Basic marketing principles may remain the same but the digital marketing skills and tools you need to thrive in the workplace are constantly evolving. How can tomorrow's digital marketers future proof their marketing skills?

Preparing for a job in the marketing world tomorrow will be vastly different than it is today. While the basics of marketing may be the same, the digital marketing skills and tools you need to analyze, create, and implement marketing campaigns continue to evolve at breakneck speed. If this seems overwhelming, don't worry, we have resources in place to help you. Why not start by reading up and finding out more about what digital marketing means today. Why are digital marketing skills important now? In the March 2023 CMO survey, 46.4% of respondents ranked 'labor/skills shortage' as their top- or second top-ranked challenge over the next 12 months. In other words, there’s a huge gap…

Social commerce trends to create seamless e-commerce experiences directly in social channels your customers love

One of the things that has always fascinated me about social media is the way it continues to adapt and evolve to changing consumer trends. Over the last 20 years we’ve seen a progressive shift from simple, text-based updates, to increasingly visual and ephemeral content, championed by app-based platforms like Instagram and Snapchat, and at the same time, social commerce has flourished. Whilst newer entrants such as TikTok have taken this trend even further, there have also been innovations in one-to-one communication seen in the development of messenger apps such as WeChat, WhatsApp and Messenger (the latter both owned by Facebook):  It’s been interesting to see how some of these trends have converged to drive innovation in social media…

Use our digital marketing strategy template integrated across the RACE Framework to plan and get ahead in your digital marketing

We all know the old saying “if you fail to plan, you are planning to fail”, but when it comes to digital marketing, this really is the case. It has never been more important than it is now to create a digital marketing strategy template so you can plan, manage and optimize your online activities. Today, digital media is vital when it comes to driving leads and sales, meaning marketers need to understand how best to engage and convert online audiences. Despite this, our research shows that many businesses still don’t have a digital marketing plan. As a result, companies are missing out on the benefits of having a digital marketing plan integrated into their overall marketing plan or as a separate roadmap for digital transformation. At a time when marketers are increasingly…

Practical examples including 8 recommended GPT-3/GPT-4 prompts to support content marketing, email marketing, search and social media marketing

In Part 1, of my review of marketing applications of Chat GPT,  I reviewed the quality of output and interactions of the GPT-3 Large Language Model (LLM) on which ChatGPT is trained by asking: How can I use ChatGPT for marketing? I showed how you can use ChatGPT for learning more about digital marketing and marketing planning by creating plans. In this article, I will explain some practical use cases of how marketers can use Chat GPT for content marketing to support different digital marketing channels. We'll see that knowing how to Prompt ChatGPT will be a key skill, so I'll show different Prompting techniques before reviewing specific applications for the different digital marketing channels. Some of the key digital marketing channels that I'll describe are summarised in this visual from my book Digital…

Learn how to identify and leverage your brand position to create a competitive advantage with our actionable template

Think of some iconic brands. What pops into your head? Perhaps it's Coca Cola’s distinctive bottles, Apple’s sleek, futuristic presentation, Amazon’s UX (User Experience). These businesses realized and harnessed the power of brand positioning, and as such are easily recognizable and distinctive. Of course, these examples are of some of the world’s powerhouses - with a whole heap of money at their disposal. But any business has the opportunity to carve out their brand position and identity at any time to create a competitive advantage. And if you haven’t already, we’d suggest you start right now.

What is brand positioning?

Brand positioning involves enhancing the positive differentiation your brand offers against competitors and the perception of value in your customers’ minds. While it comprises of elements like your company name, logo, etc., successful brands incorporate…

Audit your digital media effectiveness to build stronger campaigns and an efficient marketing funnel in 2023

Reviewing your use of digital media is a crucial starting point for creating or optimizing your digital marketing strategy. But how do you tune in and prioritize what's working, and what isn't, without getting lost in vanity metrics? At Smart Insights we recommend using VQVC to consolidate and streamline how your measure your digital media. This mnemonic shows how volume, quality, value, and cost help you pull out different elements of your marketing activities. Read on to find out more about VQVC and other important digital media planning techniques Moreover, do you really understand how and when each of your key marketing communications is being received by your target audience? Our RACE Framework helps thousands of marketers around the globe track and optimize their key digital media, to get the best results possible, without breaking the bank.…

Without setting clear marketing objectives, you’re basically directionless – and working to achieve vanity metrics that don’t necessarily help you achieve your overall business goals

Digital marketing objectives underpin all marketing strategies. After all, how do you know what you're working towards without clear, actionable, and achievable metrics? Setting marketing goals should always be the priority as they will be the basis of your entire strategy. By achieving your digital marketing objectives, you’re also helping reach your overall business goals, whether that’s boosting your overall sales or improving awareness of your brand. Setting marketing objectives is, on one hand, a great way to motivate yourself and your team and work towards achieving better results for your business. On the other hand, objectives and KPI-setting is about much more than just saying “I want to achieve that and that” – it’s how you can develop a plan or strategy that will help support your vision…

From SMART to SMARTER marketing objectives: Discover how to define marketing objectives, measure your digital marketing goals, and use data to inform your marketing strategy

When identifying specific marketing objectives to support your long-term goals, it is common practice to apply the widely used SMART mnemonic. You will know that SMART is used to assess the suitability of objectives set to drive different strategies or the improvement of the full range of business processes. By definition, an effective SMART marketing objective is: Specific, measurable, actionable, relevant, and time-bound. One of the main reasons we called our site and service SMART Insights is because we help marketers succeed with a more structured approach to marketing strategy and planning. If you haven't already, check out our top 18 digital marketing techniques to ensure you are covering the key areas of digital marketing that are relevant today.

Defining your marketing objectives

Our handy graphic summarizes the five different SMART…

The cultural digital transformation we experience every day highlights the importance of continuous learning in all aspects of business and marketing. How can you leverage training and skills development planning to achieve your goals this year?

The landscape of today’s workplace isn’t what it was twenty years ago. Today’s environment is both fast-paced and competitive, which makes it all the more important that employers find a way to keep employees energized - often with an employee training and skills development plan. This changing nature of work requires additional training strategies focused on enhancing learning agility, transferability of skills and opportunities to explore adjacent, in-demand skills. Digital transformation is an area of skills development that demands attention. Companies need to improve the effectiveness of their online communications now that digital channels are one of the main techniques customers use for selecting and buying products and services. If you're looking to create or improve your marketing…

Simon Sinek explains how to use the Golden Circle model to truly differentiate your brand's value proposition when most fail

Leadership expert Simon Sinek is perhaps best known for giving one of the most popular TED talks of all time, which you can view at the end of this post. The Golden Circle theory explains how leaders can inspire cooperation, trust and change in a business based on his research into how the most successful organizations think, act and communicate if they start with why. I think that marketers will find the most value in his Golden Circle model, which helps give focus to how a business can stand out from similar competitors by communicating its differences. I was prompted to check it out after a workshop when discussing the importance of developing a strong digital value proposition as part of a digital marketing strategy a few years ago. One…