Use our digital marketing maturity models to assess new opportunities for upskilling and digital transformation
Ever since I’ve been involved in working with businesses to improve their digital marketing, I’ve seen huge variations in digital capabilities. That's why at Smart Insights we have always championed using digital marketing maturity models as a simple technique to assess your digital marketing effectiveness. Today, Smart Insights Members have a wealth of free and premium digital marketing auditing resources and training solutions for digital upskilling, which I will cover in more depth in this article.
If you're new to the concept of reviewing or assessing digital marketing maturity, you might ask why it's considered necessary. The value in reviewing digital maturity is that it can quickly give you a ‘line in the sand’ benchmark for your organization's digital marketing activities to improve upon. In today's digital landscape, comparing your digital maturity to similar competitors is an…
An introduction and examples of using a planned approach to business digitalization with examples
In this article, you will learn what should be included in a digital strategy for a business and how to set goals and structure it. We will also explain the difference between a digital marketing strategy and cover some examples of digital strategy.
What is digital strategy?
A digital strategy defines an organization’s priority initiatives for future investment in digital technology to make a business more competitive by digitalization of its processes and review of its business model. It has a broad scope, covering how digital technology can support business goals across the business.
Technology analyst Gartner (2023) highlights this in their definition of digitalization where they emphasize a focus on improving business model rather than process. However, for me, digital strategy should consider both digitalization of both business processes and business model innovation.
Although ‘digital strategy’ usually focuses on…
Tap into your customers' evolving relationships with technology and the financial services industry and seize new opportunities to strengthen your financial services digital strategy
Globally, the financial sector is facing significant challenges as new online services are created and improved. As consumers' demands and expectations continue to increase, marketers and managers must adapt their financial services digital strategy to stay ahead of the competition.
In this blog, we explore the latest innovations in the finance sector and how they apply to both business- and consumer-facing markets, ranging from established financial services brands and new fintech startups to IFA intermediary markets. And, more importantly, what you can do about it.
Opportunity, Strategy, and Action for financial services
Our simple OSA model helps marketers, managers, and business owners identify challenges and opportunities in their current situation, inform their strategy, and take action. As we discuss the latest developments, it can be useful to refer back to…
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…
A strategic digital marketing model of technology acceptance for those looking to bring about digital transformation
The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) is designed to measure the adoption of new technology based on customer attitudes.
TAM is largely credited to Fred Davis in 1986, when he was part of the Computer and Information Systems, Graduate School of Business Administration at the University of Michigan in the US. Although there are now many variations of the model, the original Technology Acceptance Model is agreed as the following:
This was at a time when computers were being introduced into the workplace and Davis was looking for a way to predict and explain system use both for vendors and IT managers.
[si_guide_block id="5676" title="Free digital marketing plan template" description="Our popular marketing planning template is structured across the Smart Insights RACE Framework. Join Smart Insights…
What are the essential parts of a digital transformation plan?
A digital transformation plan is a strategic, long-term plan focusing on integrated digital media channels, implementation of new technologies, and smart, digital ways of working.
The purpose of a digital transformation plan is to define how to compete more effectively with digital marketing. The scope of a digital marketing plan is typically annual, but a digital transformation plan will typically be longer since this involves creating long-term digital roadmaps.
Since creating awareness and achieving conversion still commonly involve offline channels such as a call-centre or in-store, digital marketing plans need to define integration between channels using techniques like customer journey mapping.
Your omnichannel digital transformation plan
Digital or online marketing is any form of marketing that involves using online channels for goals of acquisition and retention. It also includes digital technology and the use of data to target audiences more precisely with personalized messages.
Understand…
Chart of the Day: How popular are Digital Transformation programmes?
Our Managing Digital Marketing research (a free download) reveals many challenges for how digital marketing is run by companies today. Problems included a lack of focus on integrated strategy, testing and optimization and structural issues, such as teams working in silos or lack of skills in integrated communications.
To counter these types of problems and to make the most of the opportunities for growing a business through digital marketing, many businesses are now putting a digital transformation programme in place. The chart shows how many businesses are active in transformation.
You can see that over a third (35%) of businesses already have a transformation programme in place, which is an increase from the 34% who last year had a programme set up. On top of this, 31% are looking to launch…
Media and entertainment business need to reinvent business models, TikTok's ban on misinformation, Facebook proposing deepfake videos ban and Twitter removing Audience Insights
With most people only getting back to work after the New Year break this week, marketing news is still fairly slow. However, this week has seen a few interesting announcements that we think you need to know about - which is why they are included in our latest news roundup.
First up is the revelation that 50% of media and entertainment executives don't think they can continue with traditional business models, with the failure to reinvent putting the future of businesses at risk.
TikTok has announced an update to its community guidelines in a bid to stop the spread of misinformation on its app ahead of the 2020 US Presidential election.
Facebook has proposed a partial ban on deepfake videos after facing further pressure to curb misinformation on the platform.
Finally, Twitter…
Aspiration for better digital experiences is never the problem but buy-in and execution can be.
Aspiration for better digital experiences is never the problem but buy-in and execution can be. Faced with rising digital expectations, B2B marketers and their IT colleagues know something must be done but often have too many internal roadblocks to get there.
Episerver recently surveyed 700 global B2B decision-makers and has provided insights into what professionals want to do today, tomorrow and in the future to fix the customer-centricity gap between what their customers want and what they actually deliver.
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Digital experience today
A large percentage of marketers and technology professionals say their website delivers an exceptional customer experience and follows industry best practices. According to Episerver’s research, 86% of professionals surveyed said they deliver industry-leading websites and 84% said they deliver exceptional customer experiences online.
This confidence reverses, however, when marketers and technology professionals were asked…
An introduction to the what, why and how of digital transformation covering examples and 5 key challenges to overcome
We’re working in an era where the development of technology exceeds companies' capabilities to manage the challenges created by the technology.
New platforms, apps and tools are emerging daily and as they do, customers, prosumers and keyboard warriors are adopting the technology, talking about businesses and brands, sharing feedback and pinning images of what they’ve bought.
Marketers and brands have lost control forever. On a regular basis we witness well-known companies managing customer conversations very publicly. And it’s not always positive.
Some businesses have made a full transformation to digital. They embraced 'new media' at an early stage, listened to customers and have digital strategies fully integrated within their businesses. Examples include RS Components who realised that they needed to create their own customer community and created Idea Spark, a forum for engineers to…
