The Modern Marketer is Part Scientist and Part Artist? Are you balanced?
On a daily basis, social and digital marketing platforms are evolving and developing. In the same way, Marketers are embracing these changes through upskilling or using their hidden skills.
This Infographic, from SalesForce and Pardot, visualises the new Marketer as having two sides to their skillset as an 'Artist' and 'Scientist' - balancing creativity and analytical skills. This has always been true, but the Scientist is more to the fore today? For example, Social Media = (Artist) and Manage your digital Relationships + (Scientist).
As well as being part artist, part scientist, modern marketers also increasingly have some of the most ridiculous job titles.…
Practical advice on WHO you need to execute your content marketing strategy
Many content roles I see are the domain of trained Journalists and Copywriters, but this doesn’t always add up. On the web, many of the best examples of engaging content, and certainly the most sharable, are visual in nature, and often application based. Thus creating content teams made up of skilled writers will limit success.
If you have a large site, with hundreds (or perhaps thousands) of product pages that need writing, then hiring copywriters to get the job done makes good sense. But if you’re also looking to create a good blog, regular email newsletters and possibly applications that integrate with social networks, then you’re going to need some Designer / Development resource as well.
If things are going to be promoted well, then a Community / Outreach Manager would be useful. Finally, to measure…
Our monthly summary of advice and developments to help manage online marketing
Strategy and planning
Early to mid March saw the annual SXSW conference take place in Austin, Texas. This is increasingly influential in highlighting marketing trends and technology. Thanks to David Sealey for his summary of 5 inspiring lessons from marketing. If you’re following the latest trends, then I also recommend Altimeter’s take on the technologies that matter from SXSW.
This year it seems that Omnichannel is the new term for managing multichannel marketing to emphasise the growing importance of social media marketing. If it’s new to you or you’re looking for examples, read more in our Introduction to Omnichannel marketing and these examples of Omnichannel retail.
One of our most popular posts on planning this month is an Digital media introduction infographic courtesy of Hallam Internet Marketing.
We think this is a…
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March 28, 2013
Unless you're one of the lucky few, work can become monotonous. Same commute. Same desk. Same issues.
For this reason I leapt at the opportunity to head out to Austin Texas for South by South-West (SXSW) Interactive. Four days of inspiring learning and informal networking followed and I'd recommend that if you ever get the chance to go, take it.
It's difficult to download everything that you experience at SXSW into a single presentation or post. Rather than give a travel log or diary entry on the events, I hope to offer some inspiration from my notes. I've picked 5 of the things that made me really sit up and pay attention and then after each item I've posted questions designed to inspire you on how to improve your job, business or life.
Ultimately I want my post to inspire you to build or improve…
Innovation doesn’t happen when you’re taking orders from a client. It happens when your agency and your client work together to build something groundbreaking and different. And that’s where every agency sets out to be: on the cutting edge of new ideas and trends.
Today, thriving agencies aren’t just selling their clients marketing tactics; they’re helping them solve business problems, too. But first, you have to build an open, trusting relationship with your client so he will follow you when you pose an original, creative solution to a problem.
The advantages of business savvy
So, how can you begin to earn the kind of client relationships you’re looking for? You have to start by earning your clients’ trust and the first people to begin to build that relationship are the ones communicating with them every day: your Account Executives.
It’s not enough for your Account Executives to simply be good communicators,…
6 tips for a successful agency partnership
Over the last 7 years, I've had experience of working with various different traditional and digital marketing agencies. Whilst one agency’s skill set may differ from another, what I have found to be consistent is the way in which many agencies operate and how clients can get the best from a working relationship with them.
Working with a marketing agency should be a collaborative relationship. With digital marketing moving at such a frightening pace, it’s important to work closely with an agency and allow them to provide strategic insight and know-how whilst acting as an extension of the client’s in-house team.
In this post I’d like to share a few thoughts on how you, as a client, can establish a productive working relationship with your digital marketing agency so you can...
1. Set out your goals and…
25 tips on selecting staff for digital roles
In this post we share some tips and advice to help you if you're looking to develop your career in digital marketing, or if you're involved in recruiting into digital roles.
The advice is based on interviews I completed with specialists from three leading recruitment sepecialists: Dan Boneham at Michael Page: Jonathan Hirst at Network Marketing and Mark Lennox at UK Job Advertising Site OnlyMarketingjobs.com.
We completed these interviews when developing our new Guide to digital marketing job roles and the accompanying infographic showing the opportunities from digital marketing jobs that supports it. We created this summary for the infographic, but there was far more in-depth advice from the interviews we thought was useful too.
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Trends in marketing with the best potential for commercial growth
Update: My review of 22 Digital Marketing Trends 2014
Throughout the year I’m asked about What’s New, What’s Hot and What’s Next. This is one of the reasons why we’ve created the [What’s New in Marketing" updates, to give a monthly summary to help people working in marketing and using digital technologies see the latest developments which really matter. So much of what’s discussed daily in digital marketing is useful or interesting, but just noise.
In this review I will focus on the major trends which we think will be significant in 2013. What’s "significant’? These are marketing activities where we expect to see the most increased investment and focus in 2013. The activities will gain the funding since they will have the biggest impact in creating additional leads and sales and strengthening brands. It doesn’t focus on the latest new Ecommerce…
Some quick Bootstrapping tips to get you started!
Simply put, bootstrapping is doing something with nothing, and that ‘something’ usually refers to running a business.
The origins of the term bootstrapping are up for debate (it’s from the legend of Baron Munchahusen if you believe Guy Kawasaki), but it is generally agreed that it refers to ‘an absurdly impossible action’.
So if bootstrapping a business already seems like madness then why would you try it while working full-time?
I’m sure many people working in digital marketing have fantastic business ideas and think ‘If only somebody would give me £1million to get that business underway.’
Well, the sad fact is that isn’t going to happen, but when you can become an instant worldwide publisher for very little cost then digital bootstrapping is an appealing option for many fantasist millionaires.
So where to start?
Trees and acorns
All businesses take investment to grow and if you…
A matrix to help you review the tools, services and software that you use to manage digital marketing
As digital marketers we're certainly not short of tools to review and improve our marketing. There are many free tools available and certainly some that are worth paying for too.
A recent Redeye/Econsultancy report on Conversion Rate Optimisation contained useful charts for considering the use of marketing technology to impact on bottom line and resource intensiveness. I compiled some of these charts into a matrix to help show where the opportunities lie for marketers who are assessing technology expenditure:
As a digital strategist you can use this matrix to assess your current use of digital tools and plan new tools into your budget for future year(s).
From the report we can draw that conversion optimisation technology is underutilised by organisations yet has the biggest chance of improving…
