FREE WEBINAR: Preparing your 2025 Digital Marketing Strategy with RACE

Drive the direction of your technology business' growth next year with an integrated approach to marketing strategy and planning

What is the secret of marketing for tech companies? As a popular topic amongst marketers of all backgrounds - this growing sector merits its own discussion, helping us answer questions such as: How do you budget marketing for IT/technology companies? What are the most reliable growth hacks for startups? How can IT and technology marketers stand out to win more high-value customers in an increasingly saturated digital landscape? The global technology market is expected to rise to $3,168.13 million by 2027. This evolving international digital landscape affects us all, and as marketers, it is crucial to react and adapt to stay relevant to our customers. At Smart Insights we encourage members to use OSA to structure their marketing planning. The macro-environment for tech marketers opens up new opportunities which fuel strategies and…

Review where your marketing agency is at and the next steps you should take with our new tool

A question I have been asked when I work with agencies to grow their digital marketing services is ‘how can we benchmark our approach to growing our digital services?’ It all comes down to your marketing agency capabilities, and how you manage digital transformation in your business. To answer that I have used the excellent benchmark framework that Smart Insights has used for other areas. [si_guide_block id="131102" title="Agency B2B digital marketing plan example" description="Put your agency at the forefront of clients' minds and become a thought leader in your market with our example digital marketing plan. Simply edit the information to your agency's goals and KPIs!"] These one-page templates let you quickly review where you are on a five-point scale (from laggard to market-leading). You can spot gaps in your approach to transformation and your…

Review how to integrate digital marketing into your marketing team's structure through Digital Transformation

The latest Smart Insights research study shows how common Digital Transformation projects or programme are today with 30% already having a programme up & running and 31% planning to within the next year. Yet, digital transformation doesn’t occur overnight. There are a series of steps to go through to get there and the critical factor is the staff. Imagine a world where your Digital Working Party, Digital Group, or Digital Collective is in place, they’ve had several meetings and agreed on an action plan! What’s next? Let's take look at options and examples of how you structure your digital team. Also, crucially, what does this mean in terms of your marketing funnel? We've got marketing tools and templates to support you in building a strong digital strategy, and structuring your marketing team to get the most…

If you're looking to attract and retain more customers for your medical business online, we've got pharma and healthcare digital transformation solutions for you

Healthcare digital transformation is a staged program of organizational improvements to pharma/healthcare business models, people, processes, and technologies to integrate digital marketing into a business in order to maximize the potential business contribution of digital media, data, and technology. Challenges relating to digital transformation are not unique to the pharmaceutical and healthcare sectors. However, unlike other sectors there is a greater level of convergence between B2B and B2C approaches: Payers, insurers and hospitals are no longer willing to pay simply for a product push approach; they want fees to be dependent upon the success of the products and procedures through measurable outcomes Rather than creating one message for one brand, the new world order of content strategy requires collaboration and engagement of consumers, who need to feel invested…

Three essential steps to kickstart Digital Transformation

Digital Transformation is a focus for many organizations right now and as you can see from the Google Trends search volumes, it's increasing in popularity recently. As with any change within an organization, there are many challenges, so once you've identified digital advocates in the organization, it's time to map out the journey. In recent months, several companies have mentioned to me that their CEO is committed to digital, but they're having challenges at middle management levels, where it's harder to gain commitment. This can be easier if there is a clear plan shared with all. You can, as many do, call this your digital roadmap, it describes where the business is now and where they're going. There are several models available, for example, Dave Chaffey recommends the Carnegie Mellon Capability Maturity Model (CMM) in his post 'Using capability maturity models to…

Marketers, managers, and digitally-savvy customers have all experienced first-hand the effects of Financial Services digital transformation over the last year.

Of course, challenges relating to digital transformation are not unique to the financial sector. As in many industries, COVID-19 was another resounding wake-up call for the financial industry in terms of digitalization. In this blog, I will be making my Financial Services digital transformation recommendations, based on trends and innovation in the sector at present. Even before the pandemic, Financial Services customers were already seeing rapid growth in digital services available online. The digital disruption caused by the events of 2020 only accelerated that. Now, many industry studies are suggesting Financial Services digital transformation will have a lasting effect. So, it's up to Financial Services marketing leaders to ensure their business is reaching, interacting with, converting and engaging customers across all digital touchpoints in the customer lifecycle. This is demonstrated via our popular RACE…

Information technology management and marketing is fiercely evolving with tech startups and established businesses rapidly adapting their approaches to IT and IT marketing to add value for their customers

We've rounded up our top 7 recommended IT marketing skills and tools for you and your team to plan, manage, and optimize your marketing strategy. Structured across our popular RACE Framework, implement tactics and strategies to achieve your goals at each stage of the customer journey.

1. The RACE Framework

The top spot goes to the RACE Framework. In fact, all our IT marketing recommendations stem from this crucial practical digital strategy framework. RACE empowers marketers and managers in the IT and high tech sectors to streamline their marketing planning to create an efficient and effective marketing strategy. Our tried-and-tested marketing structure helps IT marketers track marketing optimization at each stage of the customer journey from reach to act to convert to engage. Apply the RACE…

Manufacturers are rapidly adapting their marketing strategies in the age of digital disruption. How do your digital marketing capabilities compare?

In this article, I will be reviewing the state of digital transformation in the manufacturing sector. I will give practical digital marketing recommendations for manufacturing companies at different stages of digital maturity. Plus, I'll be revisiting our popular 2021 digital marketing maturity benchmarking report to help you assess the effectiveness of your manufacturing marketing. The manufacturing industry, including the marketing of manufacturing products, has typically been slow in its approach to digital transformation over the last 20 years. There are many reasons for this. McKinsey highlights 'external market factors, combined with fragmented and complex industry dynamics and an overall aversion to risk' in construction as barriers to change in this vital area. However, the digital disruption caused…

Implement research-driven, customer-centric marketing to truly optimize your finance or bank marketing strategy and compete in a competitive digital landscape

A recent study of challenger bank marketing tactics caught my attention since it highlights the digital disruption in the financial services industry. What can businesses learn from this challenge in a situational analysis of their own environment, and how can marketers optimize their financial services marketing using this research? If you're a marketer in the finance sector right now, you will have witnessed huge changes in the industry in the last 12 months alone, with more customers making financial decisions online leading to increased competition and challenges for financial services and banking industry marketers in both the macro and microenvironment. Therefore, using research such as the challenger banks case study below can help you structure a winning marketing strategy. As we know, the first stage in a marketing plan is…

With the launch of our brand new Learning Paths - offering practical, strategic marketing courses online - discover which marketing training solutions have been the most popular

Deciding on a marketing course to optimize your strategy in 2021 is tough. With so many marketing training options, you need a solution that's practical, data-driven, and proven to generate results, quickly. Read on to discover our Smart Insights members' top Learning Paths and resources in each membership tier.

Top Business Professional marketing course: Manage change for digital transformation

Module from Digital Transformation Learning Path for Business Professional Members Digital Transformation is the use of new, fast and frequently changing digital technology to solve problems. However, a Boston Consulting Group report found that only 33% of significant IT projects have been fully successful since the year 2000. The danger is that the benefits of digital transformation are not being fully achieved as organizational barriers can hold…