This tube map is a great way to summarise online marketing options to non-digital specialists or to check your digital media knowledge for skills gaps

You will know from our digital media infographics and success maps that we're big fans of using visuals to help simplify the understanding of the many opportunities in digital media. Here's a visual representation of online media options we wish we had thought of! It's from our friends over at agency Hallam Internet and needs no further explanation.

The 2020 digital marketing map

You can get a higher resolution version of the visual from Hallam Internet.

The 2013 digital marketing map

I originally shared this infographic back in 2013 and since then a lot has happened as digital platforms have developed. I'm prompted to update it since Susan Hallam…

Practical guidance on engaging individual companies

Account-based marketing (ABM) campaigns can come in all shapes and sizes. Depending on the companies that make up the target list, the tactics can be an almost limitless blend of online and offline activity. Regardless of how that blend is, erm, blending for an individual company, 9 times out 10 you’re going to want the individuals who work at your target accounts to come to your website at some point soon. As learned readers of Smart Insights, no doubt you’re at least up to speed with the fundamentals of SEO and have consumed one of the dozens of articles on inbound. But ABM is different. We’re not trying to bring in as many visitors as possible, we’re trying to bring in as many as possible from our account list. This slight difference in the challenge brings its own blend of tactics that we’re going to explore in this…

Deciding on analogue vs digital is a crucial step in the ABM process

Although it’s a key phrase on the lips of many a Martech professional in Silicon Valley these days, account-based marketing (ABM) hasn’t always been about technology. In its purest form, ABM is a strategy at the business marketing level - it’s about identifying the big white whales you want to snare, and investing time, money and effort into doing that, rather than casting a wider net for the minnows. In the past, it’s been largely thinking about selling to companies as a market of one. However, the innovations of the last decade or so around IP-to-company matching, automation and retargeting, led by the likes of Kickfire, Demandbase and Terminus, have made the conversation about ABM very much one about technology. As we know, technology is often about making things easier to do at scale. Enter “ABM at scale”. Now that ABM is…

Compare cost-effectiveness with volume or leads and sales generated

In this post, I'm taking another look at some data points from our 2015 research, in association with the TFM&A where we asked marketers which were the most effective online media. The research showed the ongoing importance of the core digital marketing channels and Email Marketing rated highly or very effective by 51% of respondents, followed by SEO (44%) and Adwords (34%). Organic use of social media wasn’t far behind with 32%, but with only 21% believing paid social media was effective. In terms of cost or return for buck, SEO was seen as the most effective by 50% of our respondents. Our respondents rated SEO as the most highest-rated channel for generating leads…

How are businesses investing in digital media

Which digital media give the best 'bang for your buck' is a question that we constantly ask as marketers. Which online marketing techniques give us the best cost-per-acquisition and drive the best volume as suggested by our Content Distribution Matrix which can also be used for a wider digital media effectiveness review and to prompt testing of new online media options.

How are businesses investing this year in digital media?

Our Managing Digital Marketing Research in association with TFM&A also sheds light on this by showing changes in how businesses will be allocating their digital media spend. The research has shown the ongoing importance of the core digital marketing channels with similar levels of effectiveness reported for 2014: Email marketing was rated as highly or very effective by 51% of respondents followed by SEO (45%) and Adwords (34%). Organic use of social media wasn’t far behind with 33%, but…

People still love print – sometimes more than digital – so enabling good printing is essential for online marketing success

Internet marketers live in a digital world, but they should not forget printed documents. In this article you will discover: Why print is psychologically important How to ensure your website is printable What printed documents are worth providing Back in 1975, Business Week magazine predicted that we would soon have a “paperless office” thanks to all the new technology being introduced at that time. Of course, here we are almost 40 years later and the paperless office is still a distant dream. Even in this age of instant digital information, where you are not short of things to read, the chances are you also have a pile of print to wade through. The notion that digital would replace print clearly hasn’t happened. Indeed, even though the sales of ebook readers have soared, printed book sales are…

But search and direct visits dominate...

The role of social media in driving visits to transactional sites like retail and travel if often documented. Research on corporate sites is more limited, so in this post we summarise research from a provider of corporate sites. The Investis IQ Insight Audience Q3 2013 analyses 2 million visits across 60 corporate websites and nearly 7 million views per month. They sample includes a range of companies, by size and sector across the FTSE 100, FTSE 250, Small CAP and AIM companies and a small section from Europe. The report highlights where there has been the greatest change over two years, and is aimed at companies who wish to ensure that their 'digital communications reflects the needs of their corporate audience'.

Overall importance of social media

The findings show that social media has the least impact on driving traffic to corporate websites; 54% is driven by search and…