How we got to #2 most popular inbound marketing blog in the UK. Sharing what works for our blog, the mistakes we've made and what could work for yours
Hubspot have just launched a new Inbound marketing ranking tool: InboundRank . It enables you to submit the URL of your marketing blog, and generate a ranking for your blog based on several parameters including inbound traffic, domain authority and average social shares.
As you'd expect, Hubspot are doing the content marketing thing and have compiled a post sharing some of the secrets of the Top 10. This is based on my response to them. I wanted to go into a bit more detail on our blog on what seems to have worked for us, the pitfalls we tried to avoid and what could work for you.
We're chuffed that SmartInsights.com is currently number 2 on the…
Track and optimize these 5 metrics and watch your profits surge
As a digital marketer with access to Google Analytics plus your multiple inbound marketing tools, you have hundreds upon hundreds of metrics to consider while judging your results. Where to start? For example, here is just a tiny list of metrics to consider to start:
Number of website visitors
Website bounce rate
Email subscriber list size
Email open rate
Advertising CTR (click-through rate)
Number of new leads
Overwhelming... I know.
The natural question that arises is, which metrics are the most important to track, and why? This article will answer just that. I'll explain the 5 most critical metrics for your business, and how tracking them will boost your profits immediately.
Business Asset Metrics vs. Operating Metrics
Before we go over the 5 key metrics, I want to briefly explain the importance of Business Asset Metrics and Operating Metrics, and the difference between the two.
Operating Metrics are the numbers that gauge your current…
New research shows B2B services marketing budget priorities
ITMSA's recent research reviewed B2B Marketing investment priorities from larger companies including Microsoft, SalesForce and BT.
The report shares findings on budget allocations, detailed allocation of marketing spend, staffing, priorities and challenges for this year.
It highlights shifts in focus - ' according to the research, in the past the focus was on 'reputation', today it's 'Revenue' and the future is 'relationships'.
The companies surveyed are focusing on revenue generation (ROI), Thought Leadership, Brand Differentiation and Reputations, as they continue to plan for online spend.
Where are marketing spending plans for this year?
The biggest spend is forecasted to be on marketing programs, campaigns and content development. Content Development accounts for 15% of spend.
The report shows some flexibility in budget investment with 8 in 10 of the companies able to…
8 steps showing how to combine SMART and RACE to set campaign goals
SMART goals are a commonly referenced concept in marketing, to help check that goals are Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic and Time bound (i.e. have a deadline). Goals have their place at all levels of planning whether business planing, marketing planning or campaign planning. It can often be the difference between a successful campaign and not. As my previous post on goal-setting for marketing showed, they have huge benefits in:
Empowering, aligning and focusing teams and colleagues
Managing senior management
Giving you and your team a sense of success
Allow you to understand a campaign within a wider marketing activity context
But in practice, it's not easy to select and set goals, they are very rarely obvious especially when you put them against the SMART test. Setting goals requires a numbers of thing's…
Guidelines and research on how businesses can create a digital strategy
So, you know the importance of digital marketing is increasing all the time and you’re actively using it, trying to integrate it with your other marketing activities. Where next? How high can you reach? How about aiming high? Your competitors may well be. Can you reach digital nirvana?!
In 2015 we have updated our 7 Steps to Digital Marketing infographic to share the latest research from businesses who contributed to our Digital Marketing 2015 research report.
We hope you find the infographic useful and it helps you a little on your journey to improvement or even enlightenment, one step at a time!
To help you take the first steps, the first part of the infographic links to these articles explaining key techniques to kickstart your digital marketing
SWOT analysis for the digital…
and if not, why not?
There is only ever one pot of money for investments in marketing, so it can seem it is spread more thinly each year as you need to engage customers across more digital touchpoints. Worse still, the size of the pot may shrink as budgets are cut.
So, it's a challenging decision as to where to invest wisely. In our Managing Digital Marketing 2015 we did ask about investments in different types of media and developing digital experiences, but we also thought we would turn the question on its head by asking where the frustrations were with investment in time or budget. We asked respondents where they felt there was insufficient investment which highlighted some common frustrations.
You can see that respondents naturally felt there were a number of areas of underinvestment. That's…
A summary of new research giving the CMO viewpoint
In our Managing Digital Marketing 2015 report we summarised our recent research into the changes to processes, structure and teams needed for managing digital marketing. A broader viewpoint is available in this new research, The Next Era of Marketing (free download, registration needed) from The Economist sponsored by Marketo. This new report included responses from senior marketers in larger organisations worldwide. 478 CMOs and senior marketing executives worldwide were survey. More than 50% of respondents hold the CMO title or top marketing position. Respondents wee located in North America (33%), Europe (30%), Asia-Pacific (29%) and Rest of World—which encompasses Africa and Latin America (9%). More than 50% of survey respondents (52%) hail from companies with more than US$500m in revenue; 20% have revenue of over US $5bn.
Here's my brief summary to the implications of the report.
Changes to the structure of the marketing organisation
A…
An agency view on the Digital Marketing Trends for 2015
Last year, more and more marketers hopped onto online and social media marketing, they embraced data and social media platforms to connect, listen, and engage with prospects customers. Companies were setting the agenda for their content strategy, resolving problems and providing relevant information along the sales funnel, through social media and video.
Mobile marketing reached a whole new level with Responsive Web Design, companies personalized the web experience and ROI tracking has evolved within the digital marketing landscape.
Given the extent of the changes last year, it’s right to ask what changes are coming in this year? While many commentators like Dave Chaffey have given their views on his digital marketing predictions for 2015, they often don't all look at the practicalities. To answer that question of the changes in digital marketing practices, we have created a summary of the views of our agency to check against…
The biggest gap is surprising..
Where are marketers most keen to improve their skills in digital marketing? Since all the tools in our digital marketing library are aimed at helping members improve their digital skills we were interested to know where people felt confident and where they want to top up their skills.
So we asked this question in our recent research looking at how digital marketing is managed in 2015. The chart shows that over half of respondents feel confident in their own skills or they know sufficient although there is still a huge appetite to learn 'across the board' as shown by the red bars:
We might expect from what's discussed online, that the gap would be social media, content marketing or strategy, but when looking at the highest percentage of those that need to improve their depth…
Only 7% of businesses have an optimised effect
We know social media is here to stay, despite any backlash, but so too is traditional marketing. Omnichannel marketing is driving the need for Marketers to integrate digital marketing strategies rather than creating separate plans for different channels, and departments working in silos.
Our research with the TFM&A suggests progress as Marketers are move towards strategic integrated digital planning 'though only 1/4 of companies were satisfied with their level of integration across digital and traditional communications and 7% are full integrated and optimised.'
The chart certainly shows there is challenge which many businesses are trying to meet.
The most detrimental factor to 'integrated planning' is the lack of planning, as many companies have separate traditional marketing and digital marketing teams whom work independently when it…
