We asked content marketing expert Stephen Bateman about how he uses the RACE framework to structure marketing campaigns for clients

Q. Yourself and Dave Chaffey of Smart Insights recently scoped out a project to improve the inbound marketing programme of a B2B telecommunications firm. Can you give us an idea of how RACE was utilised to scope out and plan the project?

Yes, the firm in question had been getting content from its agency for its inbound marketing programme for more than 18 months, and the team used the content to get “attention” from prospective buyers, but failed to generate the potential volume of qualified leads (MQL) they expected. There are lots of reasons why the team felt underwhelmed by their content marketing and inbound marketing programmes, but this is what happened over time: The team kicked off its inbound marketing programme, with a documented strategy that identified goals, audiences, content, process and…

Our interview with Template Monster's CEO, David Braun

What are the challenges and success factors in creating online startups serving small businesses? To shed light on this with a case study, we spoke to David Braun about why he founded Template Monster and where he is taking the businesses during an interesting time for web developers looking to serve small businesses.

How did you come to a decision to start template monster ?

David: It all started quite a long time ago, although it seems as if it were yesterday. TemplateMonster wasn’t created from scratch, it was based on a local web development agency. We owe the idea of TemplateMonster to the customers who didn’t need a custom design, they needed a cheaper solution. At the moment we didn’t have anything that would meet their requirements. Once I saw a designer working with his templates and that was the moment when the idea…

We interviewed Certona's CEO Meyar Sheik about the future of one of marketing hottest trends - personalisation tech.

1. First of all, congratulations on being named top personalisation provider! Can you tell us how Certona uses machine learning and predictive algorithms to predict customer behaviour?

Certona pioneered the use of patented machine learning and predictive algorithms that empower retailers to leverage real-time profiling of individual shoppers across the omnichannel landscape. Certona’s personalisation platform is powered by a sophisticated blend of continuous profiling and real-time targeting that augments behavioural profiles with every interaction. This develops shopper insights that fuel intelligent predictions, letting retailers deliver increasingly individualised experiences as shoppers engage across touchpoints. Within 3-4 clicks on a site, Certona’s personalisation platform ingests real-time shopper data such as location, weather, time of…

Dan Grech Interviews Teri Rosenbaum, Uber's Head of Email in the UK & Ireland for the latest edition of 'No BS Email Marketing'

[Editor's note: This interview is a taster for a new, free guide : No BS Email Marketing, 2nd edition. It's a great resource for all marketers interested in email and CRM. You can download it for free today from here].

I’m an email marketing manager for Uber in the UK and Ireland, with a focus on  communicating with our drivers. Prior to this, I spent seven years at a small app startup in Southwest London, where I ended up doing a lot of email. I’ve been at Uber for almost a year - since last September. One of my major achievements here has been winning an award for customer obsession. I guess it’s my…

Litmus, Liveclicker and Unbounce speak on conversion optimisation for ecommerce

Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO) can be a very complex creature – particularly when it comes to optimising ecommerce sites and campaigns using Email marketing to engage our audience. The opinions in this article focus on email marketing. A common theme is that during the process of optimisation we need to put our subjective opinions aside, create some robust hypothesis-based upon data and insights and try to start optimising for the biggest wins first – not always an easy task. So we asked three of our expert speakers from our email marketing summit the following question: “So many channels, so many aspects of a campaign to test. What’s your key piece of advice that you would provide to increase conversions for an ecommerce site?” Dave Holland, European Regional Director of Liveclicker and expert presenter, gives us his…

Our interview with Jim Conning, the head of Data Services at Royal Mail

I spoke to Jim Conning, Managing Director of Data Services at Royal Mail about how marketers need to master the use of customer data to deliver the right message at the right time

Q. Personalised messaging based around customer’s life events is a great way to cut through the noise and reach customers in a way that is meaningful to them. Can you give some idea of what capabilities marketers need in place to be able to achieve this kind of messaging?

First and foremost, marketers need to understand the value of their customers’ life events, and what life events are relevant for your business and products. For example, moving home represents a major opportunity for the utilities providers because around 65% of consumers switch…

Tips for brands adapting to Digital from the author of Youtility

Many brands are struggling to adapt to a digital first culture and more seriously, struggling to remain relevant. It’s clear that brands moving from the industrial revolution to the connected economy need to be doing a lot more than creating a digital marketing dept in their organisational chart. Rather, they need to be adjusting and adapting their culture. I interviewed Jay Baer, author of the New York Times best seller, Youtility and one of my favourite business books. We discuss the challenges for brands that struggle to grasp “digital”, what brands can do to differentiate themselves in competitive markets and Jay’s latest book, Hug Your Haters.

Q. Many brands struggle to grasp how “digital” is structured within their organisation with many treating their digital activities within a silo -what words of wisdom could you provide brands to adapt a digital…

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…

We interviewed Paul Farnell, CEO and Co-founder of Litmus about their new partnership with Microsoft

If you work in email marketing you may well have heard of the new partnership Litmus have just announced with Microsoft. Because it's such a big industry first, we talked to Litmus' CEO to find out more about the workings of the deal and how it will affect both email marketers and the future of email itself.

Congratulations on the new partnership with Microsoft, can you give us an idea how this will affect how email marketers use Litmus? Will Litmus’ capabilities be changing?

Thank you! We’re very excited about the partnership and anticipate some great work with the Outlook team. There will not be any differences in how email marketers use and test in Litmus. The goal is that when viewing an Email…

Rob McLaughlin, Head of Digital Analytics at Sky explains the importance of a data-driven approach to modern marketing

Q. You recently moved from agency DigitasLBi, to join Sky as their Head of Digital Analytics. Why the move?

It has been a great experience working with my colleagues and clients at DigitasLBi, the breadth and depth of our engagements ensured interesting and challenging projects which really helped me continue to develop myself. I have been incredibly fortunate throughout my career to have been given the opportunity to work with some fabulous brands and high -growth businesses, DigitasLBi continued to add to that but the human aspect of that agency is something special. The agency is a collection of exceptionally bright and diverse individuals and one can only benefit from sharing space and time with them, I highly recommend the experience! More than any other role I have…