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…
What does your Horoscope say about your Digital Marketing?
The Digital Marketing Horoscope 2015 links the key digital marketing trends for 2015 with the 12 signs of the Zodiac. Each sign represents a different trend and notable influencer who might share your approach to marketing!
Omnichannel marketing, wearable tech and paid amplification are just a few of the predicted digital marketing trends for 2015, identified by key industry influencers. While mobile friendly content and video continue to be key trends going into the New Year, brands will be focusing their efforts on distributing their content for maximum ROI in 2015. We will also see marketers hone their writing skills to create branded content that is confident, bold and honest to really resonate with audiences.
So, even if you don’t believe your life is governed by the position of the sun, moon and planets, some of the trends below need to be regarded as…
The TOP 5 Trends to look out for in digital marketing in 2015
1.Mobile (still)
“It’s all going mobile”.
Yes, we’ve been saying this for some time now. And every year it gets more true. The technology gets better (both hardware and networks). Things just work better. It’s faster. And easier. So consumers are more inclined to do things on mobile devices. As users, we are all accustomed to our mobile devices. We’re well up the learning curve. And so the payback becomes greater and the effort required becomes less.
For most of us, using mobile devices has become a habit and increasingly a life-support system. This thing in our pocket is the most personal communications device ever invented and many of us would struggle without it (ever lose your phone? Or drop it in the toilet? Or just run out of battery? Or struggle to…
2015 marketing trends lists: Big, safe but dangerous - Don’t let lists limit your thinking!
We’re nearing the end of the 2015 prediction window, where there is the annual glut of big, vague and safe lists of trends we love to read and share. We seem obsessed with lists.
But think of the problem with these lists... Each and every year lists appear to generalise, distort and delete, so by definition they remove what’s relevant to you. They create edges that don’t exist, and so they remove the real value. They can’t help but do that. Any list is written from ‘their’ start point, how likely is that directly applicable by you?
So who wants to read generic trend beliefs? Is it adding to the conversation or layering on more noise or jargon? A list will be most often written to match the agenda, PR objectives, knowledge and experience of the writer/seller. Worse,…
A review of the biggest digital marketing events of 2014
It’s time for us to start writing the history of 2014. This has been a year with its share of growing pains from deploying digital technologies, but also with some remarkable new opportunities emerging from the technologies that connect users to their physical environment and to the human networks that they value.
Here is a month by month description of a year that we all helped to shape and one that provides a lot of lessons to take with us into 2015.
January
The ‘internet of things’ came knocking on people’s doors early in the year. On January 13 Google purchased Nest, the makers of very smart home thermostats and smoke/carbon monoxide detectors.
Under normal circumstances these might not be considered the sexiest of accessories but Nest’s CEO Tony Fadell…
7 mostly simple online services to hack your growth
Marketers have always relied on non-traditional tactics to make their startups grow rapidly. However, content marketing has remained a staple in their campaigns. The methods of online content marketing can almost guarantee a more successful, well-established business within a short period of time.
There are many different strategies that marketers use to make their campaigns more effective, but their most recognizable approach involves creative, optimized online content that attracts relevant audiences, drives traffic to the main website, and generates actual income.
From YouTube videos to Facebook posts, the method of content marketing are versatile enough to fit into everyone’s needs and preferences. The most important goal to have in mind is attracting new consumers to the services and products you offer. The following content marketing tools will help you do that! and Smart Insights new content distribution matrix gives…
5 things we can learn from the Santa brand
Now, if you’re looking for tips on marketing, the big man in red may not be the obvious place to start. But look behind the bushy beard and you’ll see an astute marketer who has some smart tips to share on making Christmas a roaring success
1. He plans ahead
Those toys don’t all appear by magic on Christmas Eve. When the reindeer are all back in their stable, on Christmas Day, he and the elves have a confab about what worked and what they could do better next year. Now for marketers in the real world, this conversation probably needs to happen in January when everyone’s back in the office, and there are some stats to review. But the principle is still the same.
2. He knows his target audience
Santa has a…
The monthly Smart Insights round up of the latest developments and advice for marketers
There were three major digital marketing platform developments to be aware of in November - these are the changes to the Facebook newsfeed and Twitter tools covered below in our social media section and Google introduced mobile SEO-friendly site labels as featured in the @SmartInsights alert in our SEO and content marketing section.
Digital Marketing Strategy and planning for 2015
Well, it’s already that time of year where it becomes popular to look at marketing trends for the year ahead. Many readers will naturally have been planning and prioritising how you invest in marketing in the year ahead for some time already.
In my article on digital marketing trends for 2015 we asked readers of Smart Insights to vote on what they saw as the most commercially significant trend for their business in the year ahead. We have now had over…
Including 4 practical tips on mobile optimisation
With 2015 fast approaching, we within the marketing industry start to ask ourselves, what’s next? When prompted about their thoughts on the digital marketing trends of 2015, a large number of industry experts gave a similar response as shown in our recent survey Digital Trends for 2015. The answers given by many suggested that mobile marketing is now, and will be the pinnacle of brands' marketing strategy.
There's a similar pattern in the Smart Insights poll of Digital Marketing Trends in 2015 with mobile marketing in third place behind content marketing and marketing automation.
Rand Fishkin of Moz suggested that:
‘for many consumer-focused tasks, mobile is likely to eat away at desktop share’.
Jason Falls suggests that ‘2015 will be all about figuring out mobile in some way, and Google will penalize you for not having…
