Practical advice on WHO you need to execute your content marketing strategy

Many content roles I see are the domain of trained Journalists and Copywriters, but this doesn’t always add up. On the web, many of the best examples of engaging content, and certainly the most sharable, are visual in nature, and often application based. Thus creating content teams made up of skilled writers will limit success. If you have a large site, with hundreds (or perhaps thousands) of product pages that need writing, then hiring copywriters to get the job done makes good sense. But if you’re also looking to create a good blog, regular email newsletters and possibly applications that integrate with social networks, then you’re going to need some Designer / Development resource as well. If things are going to be promoted well, then a Community / Outreach Manager would be useful. Finally, to measure…

25 tips on selecting staff for digital roles

In this post we share some tips and advice to help you if you're looking to develop your career in digital marketing, or if you're involved in recruiting into digital roles.

The advice is based on interviews I completed with specialists from three leading recruitment sepecialists: Dan Boneham at Michael Page: Jonathan Hirst at Network Marketing and Mark Lennox at UK Job Advertising Site  OnlyMarketingjobs.com.

We completed these interviews when developing our new Guide to digital marketing job roles and the accompanying infographic showing the opportunities from digital marketing jobs that supports it. We created this summary for the infographic, but there was far more in-depth advice from the interviews we thought was useful too.

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Some quick Bootstrapping tips to get you started!

Simply put, bootstrapping is doing something with nothing, and that ‘something’ usually refers to running a business. The origins of the term bootstrapping  are up for debate (it’s from the legend of Baron Munchahusen if you believe Guy Kawasaki), but it is generally agreed that it refers to ‘an absurdly impossible action’.

So if bootstrapping a business already seems like madness then why would you try it while working full-time?

I’m sure many people working in digital marketing have fantastic business ideas and think ‘If only somebody would give me £1million to get that business underway.’ Well, the sad fact is that isn’t going to happen, but when you can become an instant worldwide publisher for very little cost then digital bootstrapping is an appealing option for many fantasist millionaires.

So where to start?

Trees and acorns All businesses take investment to grow and if you…

12 tests to review how well digital marketing is managed in an organisation - a presentation hosted by the Chartered Management Institute at Liverpool John Moores University

I was invited to give this talk by Gillian Cosser, principal at the CIM Liverpool Study Centre, so we also had many CIM members at the event too. In the presentation I looked at approaches to managing digital marketing successfully by applying 12 tests to review how a business is managing marketing now and how it can improve it. …

A practical guide to help you manage your website more effectively

Web Governance is the discipline that describes how to manage a website in a controlled and orderly way. Until quite recently few online professionals were interested in Governance. There were too many other problems that needed fixing first, like poor design and content. But not any more! A new generation of Executives for whom the web is neither cool nor cryptic are lifting the lid on operations and discovering teams that are poorly structured and under-resourced. What is the answer? To set things right, they need a practical Framework upon which to build a revised system of Web Governance. In this article we’ll explore a new model that explains in clear language how Governance works and a first step towards changing it for the better which can be applied to companies of different sizes.

A new system of Web Governance

At its most basic, governance…

The 'DARC' framework can help companies in selecting staff with the right digital skills

The rise in digital marketing has created a wealth of opportunities and at the same time, removed barriers to entry to a number of sectors where a start-up, sole trader or large corporation is now competing with one another globally. Smart Insights recently reported on a survey showing the digital marketing skills that employers are looking for, yet many of these skills aren't widely taught at college or university. For an example of a sector with increasing need for digital marketing, take online retailing: A recent article from Internet Retailing reported that in the UK, shoppers spent £5.8bn online in March, a rise of 14% compared to the same time last year and this is within the retail sector, a sector that has taken a pounding within the current economic climate, witnessed by the …

Customer over corporate-led communications

We're currently hiring at First 10. A friend asked me what kind of roles we're looking to fill. My response was, "two brand journalists". She was puzzled, "do you mean PRs", she said? "...aren't there loads of people in marketing who can write?" My response: "Not really, it's a different blend of skill-sets and a totally different motivation." I embraced the whole idea of "brand journalism" via a book by David Meerman-Scott, I read 3-4 years ago, it's made increasing sense since. The way a journalist approaches an article is simply different from the way that somebody who is good at writing approaches an article. A brand journalist works inside the company across all content formats, writing and producing videos, blog posts, photos, webinars, articles, e-books and podcasts. It's about producing the content that is relevant to, that engages prospects and customers, which is something that Marketing Profs…

 Two apparently contradictory reports on UK digital ad spend

Two stories in the marketing press caught my eye recently because they appeared to contradict each other and each is from an impeccable source. One set of figures comes from the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA) and the other from the Advertising Agency Register (AAR). The IPA story states UK digital ad spend is still increasing and senior marketers expect this trend to continue. Indeed, according to the respected IPA Bellwether report, online display spend forecasts were revised up 13.4% and paid search budgets revised up 14.9% during the last quarter of 2011. And this despite the fact that marketing chiefs are, overall, more pessimistic about the year ahead than they have been in nearly three years. The second piece of news appears to contradict this picture. According to the latest…

A review of the main web crowdsourcing services for marketing, design and development

These service sound scarier than than the title suggests. I'm sure many consultants, agencies and companies are using services such as Upwork and 99Designs already. But I thought these were worth grouping and sharing for those not in the know or so that others can be shared. The crowdsourcing approach where you put your tender out to anyone who wants to bid tends to be much more cost effective.  In this blog post I want to open your eyes to some of the potential with outsourcing, my experience of it and highlight some of the services you could utilise. The outsource / crowdsourcing industry is seeing huge growth as more business are willing to change their processes. Elance reported a doubling of the number…

An infographic emphasising the future skills gap for "data scientists"

I blogged recently and mentioned the importance of new skills being brought into your marketing team, and especially people with computer and mathematical science qualifications being of increasing importance. I noticed this infographic and thought it was useful for their emphasis of the importance  of 'Data Scientists' to the future of companies. It seems there's a growing recognition of the value of applying data to marketing. As you can see, it seems as if demand for "data scientists" will outstrip supply, indeed it already is. So that's an opportunity for getting an edge in the jobs marketplace. As you might expect, the main challenge isn't lack of tools, it's having the skills to apply them, to ask the right questions and for management to give a supportive framework where time is defined for analysis and decision making based on data. …