Benchmark the priority areas for your digital marketing strategy
The fact is, there isn't a perfect time for any benchmarking, so now as good a time as any to take a little time to reflect on your team or your organisations strenghts and weaknesses and how you feel that's bearing up against your top 2 or 3 competitors. So much changes in a year, internally and externally, and there's a lot to be said for a pragmatic review to ensure that your focus and undoubtedly limited resources are in the right place for 2012.
With this in mind, we decided to create a new Internet marketing benchmark tool for our Expert members.
What exactly do you health check?
[caption id="attachment_9345" align="alignright" width="271"] The Healthcheck tool now available to Expert members[/caption]
It's a little like going to a health clinic for a check-up, we believe, there…
Twelve ideas for increasing your personal digital footprint
Competition for jobs in marketing seems to be getting tougher... Having a degree, a year or twos experience, and a Linkedin page just isn’t going to cut it any more.
We’ve seen marketers displaced during the recession creating YouTube or QR code CVs and auctioning themselves on eBay.
You’re going to be up against a new breed of digital natives when you next interview and you need to be able to meet the challenge head on.
Here are my top tips on personal branding and getting hired marketing 2.0 style.
1. Write a blog. It doesn’t have to be about marketing but it helps. Failing that, write about what moves you, what you feel passionate about, as it shows through in your writing. It also demonstrates creativity, opinion and staying power. Too many people start a blog and soon…
More predictions for marketing using digital technology platforms in 2012
Wow: it’s 2012. Now thoughts naturally turn to the future. What might this year hold for the world of Digital Marketing? Of course none of us knows for sure. The rapid pace of change and the accompanying opportunities and threats facing players in the digital/tech space are, in large part, what makes it all so exciting. And hard to predict. But it’s always fun to guess…
I used to think that being a futurist would be quite a good gig; you know: fly in to somewhere nice, speculate a little about what might happen, pocket the fee, then fly out and keep a low profile elsewhere while none of it came true…?
I’ve realised though, that to do this you’ve really got to keep running (see George Clooney’s character in the excellent Up In The…
Burberry case study
I’ve shown how many of the leading brands who use digital media successfully have clear statements of their vision for digital media to transform their brand and using BHAG to support these. Increasingly, these statements show how community and social media are important to support this transformation.
I think this is a really good example of how to articulate such a vision:
You may have seen the video late last year - it’s also a great example of how to use a customer testimonial by Salesforce.com as part of their “social enterprise" proposition, which promises to ‘incorporate social elements into every aspect of a business”.
I find many like this clarification of video, but many have seen it! If you have, take a look at the new video from Salesforce client Rossignol on how Social media has transformed their business.
In it, Burberry CEO Angela Ahrendts…
12 digital marketing fundamentals to get right in 2012
At the turn of the year, it’s always worth reflecting on the opportunities and challenges ahead to help shape priorities for marketing. In a recent talk for AdTech London, I identified 12 marketing trends, available in the Slideshare embed at the end of the post. In this post I’ll highlight some of the main opportunities and I've added links to our posts and guides to help you think through your strategy.
We've kept this post available on the blog for historical reference, for the most up-to-date marketing trends see our 2015 Digital Marketing trends predictions.
Most important marketing trend for 2012 : creating a cross-channel engagement strategy
We can be sure that there will be will be lots of announcements of exciting innovations and marketing trends in all of the search and social networks within in 2012. We look forward to covering them within our alerts, but they can…
wherever in the world you are...
We're about to take a bit of a break, so we thought we'd say "Hope you enjoy your break".
I'd also like to say a big "thanks" to all who have shared ideas on marketing better through posts, comments and shares over the year. We're looking forward to sharing more of the latest insights with your help next year.
We would also like to thank all the talented folk who worked hard to create the new SmartInsights.com including designers Anna Weaver and Chris Leach of First 10, Paul Rouke of usability company PRWD, plus James Wray and Alasdair Wightman. Thanks guys!
Introducing Clicky Analytics
We've covered a lot of tools to help with analysis and planning, so will end the year with one more recommendation. Since we've launched the new site we've started using the excellent Clicky alongside Google Analytics. Here's an idea of where our site visitors are…
Our interview with Richard Beaumont of the Cookie Collective
This is our second look at a technology solution to help marketers comply with the new "cookie law". This was the first - an interview about a cookie free analytics system.
The Cookie Collective have created a toolkit which can help site owners do a free cookie audit and place a consent message on the site giving information about cookies. This is how the consent message looks for the Cookie Collective script:
So, onto the questions, thanks to Richard for his clear responses.
Question 1. What solutions do you have to help marketers many compliance with the EU directive relating to cookies?
The Cookie Collective wanted to create a complete end to end service enabling any website to become compliant with the new law, and we have built a suite of products to achieve this.
The…
An interview with Oliver Birleson of Maxsi Limited
Following on from our posts and discussions on how to best implement the cookie law by May 2012, we're going to take a look at some of the technology and consulting solutions available to help marketers comply.
Our first post is an interview with Oliver Birleson of MaxSi Limited who are offering a cookie free analytics system based on their established eVisitAnalyst product.
Question: Why have you developed your solution?
We have developed eVisit Analyst 8 due to the demand for an analytics system which retains optimal functionalisation regardless of whether or not visitors have disabled cookies. Moreover, as the Information Commissioner's Office have deemed analytics as 'non-essential' cookies, there is the need for an analytics system that is not reliant upon visitors giving their positive consent to store cookies. Users of eVisit can therefore have an analytics system which does not fluctuate dependant…
Infographics to give you ideas for managing the new marketing
Infographics seem to be a popular way to learn and share statistics and marketing approaches. We've been selective in sharing 1 or 2 infographics a month during 2011, focusing on those with a clear learning about the impact of a new marketing technique or how to approach it.
1. The content marketing grid from Eloqua
An excellent way of thinking through how and prioritising content marketing for B2B or B2C markets.
2. A whole world of word-of-mouth
This really shows the power of WOM and that favourite social media buzzword of 2011, "amplification".
3. Building a successful brand in the social space - 9 tips from Weber Shandwick
It's the 9 drivers of "world class sociability" that attracted us to this one.
4. Measuring social media ROI - ensure…
And what to do about it
Social media is not a standalone skill-set, nor is it even a vocation in its own right. It's a mindset, a set of specific tools and most importantly, it's a process weaved into content and social media marketing. Our post showing the scope of Social CRM shows how social media marketing activities occur across the whole business - this Altimeter image clear shows how wide the scope of social media is.
Beyond that even - social media has to be increasingly integrated into an organisation, not owned by marketing or PR types. Social media doesn't (or shouldn't) belong to someone or just to one team unless they're the only people who care about the customer. Why? Social media starts with your customer, or worst case your fans and brand advocates (who are usually happy customers, right?). And, because…
