Google and Facebook plan to offer SMBs ad credits to support them during the coronavirus pandemic. This is what you need to know to secure your share

On Friday the 27th of March, Google announced that they will be offering ad credits for small-to-medium sized businesses (SMBs) who routinely advertise with them. Google have pledged $340 million in Google ads credit, to help companies “stay in touch with their customers during this difficult time” (Google Ads Help). More details have now been made available and this ad credit can be used at any point until the end of 2020, across any Google Ads platform. On Monday the 20th April, Google provided updated information on their ad credit programme, particularly in regard to eligibility criteria. Those eligible for this programme are small and medium-sized businesses globally, who have spent with a Google Ads account in ten out of twelve months of 2019, and…

Practical steps marketers can take to enhance their curious instincts

Marketers are a naturally curious bunch and are keen to learn new skills to improve their marketing performance. To work in such a varied, multidisciplinary field, you have to be interested in everything from trends and consumer behavior to analytics and creativity. However, even marketers can get stuck in their ways. Depending on the organization in which you work, the business culture or ways of working, barriers can stifle or prevent curiosity from flourishing, which researchers at Harvard Business School believe prevent organizations and individuals to be at their best.   Merck is one organization that has taken it upon themselves to lead the way in cultivating curiosity. According to Stefan Oschmann, Chairman of the Executive Board and CEO of Merck:   “In the pursuit of human progress, the single most important trait is curiosity – the desire to learn, explore,…

Stay calm, slow down and refocus your marketing priorities to tackle the current COVID-19 challenge

The world of marketing is a busy, hectic and uncertain one at the best of times. From the changing nature of consumer preferences to the evolution of new technologies and digital channels, over recent years marketers have had to adapt to changing circumstances and make the most of new opportunities. In addition to these micro-challenges, the last ten years since the financial crash of 2008 has posed several macro challenges, too. The nature of work itself has become very different, with a steady rise in contracting and freelancing, remote working and even changes to employment rights. All of these factors have meant that marketers have had to become more resilient and adaptable.

Enter COVID-19...

The recent coronavirus outbreak has tested workers across all sectors in new and unprecedented ways. At the time of writing, the…

Now more than ever it’s essential to amplify the impact of your digital marketing management. Here we show you how to do this by boosting both your operational and leadership effectiveness.

It’s essential to boost your management skills

Now, more than ever, how you prioritize and execute your projects matters for effective digital marketing management. Without operational discipline, you’ll soon find yourself staring at the backs of your competitors. In another Smart Insights article, I talked about how to boost the productivity of your team ( https://www.smartinsights.com/digital-marketing-strategy/5-keys-to-work-from-home-success-during-coronavirus-times/ ) during these Coronavirus times. Here I focus on how to improve your productivity and, more importantly, your effectiveness as a leader.

Boosting your impact involves:

Prioritizing your marketing initiatives

Optimizing your marketing workflows

Outsourcing applicable work

Empowering your functional leads

I will drill into each topic below. …

How to become a better marketer: 6 marketing tactics you need to work on to stay relevant   With the rapid development in technology, many changes occur in the marketing scene within short periods. Therefore, as you're trying to execute the tactics you know, you're also in a constant quest to learn new things. Otherwise, it becomes difficult to stay relevant and achieve your goals. Even in marketing channels you know, changes are happening with time. For instance, 17 years ago, you only need to understand how to send blast emails to be a good email marketer. However, today, you need a deep understanding of automated email sequences just to get by. That said, you'll always stay relevant as a marketer if you keep up with important trends and apply them to your marketing campaigns. In light of this, here are 6 essential tactics to work on:

1. Creating and designing visual content

Over the years, …

How to navigate a 'squiggly career'

When many of us consider the word ‘career’, we think about climbing a corporate ladder and following a predictable, linear path to promotion. This was certainly my expectation when I entered the workforce after university; the advice was to join a company as a graduate trainee and move through the ranks to a senior role. But whilst the idea of a traditional career may still be the case for some, the last ten years has transformed many people’s professional working experiences and their expectations for what a career will provide. This is true across most professions, but especially true for marketing, where the rise of the internet, social media and digital channels has disrupted the traditional paradigm.

Navigating the ‘squiggly career’

In spring 2018, whilst I was in between jobs, I discovered a podcast called ‘Squiggly Careers’. Presented by Sarah Ellis and Helen Tupper, it covered a huge…

How to build a personal brand as a marketer: 7 effective tactics for personal brand building

As a marketer, building a personal brand can have a great impact on your success. Even if you work for a company, building your personal brand will prove a great benefit to your company as much as it will be to you. With a trusted personal brand, you have a unique position in your industry, the ability to influence a bigger audience and turn many of them into customers. As former Google CEO Eric Schmidt said, "Brands are the solution, not the problem. Brands are how you sort out the cesspool." But how do you build your personal brand as a marketer? In this blog post, discover 7 effective tactics you can start using today.

1. Understand your target audience

Trying to please everybody is the fastest way to pleasing no one. Therefore, you have to understand…

A list of digital hacks and tools for full-stack marketers

First of all, think through your most tedious, low-skilled, weekly tasks. If you find them cumbersome, chances are, other marketers are bound to have felt the same frustrations as you. It's likely that, somewhere in the world, someone created the technology to help themselves and others overcome whatever the challenge at hand is. I always look at pain points as opportunities and so if there's ever something that takes a while to complete, its easy to find a solution (or a hack as some might say). In the below article, I've combined a list of marketing tools and chrome extensions that I regularly use to automate a few of my daily activities, to be more efficient and to get results faster. That's what being a full-stack marketer is all about. Getting stuff done, and getting results. "The full-stack marketer is multi-skilled. However,…

Implement these suggestions to enter into your WebOps role smoothly

Congratulations! You’ve been hired as your company's new website operations manager, but you might be wondering what exactly your role is. While some companies use an agency relationship to fill this job, they are increasingly hiring employees in-house to assist with this vital source of content and commerce. As a website operations manager, you are responsible for your company’s websites and WebOps (aka DevOps for websites). Tasks involve creating and editing content, installing security updates, addressing any bugs or website-related concerns, monitoring and optimizing web performance, translating content into other languages, and eliminating technical debt if you are inheriting an older website. [si_guide_block id="86160" title="Download our Free Resource – 10 common website customer experience mistakes guide" description="This guide reveals examples of poor website design from different sectors which are commonly seen, but best avoided. Expert strategy recommendations, practical tips…

Examples of different Coronavirus notices around the world - and best practice for public communications

This is a strange start to the week after a strange weekend where we've seen the empty streets across Rome, Paris, and Madrid, then hearing about lockdowns extending to Los Angeles and New York and governments drastically reducing interest rates around the world. Since many businesses will be considering their own communications, in this post, we're collating examples from different sectors, which we hope you will find useful. At the moment, the advisories seem to have been published, for the most part, by the largest companies, but we expect to see them across all companies in time. Crisis communications teams in many of the larger brands most impacted by the Coronavirus are putting out Coronavirus business statements, like these who notified early on Monday 16th March: Starbucks Nike Tui Hubspot …