Since marketing today changes so rapidly and gets more complex, this gives businesses with the right processes and skills an opportunity to get an edge on their less savvy competition. It’s important that you have the right digital marketing skills inside your business, but equally important you don’t create silos of separate digital marketing specialists and marketers. Our Managing Digital Marketing Teams toolkit will step you through the options for a more joined-up approach. The resources in it review alternative team structures and give you job descriptions to help you recruit and build the right types of skills.  We also show how to set up a Digital Marketing Centre of Excellence (DCoE) with 18 tips on implementation success.…

Businesses that use a reactive, tactical approach to digital marketing communications may get some success thanks to the power of digital channels like search, social media and email marketing. But to scale your reach, maximise conversion and loyalty you need a more strategic approach integrating communications from different channels. Our lifecycle marketing resources will help you follow this more joined-up approach.…

Today, the websites for charities and other Not-for-Profit organisations (NfPs) are a vital communications channel to inspire and engage, raise funds, provoke discussion and services. The challenge for charities in using websites, social media and email marketing, perhaps more so than any other type of organisation, is to simply convey their propositions and encourage engagement given the range of audiences and organisation objectives. With short dwell times on each web page, you need to make your proposition and online offerings immediate and compelling. If you work in marketing for a charity, the Smart Insights toolkit for charities has specific advice and examples from leading charities for on not-for-profit marketing.…

So much is written about best practices for online marketing, whether it’s search, social media marketing or web site design. Yet the bigger and we think, much more important picture of online branding gets so little attention, we think it’s almost criminal… Getting online branding right is especially important for consumer brands in sectors such as household products, food and beverages, but other sectors too can gain from enhancing their online branding. Our online branding toolkit will show you how to improve your online branding and online value proposition using a structured brand audit.…

Have you noticed how most advice and case studies of marketing in books and blogs, focuses on the Big Brands with their Big Budgets. Yes, every business can learn from the heritage of these brands, but it’s a very different world from that for small businesses where budget is limited and every cent and penny of investment matter. Whether you call them SMBs as in the US or SMEs as in the UK and Europe, those responsible for marketing startups and small businesses have one thing in common. They're short on time, resources and budget. Fortunately, online marketing gives some fantastic low-cost or free options for marketing on a budget to gain traction for your growing business. Well-known low-cost options include rapidly creating a website or landing pages using an open source platform like Wordpress or harnessing social media or search engine optimization and content marketing.…

The increase in consumer demand for online purchases will fuel future revenue growth across all B2B and B2C transactional E-commerce sectors from retail through financial services to travel and more. The question for you, is how will you maintain continued growth in your online and multichannel sales as your competitors improve and online competition increases? This is where Smart Insights can help fuel the growth of your business and your personal knowledge by giving you and the marketing, trading and design teams the knowledge and skills to compete. The resources available in our E-commerce and retail toolkit and Marketing Technology and Innovation toolkit includes sector-specific advice and examples on how to exploit digital media and technology if you work in these sectors.…

B2B marketing has changed forever Traditional promotional techniques will only get today’s B2B marketer so far. When B2B buyers select a product or service, the top 3 information sources and buying behaviours are direct to a supplier website, using a search engine and consulting an industry specific intermediary like a B2B publisher or blog. Of course, you could be missing a lot of potential business if you’re invisible in the search engines, don’t have an effective website for generating leads or aren’t using email marketing to convince prospects about why they need your products or services and integrate with your sales teams...   …

How much of the work of your agency now involves digital media and technology? Whether you are an agency specialising in digital marketing services or a more traditional integrated marketing agency, today, your digital marketing services are vital The best way to add value for your clients and win more of this type of business is to improve the quality of service you offer Use our resources developed with experienced marketing agency growth specialist Mark Kelly to review and improve your processes!…

Most businesses now rely on Google Analytics to review the effectiveness of their online marketing. We love GA! It's a fantastic tool, particularly for a free service, and has many, many options to configure it. Yet, when we talk with marketers using Google Analytics, we often see that there is a HUGE missed opportunity in how it is used. First, although many marketers have a good, basic understanding of how Google Analytics, when we ask them we often find it's NOT set up to be customised for their business to show the true value that online marketing activities are contributing. Second, although it may be used to review trends in visits, leads and sales, it's power is often NOT used in an analytical way to review media investments and make changes to customer journeys, design and messaging to increase leads and sales, ironic really, considering the name.  …

Google AdWords gives a fantastic opportunity to get ads for your products and services in front of your audience at the best possible time—the exact moment when searchers are showing intent to purchase. But, this isn't a secret, AdWords has become highly competitive. What's more many advertisers are paying more than they need to since their agencies or in-house advertisers haven't optimised their ads 'to-the-max'. Don't burn your AdWords budget, use our detailed advice to complete a structured review to optimise your investment using the latest features.…