Introducing a new tool to help marketers review and improve the best options for promoting content

If you’re a regular reader of Smart Insights, it’s likely you’ve seen, or even better, used our Content Marketing Matrix developed with First10. It has proved to be a popular infographic since it’s not just a nice visual of some interesting ‘facts and figures’ about marketing, rather it can actually be applied to get better results since it helps businesses brainstorm the best types of content to create as part of their content marketing strategy.

What is the Content Distribution Matrix?

This infographic is aimed at helping marketers to review the effectiveness of different types of Paid, Owned, and Earned media to promote or distribute their content in generating site visits, leads or sales compared to the level of investment in applying the media measured as paid media costs or the costs of marketing team…

Mastering the art of the product launch: 3 product launch examples plus our recommended process and templates for a successful product launch

You are working during one of the most entrepreneurial eras in history. Thanks to digital media, launching a product to a global audience has never been so manageable.

Equally, competition has never been as fierce. To successfully launch your product online, you need a winning product launch marketing plan. For a successful launch, product marketers need to work with marketing communications experts so that the benefits of the new product are carefully positioned and then, the best online reach channels are selected to reach your audience. We'll show how you can use the RACE framework to review the different media options and build a funnel to maximize interest and sales in your new product.

By using this type of strategic planning and following best practices for using…

7 steps to creating an effective marketing plan for businesses of all sizes

A marketing plan is a bit like a job description for your company. Everyone should have one, but they’re often not fit for purpose, out of date, and reviewed infrequently... Research has shown that businesses with plans succeed, outperform competitors, and retain staff, more than those with no plan. Without a plan there’s no direction for the company or its employees, decisions can be uninformed, opportunities can be missed and threats can damage or destroy the business. Whether you are looking at creating a traditional marketing plan or a multichannel digital marketing plan, we've got resources to help you.

What is a marketing plan?

A marketing plan is your place to document the process of defining and implementing your marketing strategy and creating a roadmap for future growth and business development. A marketing plan should be customer-centred, focused on your target…

A content marketing planning tool to help marketers generate ideas for the most engaging content types for their audiences

We created our Content Marketing Matrix to help our members audit their content marketing assets as part of creating a content marketing strategy. It can also be used for content ideation, i.e. to brainstorm future content ideas to generate leads, nurture prospects, encourage sharing and generate backlinks for SEO. Since we created it eight years ago it's been shared many times and has inspired many 'mashups' in different formats as this Google search shows; great to see it's been useful! I think our Content Marketing Matrix is a powerful mindtool for marketers since it's a content mapping tool, structured to help you think through two key dimensions of which types of content will best support the path to purchase for your target audience. The two dimensions…

An integrated marketing strategy means every element of your marketing plan must contribute towards your vision for the business, or be cut out of the day-to-day workload

Lack of integration between strategic vision and the tactics needed to get there is a problem I often find when reviewing marketing strategies. That's why I created the RACE Growth System as a simple structure to unify your marketing strategy through goals, objectives, and KPIs. This is true whether I'm reviewing student assignments or mentoring marketers creating real-world marketing strategies. More often than not, I find myself reading about different aspects of marketing objectives and tactics that just don't line up with each other - and leave you questioning why. These issues can be magnified by marketing strategy structure - the way the document is split up into separate sections. Without a unifying framework, it's not clear how each strategy is supporting a goal or the…

To make sure your social media campaign is as successful as possible, follow our 7 steps to plan and structure your social campaigns

If you have an upcoming marketing campaign for a new product feature, or a holiday promotion that you want to capitalize on, or maybe you’re releasing a brand-new product, you will want to plan a social media marketing campaign to help spread the word. But in order to make sure your social media marketing is as successful as possible, you need to plan and strategize the campaign in advance and consider how it integrates with other campaign activity.

How to structure an integrated social media campaign plan

Ideally, the social elements of the campaign will be part of a broader marketing campaign plan - our companion post and members' marketing campaign plan template recommend you structure your campaign using these key campaign elements: Campaign goals and tracking. Campaign insight…

Using the RACE OSA process to structure a marketing plan

A marketing plan is an essential tool to compete and grow your business since it gives focus to your marketing activities by setting realistic, achievable priorities within your budget. It simply defines what you want to gain from your investment in marketing and how you will achieve these goals through selecting the best marketing strategies and channels to acquire and retain customers. A typical definition of a marketing plan used by traditional marketers is: "A marketing plan is a strategic document that specifies your organization’s target markets, marketing objectives, programs, and activities to achieve them, expected timescales, resources to be utilized, according to defined budgets, and how success will be measured". This is logical and simple and that's what we need to achieve through the structure of an effective marketing plan. However, for today's marketing where digital marketing channels are so important we need a…

What are the six essential parts of a campaign planning template?

Today's marketing campaigns are complex since they need to reach and engage audiences across a range of digital and traditional channels as shown by our RACE growth system visual.  In this article, we'll step you through an effective structure for briefing marketing campaigns to an agency or in-house team that has been used by tens of thousands of businesses in different sectors including financial services, retail, travel and consumer brands. I will also answer some of the key questions about marketing campaigns. I originally developed the template for structuring one-day training courses on Creating Effective Marketing Campaigns that I ran for the Chartered Institute of Marketing in the UK.  We emailed the Word template to course participants after the training so that they could adapt it to their planning process. For…

Set your Key Performance Indicators, make them SMART KPIs, and align your objectives using our RACE Framework to achieve YOY growth in key metrics for your business

KPIs are a useful way for digital marketers to set expectations and prove that their work is having a positive impact. To outsiders, the success of digital marketing activity can be seen as difficult to measure but this really isn’t the case. In fact, it’s normally easier to measure progress metrics for a digital campaign than an offline one. The aim of this post is to help you set digital marketing KPIs to measure what really matters at the moment, in a way that all parties can agree on. Smart marketing planning is essential for measuring and tracking your progress, and demonstrating value. We’ll cover negotiating KPIs, budgeting, and how to tie your KPIs into the Smart Insights RACE Digital Marketing Framework.

What are digital…

A three-step approach for your retail strategy: stand out and win more retail sales in 2024

It’s no secret that the last few years have caused chaos for retailers globally. To survive you need a robust retail strategy that focuses on long-term and short-term profit for your business.

According to the Centre for Retail Research forecast in July 2021, total retail sales in 2020 will fall overall by -4.6% compared to 2019 (or a reduction of £17,281m). The level of retail sales will not regain last year’s level (2019) until 2022.

With reduced consumer spending, competition for retail marketers converting customers is tougher than ever. Marketers need the right tools, and skills, to optimize a winning digital marketing strategy and cut through the noise to convert even more customers online. [si_learning_path_module_shortcode_block id=154071]

Of course, the rise of online is another major factor that has influenced the…