Chart of the day: 11.1% of businesses budgets is spent on marketing activities on average

Research by The CMO Survey has found that 11.1% is the average budget spent on marketing. As shown in the chart below, 11.1% on average is how much businesses are spending n marketing. If your business is spending less than this, it's worth considering whether there are missed opportunities. Across sectors, the research has found that marketing spend is mixed, but there are a number of industries that spend considerably more than others. Shown below is the percentage of budget spend on marketing in each sector listed. Energy, healthcare, media and tech industries are leading the highest average marketing spend Digital marketing also dominates marketing spend across B2C and B2B sectors when compared to "traditional" marketing spend. …

The voice assistant could eventually listen to all conversations in a room, identify speakers, and even interrupt them with sponsored suggestions

During the Second World War, a campaign warned private citizens against speaking too loosely in public places about matters of national interest. After all (so the campaign explained) one could never be sure of who was eavesdropping. In recent years, the rise of ‘listening robots’ has been precipitous, including Google’s Assistant, Amazon’s Echo device, and Apple’s Siri-activate HomePod. Triggered by ‘call names’ (for example, Siri), they offer useful hands-free assistance on everything from checking the weather and travel, to selecting music from a personal playlist. In the Case of Alexa, things are set to take what many would consider a sinister development by adopting a far more ‘hands-on’ attitude A recent Amazon patent suggests the voice assistant could eventually listen to all conversations in a room, identify speakers, and even interrupt them…

Three ways that marketers can benefit from working with Spotify

When marketers talk about ‘content’ one often thinks of words, images, video, or a combination of all three, such as infographics or interactive visuals. However, in recent years there has been a surge of interest in audio, from the growing popularity in podcasting to the emergence of smart devices. The growth of music streaming, in particular, has been a dominant trend across the globe, radically changing people’s relationship and consumption patterns with music.  These changes have revealed many interesting insights and have opened up new opportunities for marketers to reach new and existing consumers within an audio environment. [si_guide_block id="5676" title="Download FREE Resource – Digital marketing plan template" description="Our popular marketing planning template built on the Smart Insights RACE planning system."/]

Spotify and the emergence of audio platforms

Spotify, Apple…

Chart of the Day: 2 in 3 ad-blockers worry about how companies use their personal data

Data, and database marketing, allows to deliver targeted, personalized and relevant advertisements and communications in real-time dependant on where the user is in the buyer's journey. Understanding their stage of intent is vital in order to deliver the right message - digital allows this process, and the user, to be tracked. Through data, explicit and implicit, we can continually change and optimize our ads in order to improve our communications and, in turn, increase our return on marketing investment. Users are getting more and more concerned about the amount of data that is being captured, where it is stored and how it is being used. In the light of the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal, users are rightly concerned about how much personal data is being stored online and who can access it for what reasons. New research shows…

Chart of the day: Customer Experience is the main focus for brand marketers looking to strengthen their brand marketing strategy for 2018

Branding has always been a hot topic of discussion amongst marketers, as there seem to be a number of different definitions and purposes of brand marketing that marketers can adhere to. Years ago, branding could simply be pinned down to defining a set logo, slogan, colour palette etc. However, in today’s day and age, branding has become a tad bit more complicated. Branding can be that ‘feel-good’ emotion that your customer experience when they hear your brand name, it can be the feeling that makes them associate to your brand identity and the perception that customers get, when they see your brand. Every year, the focus of branding and brand marketers keeps shifting, given the top marketing trends of the year and the latest developments in technology. A recent chart from…

80% of retailers have a welcome programme in place. So, is having the ability to push an email message to your subscriber (prospect) valuable or not?

Holistic Marketing recently analysed 80 retailers signup processes and what amazed me the most was how 87% of retailers have their subscribe below the fold, invisible to all, with the exception of those who are determined to work hard and find it. Yet, 80% of retailers have a welcome programme in place. So, is having the ability to push an email message to your subscriber (prospect) valuable or not? It would appear that the website team says no, and the email teams say yes. The problem, I believe is due to a disconnect between two teams and what they’re rewarded on. The email marketer fully understands the value of a subscriber, and indeed the value of a ‘new’ subscriber, who is eagerly opening, clicking and converting,…

Chart of the Day: Social network popularity based on share of social media minutes

You will have noticed that Facebook isn't getting the best press at the moment with the latest lack of data privacy revelations... This is on top of the latest statistics showing that Facebook usage is declining in younger audiences according to eMarketer. This raises the question for marketers that if Facebook is declining in popularity in younger age groups, are there other social networks that warrant more attention? The latest insight from the comScore panel in their 2018 Global Digital Future in Focus comparing the overall popularity of social networks by share of time (for December 2017), suggests the options.

Most popular social networks based on share of minutes

You can see this is a sea of Facebook blue, so this shows that despite the negative media hype…

Sales prospecting has always been a time-consuming and often frustrating task for salespeople – from finding the right prospects for your business to finding their contact information and reaching out to them

However, with the right tools to help, these tasks can be easier and go so much faster. In this article, I’ll be sharing some of my top sales prospecting tips and tools to help you get better results in less time! We’ll be covering 2 different aspects of sales prospecting in this post: First, tips and tools that will help you identify quality sales prospects And afterwards, the tools that can help you easily discover their best contact information

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Tips and tools to help you find sales prospects

1. LinkedIn and LinkedIn Sales Navigator

The day…

Chart of the day: social media apps are the most used apps

According to research by The Manifest, 39% of respondents said social media apps were the most frequently used apps on their smartphone. This was followed by gaming apps (10) and messaging apps (10%) and then retail apps (7%). Most users are using apps to keep in touch with people via social media and messaging or to play games, perhaps while they on a car passenger or on the train to work. Peoples smartphones are assisting peoples lives by keeping them social whether that's on social media or via messaging apps, and phones are also entertaining people. The research looked at wider mobile app uses and found over half (51%) said they use apps 1-10 times per day, though, in reality, people don't sound so this could be underreported. The survey also explored why…

Interview: Assaf Eisenstein, Founder of Lusha

At Smart Insights we're always on the lookout for new tools which help marketers improve their business leads and sales. With many tools out their to help with outreach, we're drawn to Lusha, a new tool that not only helps improve the outreach process but enriches your CRM and Salesforce leads, and can be integrated with a range of other tools including MailChimp, Hubspot, and Intercom. We spoke to the Founder of the company, Assaf, to find out more:

1. What inspired you to create Lusha?

We live in a world that is data rich but information poor. While the web and all the social networks within it giving us countless ways to discover things and connect with people, professional’s are often stuck when it comes to having instant access to the information that matters when it matters. The pace of business is getting faster and our ambition…