging from the way they silo their marketing and technology teams. Rarely do CMOs and CDOs bring the brains of both teams to bear on the company's marketing.

 

In an era when 38% of marketing professionals admit to underutilizing data for content strategy, companies that don't marry art and science struggle to snag smarter audiences with shorter attention spans.

[si_guide_block id="5676" title="Download FREE Resource – Digital marketing plan template" description="Our popular marketing planning template built on the Smart Insights RACE planning system."/] …

Optimize your site to increase your email lists and generate more leads

Amazing, isn’t it? In spite of being pronounced dead more than once, email continues to drive the biggest growth for online stores and businesses alike. Heck, it actually seems to be performing better and better every year. The latest data published here on Smart Insights at the start of January proves that currently, email delivers approx. 30 times higher ROI than other channels. Plus, a staggering 95% of people rate it “important” or even “very important” to their organization.

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The catch? To generate similar results, you need to build a strong and vibrant list first. …

Data isn’t the sole property of a data analyst; content marketers should be using it to build a strong, results-focused content strategy targeted to buyer personas

When we say the word “data”, you might think it’s a bunch of information used only by technical marketers. CROs, SEOs, and email analysts are no stranger to an Excel sheet, but what about content marketers – the people who work with the power of words, instead of math? Content marketers – including strategists, editors and your team of writers – should be using data to drive your marketing strategy forwards this year. Why? Because content is how we connect with our audience and convince them to complete our marketing goals. Conversions are going to be a struggle if we’re not creating content that’s backed (with data) to prove what you’re creating works for them. In this post, we’re diving deep into data analysis for content marketers, allowing you…

A VIP web experience for your VIP prospects

It’s the first sign of light after what could be months of hard slog on your ABM (account-based marketing) campaign. You generate your first lead from one of the accounts on your ABM target list. Hooray! High fives all round for sure. After reflecting on how to build an ABM list for success, how to figure out which companies are coming to your website, and how to get ABM accounts to your website - we’ve now landed here. How to get individual named companies to convert to your website. This is in the middle of the ABM process, and a key part of what’s often called the flipped funnel approach: AKA land and expand. This is all about landing that first lead within an organization that you can then use a variety of engagement methods between sales and marketing to transition through the…