Digital marketing is more important now than ever. My recommendations on the challenges and opportunities for growth
Digital marketing is deceptively easy if you take the deliberately simple definition from my book Digital Marketing:Strategy, Implementation and Practice where I define Digital Marketing as:
"Achieving marketing objectives through applying digital media, data and technology".
But in reality, digital marketing is a tough challenge since many businesses know how vital digital and mobile channels are today for acquiring and retaining customers. Yet the research shared below shows that many businesses don't have an integrated plan to support digital transformation and business growth based on engaging their audiences effectively online.
In this article, I will explain why a digital marketing strategy is essential for all businesses. If you're looking for an introduction to the scope of digital marketing and what should be included in a plan, see my post explaining What is Digital Marketing.
Regardless of the type…
Audit your digital media effectiveness to build stronger campaigns and an efficient marketing funnel
Reviewing your use of digital media is a crucial starting point for creating or optimizing your digital marketing strategy. But how do you tune in and prioritize what's working, and what isn't, without getting lost in vanity metrics?
At Smart Insights we recommend using VQVC to consolidate and streamline how you measure your digital media. This mnemonic shows how volume, quality, value, and cost help you pull out different elements of your marketing activities. Read on to find out more about VQVC and other important digital media planning techniques
Moreover, do you really understand how and when each of your key marketing communications is being received by your target audience? Our RACE Framework helps hundreds of thousands of marketers around the globe track and optimize their key digital media, to get the best results possible, without breaking the bank.…
From the obvious tools like ChatGPT and Google Gemini to the less obvious like Perplexity, Pi, Poe and more!
As you'll know, 'GenAI' rose to prominence with the launch of ChatGPT from OpenAI in late 2022. Since then, many other less well-known tools have been released that have some advantages over ChatGPT, so should be considered by any 'AI-assisted marketer'.
In this article, I will recommend 10 plus tools to consider, looking in particular at how marketers can use them for writing marketing plans, such as annual marketing plans or campaign plans. We will also look at how many marketers are using generative AI for writing plans and caution against being overly dependant on AI for planning. To be the 'devil's advocate', I will ask should we be using these tools at all?!
How widely is generative AI and ChatGPT used in marketing?
ChatGPT has been widely adopted…
Actionable steps across the pillars of digital marketing from our recent report
Digital marketing today is complex and it’s inevitable it will get more complex in the future as new technologies and platforms emerge. Take the huge adoption and interest in Open AI ChatGPT, as an example. Marketers also have to contend with the complexity of the many channels we need to track in our analytics such as organic and paid search, social media, display, and email marketing.
March 2024 update
Here we'll update readers on the latest developments in digital marketing relevant to marketers.
The best AI tools for marketers?
At the end of the article, I recommend different Generative AI tools beyond ChatGPT and show how widely they have been adopted. I have recently written a new update asking Which are the best Generative AI tools for writing marketing plans and strategies? It's shocking how widely Gen AI is being used for…
Guidance on the latest digital media legal compliance legislations for social media and online marketing
As marketers, we create social and digital content which are published across a diverse range of media. From mobile apps, AMPS, and websites, to emails, social posts, videos, texts, and display ads - we strive to meet our customers in the most appropriate ways in their online/social media spaces.
Right now, in digital marketing - change is constant. So, whilst we grapple with the latest social media channels and content prompts, sometimes the due diligence processes which were so prominent in traditional publishing, can be hurried/missed.
However, your digital and social media content, whatever format you're using, must still meet the national and international legislations for both the channel type and the countries you trade in. Otherwise, you could risk penalties, restrictions, or legal action in more severe cases.
Digital media laws for businesses
Businesses who regularly check in and…
Playbooks empower marketing teams to improve performance from within
As marketing managers, directors, and heads of marketing, we are responsible for researching and developing marketing strategies that contribute toward our business goals. This means we are continuously scanning our marketplaces, tracking our progress, and reacting to change.
In well-integrated marketing teams, individuals are also contributing to shared marketing activities which, when combined, move the team closer to shared goals.
But, while we know what that looks like from a strategic 'top-down' approach, how can teams set up practical infrastructures at a tactical level? And how do we best track and record our marketing 'business as usual'?
That's where playbooks come in - a grassroots approach for managing marketing ops. As playbooks focus on the doing, they are designed to be used by marketing specialists who are responsible for the execution and tactical development of their dedicated…
What are the most popular free and paid marketing writing assistant tools using generative AI for creating content?
2023 was a rare year in marketing, where the latest martech innovations we discuss crossed over into the mainstream. Of course, this has been prompted by the huge interest in ChatGPT, not only for marketing, but in many other applications.
For 'hands-on' marketers seeking to take advantage of the latest AI-based tools for generating content and copywriting, there are now quite a few options which I'll recommend at the end of the post.
In previous posts, I have reviewed how to use the free version of ChatGPT for marketing and covered the latest updates to ChatGPT relevant for marketers.
Smart Insights Business Members can also read more about how to start use ChatGPT collaboratively in our new Quick Win: How to use ChatGPT for marketing, covering AI marketing planning, strengths and weaknesses of…
How do the latest updates to ChatGPT including GPT–4, AutoGPT, Plug-ins and ChatGPT Plus boost its potential for marketers?
Since I originally wrote an article on Using ChatGPT for marketing just after ChatGPT launched, there has been a whirlwind of developments from OpenAI and their partners. For marketers who are busy with their day job, this can be bewildering and you can miss some of the key developments, so here I’ll summarise some of the main developments in a brief timeline and how significant I see them to be.
Members can read about other ‘need-to-know’ key digital marketing developments in our regularly updated latest Digital Media updates tracker.
The main developments since the launch of ChatGPT relevant to marketers and businesses have been:
1 ChatGPT features integrated into Microsoft Bing
This originally occurred in February 2023. In late 2023 Microsoft renamed this service to Co-Pilot in line with it's branding of Microsoft AI-assistant…
With changes in media distribution, marketers are rapidly adapting their methods of budgeting, reporting, and investing in paid, owned and earned media to reach and engage their customers
Investment in media is frequently grouped into the 3 media 'buckets' of earned, shared and paid which each give opportunities to influence customers. None of these media types are new, but what is new is the increasing prominence given to owned and earned media while paid media has always dominated in the past.
Digital media adoption and usage is constantly evolving in today's digital landscape. As of January 2024, 62% of the world's population uses social media. It's fair to say that paid, earned, and owned media offer marketers a never-ending array of new opportunities to win and retain more customers.
Current definitions of paid, earned, and owned media
In short - paid media means the content distribution has been paid for, whereas earned and…
From SMART to SMARTER marketing objectives: Discover how to define marketing objectives, measure your digital marketing goals, and use data to inform your marketing strategy
When identifying specific marketing objectives to support your long-term goals, it is common practice to apply the widely used SMART mnemonic. You will know that SMART is used to assess the suitability of objectives set to drive different strategies or the improvement of the full range of business processes.
By its simplest definition, an effective SMART marketing objective is:
Specific, measurable, actionable, relevant, and time-bound.
But you will learn in this article that beyond this well-known acronym, there are different variations and nuances which you can apply to practice Smarter Marketing.
What is Smarter Marketing?
The SMART acronym is much more than a mnemonic since it defines a way of thinking about getting better results within business and marketing. This mindset is based…
