How to keep your marketing job and stay competitive as traditional jobs disappear and Artificial Intelligence erodes demand for some marketing skills but increases the demand for others
When robots named Pepper are taking orders at Pizza Hut, it’s safe to say that we’re entering the era of automation. Traditional jobs are being automated out of existence on a daily basis. And it’s happening in every industry, from healthcare to marketing.
Yet most marketers aren’t concerned about becoming irrelevant in the near future. This is short-sighted; acknowledging that many marketing jobs aren’t going to be around in another 10–20 years is the first step to staying competitive in an uncertain future.
How many jobs are disappearing?
In 2015 alone, nearly 2.4 million U.S. jobs were outsourced to other countries. And nearly every major American company has been accused of outsourcing or automating their jobs overseas.
By some estimates, artificial intelligence will cause the…
How brands can use a Digital Marketing Centre of Excellence to improve their results from digital
Since digital marketing is so complex and changes so fasts, many businesses can be left floundering in their use of digital marketing if they don't have the right investment in digital marketing skills and best practices. It's challenging since 'change is constant', audiences move to new channels, platforms change their algorithms and consumers start using ad-blocking tech or become 'banner blind'. Because of the pace of change, many brands lack experience in dealing with the kinds of problems posed by digital marketing in 2017.
This often leads to disappointing results from digital marketing, which can then create a suspicion of digital and a failure to properly invest in the new emerging technologies and channels which will be powering growth in the years ahead.
These challenges have led to many brands utilizing a Digital Center/Centre of Excellence in order to…
A round up of the latest platform updates from the main social networks, AdWords and Wordpress
Last week was a busy one for many of the marketing, advertising and social media platforms, while there wasn't anything earth-shattering, I'm going to give to you a round up of all the changes that gave you, even more, options for you marketing effort in the weeks ahead.
Facebook Ad 'stories' like feature to Messenger, called 'Messenger Day'
Facebook have continued with their approach 'to defeat Snapchat we must become Snapchat', and have launched a new clone of the Snapchat stories feature, this time for Facebook Messenger. It's called 'Messenger Day' and works like 'stories'- the content is live for 24 hours, can be seen by any of your friends on the platform, and automatically deletes after the 24 hour period ends. They've integrated it effectively into the app, without adding much additional friction. It is likely it…
Don't let your digital marketing campaigns fall foul of these mistakes
The great thing about making a mess of a digital marketing campaign is that, with the benefit of hindsight, it becomes clear which actions were a mistake and which contributed to a winning campaign.
In this article we share some examples of 'epic fails' that we have seen, and yes, if truth were told, we might have just had an up close and personal experience of some of them.
1. Leaving it to the boss to decide your Digital Marketing Strategy, i.e. – Ego Marketing
The boss is not always right! Come on, repeat after me “the boss is not always right!
Their input is necessary and important, however, they aren’t the ones who are being held responsible for your Digital Marketing Strategies. You are the one that is supposed to know better in this regard, but sometimes the Boss just can’t help it ……
How to review your digital brand differentiation using 3 complementary frameworks
Differentiation should be considered a key element to your brand strategy and help to provide an opportunity and vision to define a niche within your market sector, helping to gain the attention of your existing customers and extend your proposition to encourage new markets and audiences.
Framework Models of Brand Differentiation
After completing an organisational digital strategy health check, you will have a wider picture of the landscape your organisation is positioned, its strengths and weaknesses, the competitor landscape and the potential opportunity to create a model of differentiation from the competition in order to meet your organisations objectives.
To help understand whether a model of differentiation could exist, it is important to evaluate the quantitative and qualitative research completed. There are 3 models you could consider to apply to your organisation when considering a Brand differentiation strategy:
Three frameworks/models for brand differentiation
Framework 1:…
The Managing Director of Royal Mail's Data Services shares his insights into the true cost of poor-quality customer data.
As more marketers work to improve ROI and address new data regulations, the true costs of poor-quality customer data are about to become clear
New research into the use and management of customer data from Royal Mail Data Services reveals that UK organisations estimate poor-quality customer data is costing them an average of 6% of their annual revenues. So how can marketers and data experts finally clean up their customer data to improve overall operational efficiency and campaign effectiveness and comply with data protection regulations?
Marketers face a data dilemma
Today’s marketers rely on good-quality contact data above all else to ensure the success of a campaign’s performance. Yet despite reporting data quality as having the biggest impact on campaign response and conversion rates,…
Rise above cyclical trends and avoid hopping on bandwagons - Remember the fundamentals of brand strategy instead.
The first two months of the year are done and dusted. Time to roll up your sleeves and get on with another 10 months of chasing the weekly releases of ‘must-have’ marketing fads promising to shatter disruptive technologies and methodologies (as announced as being disruptive the previous weeks).
With so many fads from start-up Davids as well as established marketing Goliaths that promise to help show clients or bosses results, it’s going to be challenging... Just keeping up to date will force you to place marketing tactics before longer-term strategy considerations.
However, before you totally write-off strategic planning, here are five branding strategic thinking tips that can actually help you assess whether the latest ‘big thing’ enhances, or detracts from your core brand messaging, philosophy and delivery.
1- Brand purpose
Beyond obvious platitudes such as, “the purpose of…
Stay ahead of these major marketing trends to retain your edge over the competition this year
Marketing moves fast. Fads come and go, but big shifts in technology change the whole marketing landscape. The launch of the iPhone and the growth of social networks in the late 2000's massively disrupted the whole marketing landscape, just like the massive adoption of PCs did in the mid to late 90's, and TV did in the 50's and 60's.
At the moment marketers are firmly concentrated on the latest big technological fads like chatbots, virtual reality and augmented reality. It remains to be seen whether these will create real value for marketers beyond a few niche applications, or if they are just over-hyped by virtue of their novelty. However, it is possible to identify some big changes in how marketers are using existing technology, and these major shifts have serious implications for brands in…
#Chart of the day: The top technology trends that senior marketers believe will be impacting their strategy in 2020
The Economist Intelligence Unit surveyed 499 CMOs and other senior marketers about how they saw marketing evolving up to 2020. One of the most interesting questions asked was what technology trends senior marketers saw as most likely to be having a major impact on how they conducted their marketing in 2020. The top trends are mobile marketing, personalisation and the internet of things. It's also interesting to see more niche technologies such as blockchain making this list of the most important technology trends for the next 3 years.
Source: Economist Intelligence Unit & Marketo Report
Sample Size: 499 senior marketers
Recommended Resource: Strategy and Planning Toolkit
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The term digital branding is often used, but what actually is ‘digital branding’?
As a strategist and brand planner, I find the use of the term 'digital branding' curious. Do we use the term ‘TV branding’ or ‘radio branding’?
Digital marketing has emerged as a specialism over the last decade with its origins rooted in direct marketing. The increase in the number of personal devices and their use means brand marketers have many more ways of communicating directly and interactively with their target consumers or customers. Given this, it's no surprise that branding concepts should be applied to digital media and technology to develop brands through interactions with consumers on their digital devices. We'll look at some of the leading FMCG examples at the end of this article.
Digital branding definition: So, how do I see it? Here's my perspective on "Digital Branding":
"Digital channels and assets are used to communicate a…
