Alternatives for managing marketing technology systems
This new, independent research from the IAB and Winterberry Group reveals that Marketers are still divided over which technology will solve their key challenges - how to gather, merge and manipulate cross-channel data.
'Marketers are on a journey to unlock the power of their data by unifying it across desktop, mobile, CRM, email, point-of-sale and more.
Their vision is to create a seamless experience for customers, but many brands are stuck in first gear because of the complex and difficult task of connecting massive amounts of fragmented data,'
Mike Sands, CEO, Signal.
In this report executive-level marketers and key experts mainly from North America, working in the advertising, marketing, media and technology industries gave their views and goals for cross-channel marketing, and how to extract the value of data along with the challenges of technology.
Which systems do marketers prefer?
There was no clear preference of 'Integrated (stack-approach)' which manages…
The Smart Insights summary of digital marketing developments
This year we'll be continuing our summary of the 'must-know' developments in digital marketing, so they're available to our members to scan as a quick summary each month. January was a quiet month for changes on the main platforms. The main development to be aware of from January is that Facebook changed it's newsfeed to filter out 'promotional posts'. In this summary, we look at developments across the 5 key areas of managing digital marketing each month.
Strategy and planning
In our State of Digital Marketing infographic we summarised the techniques that work best in digital marketing today based on our Managing Digital Marketing 2015 research to be presented at the TFM&A 2015 event on the 25th and 26th February.
State of B2B Digital Marketing in 2015…
30 cutting-edge digital marketing tools and techniques to help grow your business
It’s my favourite time of blogging year, where we look ahead to what will be the major trends in digital marketing in the year ahead. I find there’s a real thirst for knowledge amongst marketers about the latest trends in digital marketing and Ienjoy reviewing the latest marketing techniques and technologies. For the past few years I have given my recommendations on the trends as I see them, based on reviewing innovation in marketing technology through the year, plus crowdsourcing what Smart Insights readers see as important for them.
Update for 2016 Digital Marketing Trends
Well, that's us nearly into 2016, so we have a new series of updates looking at the latest 2016 Digital Marketing Trends and we have been adding to our coverage of the latest trends:
Managing Digital Marketing 2015…
Content marketing planning and effective marketing tactics
In our recent post on the latest marketing trends, we polled readers to ask for their opinion on the single digital marketing tool they thought would have the greatest impact to drive results for their business in 2015. No surprise it was content marketing - it was in the previous year too!
So, what is the latest thinking on content marketing? In our new infographic we've partnered with Jane Hunt, along with her team at JBH Marketing to summarise the key issues and give examples of what's working and what isn't.
The infographic blends stats with advice including the 7 content marketing planning tactics that are crucial to your business and where to invest your budget.
Did you know that...
Content marketing drives inbound traffic, proven by successes with Kissmetrics whose blog accounts for 70%…
Every piece of content should be as long as it takes to convey the message, and no longer...
How many times do we ask ourselves or colleagues, is there is any successful evidence to demonstrate how long different types of content should be (taking into account the restrictions of our platforms)? For example, length of our updates across Tweets, Facebook updates, LinkedIn posts, Videos, and slideshares, email marketing subjects ...
Well the folks at Buffer and Sumall have been looking into this and we thought this was an interesting summary to prompt that question - should we be doing this differently?
Highlights: Tweets receive a 17% higher engagement rate if they are no more than 100 characters and the Top YouTube Videos are no longer than 3 minutes.
Of course the right answer is 'it depends' copy needs to be long as its needed, according to your…
Review your approach to marketing with limited budget
How to build - Start-up Marketing 101
Recently, we attended Denver Startup week, which inspired us to create a short 'How To' Guide that digs into issues related to getting a start-up off the ground – building on the 'How to build requirements for an MVP' and our white paper on 'Tips every first-time entrepreneur should know.'
This article mamepecifically focuses on how to develop a marketing strategy as a start-up, with lessons learned from experts, as well as advice on tools of the trade and how to measure and analyze your progress.
15 Marketing tips for start-ups
Tip #1
The key advice that you always have to keep at the top of everything you do is:
Get your product out the door – with emphasis on speed over perfection. Your product doesn’t…
Benchmarking digital marketing capabilities for your business or your clients against these success factors
The contribution of digital marketing to your bottom line is dependent on whether you have the right capabilities in place, to manage all of the digital touchpoints. But which capabilities are important, which do you need to review? Last year, James Carson and Dave Chaffey identified these in our Managing Digital Transformation Guide for Expert members illustrated in the top-level capability review visual below.
By Digital Marketing Capabilities we are referring to reviewing 7 core capabilities which are strategic approach, performance improvement process, management buy-in, resourcing and structure, data and infrastructure, integrated customer communications and customer experience. You can see that the first four, A-D are around process and management for digital marketing with E-G focused on the tactics to reach and engage audiences.
How do businesses compare - how advanced…
Using the Smart Insights RACE marketing funnel to develop a Digital Strategy
As we enter 2015, the latest stats on use of digital media and technology all point to the growing importance of creating a digital strategy. Did you know that
During 2015 the number of global Internet users will pass 3 billion (Source: ITU)
80% of Internet users now own a smartphone (Source: Global Web Index survey of 32 major markets)
Search remains the main traffic driver for websites (Source: Global Web Index)
The need for businesses to compete to reach and engage their audiences as they use digital devices is clear and well-established.
Yet we know from our Managing Digital Marketing research for 2014 and 2015 that many businesses don't have a digital strategy - only around half of all businesses are using digital media and technology strategically.
Using the RACE system for Digital Strategy development
To help businesses create or refine their digital strategy, Dan…
Does your digital brand really stand out from the competition?
Have you really considered the extent to which your online brand proposition provides something compelling to your audience on an ongoing basis? With the rapid acceleration in new technologies and channels to interact with generic and niche audiences, brands are having to adapt quickly in order to stay relevant and to their audience as well as to out-manoeuvre the competition.
For brands it is ensuring you’re playing to your strengths – are you trusted source or supplier which audiences continue to engage with over time? Are you retaining your authority within your sector and are you listening to your customers and aware of your competition? Developing a digital brand differentiation strategy is essential to retain brand identity and relevancy.
This post will focus on the concept and importance of creating ongoing engagement or 'lock-in' – explaining what it is, how it can be…
7 techniques to saving hours each week on social media updates
So, what you're saying is you just don't have time for social media, right? You've been on all the courses, you've read the 'How to' books, attended all those breakfast seminars - you know you should be using LinkedIn and Twitter, perhaps even Facebook and you've created your profiles/pages but now you've forgotten about them, save for the occasional tweet, post or comment you leave in a group discussion thread. Why is this happening?
It could be simple, you're probably not devoting the right amount of time to doing the right things to make social media work for you effectively.
What's the solution? Well you could outsource some of your social media activities but then there's a cost involved in doing so…
