How can you supercharge your analytics system to increase your acquisition?

If given extra budget, 32% of marketers would spend more on data and analytics. That’s more than those who said they would spend on search, social and additional headcount!  Modern marketers love data for so many reasons. Why?   Data helps optimize businesses from acquisition all the way through customer purchase and reengagement.   It helps them achieve high ROI Facebook and Google Ads campaigns.   It helps them compete against…

6 essential requirements for designing your digital strategy around your customer

While customer experience is a key business driver for any company, few have yet to understand that, in the digital age, when customers can instantly access swathes of information about a company and its competitors, it has become fundamental to obtaining a real, sustainable, competitive advantage in a rapidly changing marketplace. With customer expectations becoming much more demanding, it is essential for any business to think with the customer at the centre when making any business decision. To help make your digital strategy more customer-centric we recommend these 6 requirements for a digital strategy development process. [si_guide_block id="63608" title="PowerPoint marketing strategy planning template" description="Create a comprehensive presentation that will take your colleagues through your  digital strategy with this PowerPoint template."] Plenty of corporate strategies talk about the benefits of being…

When it comes to planning a campaign, it’s important to be efficient at all times. Explore these fundraising software tips to make your next campaign count. 

As a non-profit professional, running a successful campaign means putting a lot of thought, organization, and time into your efforts. Have you also considered the ways in which technology can make your efforts even more efficient?  Today, fundraising software is a mainstream tool that many non-profits are using to boost donation revenue, engage with their donors, and maintain a high level of efficiency in their campaigns.  [si_guide_block id="30094" title="Download our Business Resource – Social media communications for not-for-profit organizations" description="This guide aims to give a clear structure to help you grow internal confidence and buy-in so that the benefits of social media can become visible and it becomes more…

Like it or not, at one point or another you’ll probably have to deal with a negative customer comment that’s been published online

Did you know, as many as 94% of customers say that a negative review convinced them not to do business with a brand? We can’t underestimate the importance of online reputation management. Like it or not, at one point or another you’ll probably have to deal with a negative customer comment that’s been published online. This means you need to learn how to respond to such criticism. After all, it’s vital you react to these comments in a timely and thought-out manner, as this is the only way you can adequately protect your online reputation. [si_guide_block id="5768" title="Download our Individual Member Resource – Social media marketing strategy guide" description="Our social media strategy guide will help you create an integrated social media marketing strategy that shows you how…

Higher visibility into your attribution model means sales will trust the metrics more

Is your marketing team celebrating their awesome quarter while your sales team suffers poor performance? This is usually due to a sales vs marketing attribution mismatch, particularly when marketing and sales are seen as two different entities.

Ultimately this who-gets-credit-for-this-sale struggle is getting pretty old - it’s been around for as long as sales and marketing teams have collaborated together. Could it be that a data blackbox is the root of your problem?

Calculating whether a lead was sales or marketing generated can be a pretty complicated calculation, particularly in complex B2B buying cycles where multiple teams are involved. Adroll has a good example here. Due to this complexity, sales leaders tend to distrust the data given to them by marketers and fall back to pointing fingers when things don’t…

The best digital marketing research across marketing channels - including SEO, PPC, CRO, social, mobile, martech, email, e-commerce, and UX - to help inform your 2019 marketing strategy

Because the state of digital marketing is always evolving, it is important to keep up-to-date with the latest research in your industry or marketing channel in order to stay ahead of your competition. However, it can be difficult to find the digital marketing research you need to help inform your digital strategy. We first curated these stats in 2017, but during 2018 and 2019, we've been committed to updating this article using the best digital marketing research data sources, which the team at Smart Insights have found helpful and informative throughout the year. Hopefully, this will help you too! [si_blog_banner_cta]

SEO statistics 2019

Total site visits produced by organic search…

Marketers too focused on transactions, Snapchat's strong Q3 results, Amazon's new News app, Twitter's poor Q3 results, New adaptive Google banner ads, Instagram testing new feature

Almost half of marketers have admitted to being too focused on getting money in the bank at the expense of building customer relationships. Snapchat reports strong Q3 results and announces a new focus on advertising buyability. Amazon is launching a new News app to compete with Google News and Apple News +. Twitter sees stocks plummet as it posts disappointing Q3 results, with targeting bugs partly to blame. Google announces new adaptive banner ads designed to improve mobile viewability. Instagram is testing a new feature that sees the accounts your following split into different categories. [si_blog_banner_cta]

43% of marketers focused on transactions rather than relationships

Almost half (43%) of marketers are focused more on ‘transactional’ relationships rather than encouraging a deeper level of engagement from their audience, according to new research. The…

Should you invest resources and budget to attract new customers on Black Friday?

Acquiring a new customer is up to seven times more expensive than keeping an existing one. You’ve likely heard the stat quoted before and it should hopefully have resonated. But have you done anything tangible to address it? Perhaps you have, but traditionally acquisition is prioritized over retention. We put more budget, resource and scrutiny on how we attract new customers. 72% of small businesses say that they put the majority of their marketing budget on acquisition. So only 28% are spending more on retention despite it being more cost-effective. Who can really blame the 72%? Acquisition is often viewed as the major lever for growth but the numbers may suggest otherwise. [si_blog_banner_cta] According to Bain and co, a 5% increase in customer retention could increase profitability by up to 75%. Impressive right?…

Aligning your sales and marketing teams is one of the easiest ways to grow your business.

In most companies, marketing and sales teams don’t collaborate very efficiently. But that shouldn’t be the case. After all, they’re both trying to help the company grow, right? The only difference is that they try to achieve this goal in different ways. While your marketing team tries to raise awareness about your brand and generate leads, your sales team aims to close deals. [si_guide_block id="79857" title="Download our Business Resource – Sales and marketing integration guide" description="This guide will give you practical recommendations, based on real-world examples, showing how to get your sales and marketing teams working together more effectively."/] In the end, they’re essentially working towards the same thing. This is why getting them to work together can do wonders for your company’s growth. You’ll see: Lowered sales costs. More cost-efficient marketing. Shortened sales cycles. Increased conversions. Here’s how…

The theory, principles and practices of agile ways of working

Over the last few years, I have consistently heard and seen references to the terms ‘agile’ and ‘scrum’, most notably in a technology and project management context. However, more recently this has found its way into mainstream working environments, and I’ve noticed more and more people talking about agile in memos, emails and even job ads. Take this example from a leading financial services provider: “Our organization is currently embarking on a significant move towards more agile ways of working, giving our colleagues more accountable freedom than ever before and far more opportunity to make a difference to our customer experiences”. But what does ‘agile working’ mean and why has this become so prominent?

A history 80 years in the making

‘Agile’ is a mindset, a set of beliefs, principles and way of thinking. In the early 2000s, Carol Dweck popularized…