Try these 8 new and trending customer-centric approaches to help you keep proving your value to leads and customers over email

Marketing trends forecasts should be resources marketers can consult to help them set strategic priorities for the coming year. But all too often they recycle the same old ideas or serve as thinly disguised showcases for vendor specialties. So let’s make this email marketing forecast more useful by focusing on one overarching development we see happening in the world of email marketing and the supporting events that make it a significant development. For my part, I expect that email experience will be the defining trend for 2024 – the increasing focus on improving our customers’ experiences with our brands, products, services, representatives, and messages. Many of the more specific trends included in forecasts that are beginning to trickle in revolve around improving our customers' experiences of our emails. That includes everything from building…

Are you benefiting from the latest sector innovations in your healthcare business' marketing strategy?

We are now in a period of significant change for healthcare marketeers, as digital developments continue to increase the importance of both digital communications and value delivery in healthcare. Now, businesses need to continue to innovate their business models to make their online experiences and customer engagement communications even more effective, to attract and retain healthcare practitioners (HCPs) and consumers amidst uncertain/disruptive times. In our future of digital marketing trends report, we focus on how innovations in digital communications can support brand marketing and sales teams to communicate these new value propositions.

Disruption and change management

The authors of The future of Biopharma highlight trends of disruption within the biopharma industry specifically. This disruption is a result of a shifting power balance in two primary directions. The first shift is in the balance…

Mapping the most effective AI technologies for marketing across the customer lifecycle in the coming year

Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology is a hot topic in marketing at the moment, with the huge interest in ChatGPT (see our articles on using ChatGPT for marketing). But AI is a broad term covering a wide range of different technologies, many of which have been available for some time. We originally wrote this article based on the opportunities for using AI for marketing in 2017 and have updated it since with examples. Artificial intelligence means any technology that seeks to mimic human intelligence, which covers a huge range of capabilities such as voice and image recognition, machine learning techniques and semantic search. That's why, in our AI and Machine Learning briefing for members, we have identified fifteen artificial intelligence techniques that businesses of all sizes can implement, rather than techniques that only major tech giants can devote…

Actionable steps to prepare for the future of marketing

Digital marketing today is complex and it’s inevitable it will get more complex in the future as new technologies and platforms emerge. Take the recent rapid adoption and interest in Instagram Threads and Open AI ChatGPT, as an example. Marketers also have to contend with the complexity of the many channels we need to track in our analytics such as organic and paid search, social media, display, and email marketing. This visualization of the B2B customer lifecycle shows the great opportunities for harnessing different digital marketing channels to encourage lead generation, nurture, and purchase. It also highlights the challenge of managing the always-on marketing activities that need continuous focus to maximize conversion in the face of fierce competition.

Our latest research on digital marketing trends for 2023 to 2024

Each year, at Smart Insights we…

Evaluating technology options for innovation in marketing - do you know your Hype Cycles?

If you're involved in marketing strategy development, you will be constantly making judgments and reviewing with colleagues which digital technology innovations are most relevant to your organization. The Gartner Hype Cycle, which is published each year is a good tool to use to find out about both newly emerging innovations and more established marketing technology that could be relevant. In this article, we compare different examples of the well-established Gartner Hype Cycle tools which serve to highlight the adoption of new technology services within marketing technology. Gartner publishes many different hype cycles reviewing the adoption curves for different types of technologies, but as a digital strategist, I am most interested in those focusing on digital marketing technologies. A summary of the report with the infographic is published annually and I have been monitoring them and sharing them for over…

How to research and optimize strategic brand development. Creating a strong omnichannel brand identity based on research

Brand identity is often misunderstood as simply picking a color palette and a logo. In reality, this is just one element of brand development strategy. With every market bulging with competitors, carving out a strong brand identity is critical to differentiation and achieving cut through. The concept of building a strong brand identity is therefore grounded in research, and based on a clear understanding of the business, market, competitive landscape, and brand positioning. It’s more than simply coming up with a name and plastering a logo across collateral. It is a strategic approach to designing an identity that truly reflects the business. It requires a deep understanding of the business values, what it does, and how it wants the world to perceive it.

What is brand identity?

Brand identity is a collective term for all…

How do direct-to-consumer businesses establish themselves in a competitive market? We look at how D2C businesses leverage owned data to reach and engage directly with consumers

In recent years, brands have realized the merits of owned and self-operated direct-to-consumer (D2C or DTC) sales channels. In line with ongoing global digitalization, D2C models saw even further acceleration and greater emphasis. Direct-to-consumer e-commerce (D2C) sales in the US massed US $128.33 bn in 2021 and have been predicted to increase by 42% to $182.62 bn by the end of 2023. Clearly, now's the time to invest in your e-commerce marketing strategy. Whether your model is B2B, B2C, D2C, or a mixture - your channels and media will only be as effective as the marketing strategy that ties them all together. We've got resources to streamline your e-commerce marketing strategy and planning,…

Find out how to use the RACE Framework to optimize a more people-centric approach to marketing for manufacturing

In manufacturing, marketing enables you to connect with both wholesalers and distributors, ensuring that your product reaches your customers. However, as our target decision-makers are becoming familiar with online models for other products and services, so too must we as manufacturing marketers consider if we are still using the most appropriate tools for the job. Digital marketing has evolved tenfold in the last few years. And, whilst the adoption of new omnichannel marketing strategies has varied across different sectors, in manufacturing today we are seeing some great examples of a people-centric approach to marketing. When considering your options for how to market a manufacturing company, the RACE Framework is a really useful system for visualizing customer journeys. As such, the below examples will be structured across RACE. (Plan) > Reach > Act > Convert > Engage The RACE…

How to structure your software go-to-market strategy using Smart Insights’ Opportunity Strategy Action framework

When planning to go live with a new product or service, it’s important to have a clear idea of how and when you will launch. This is particularly true for software marketing leaders, planning their go-to-market strategy in a growing and competitive marketplace. Software as a service (SaaS) spending worldwide is estimated to reach $10 trillion by 2030. When you also take into account that up to 45% of product launches are delayed for different reasons, the importance of having a clearly defined go-to-market strategy becomes even more stark. Delayed product launches may mean your software won't be received in the same way as it could have been at your anticipated on-time product launch. In some instances, missing the boat here could significantly impact your product's financial viability, despite costing the same amount to…

What does omnichannel mean in Pharma? And what does digital disruption mean for this increasingly complex industry?

Omnichannel Pharma does not exist in a vacuum. Many industries launched large-scale omnichannel transformations years ago, and consumers are experiencing the benefits. Of course, digitization has been gradually occurring for customers across many sectors, as the percentage of users who are willing/expecting to make digital purchases increases. However, pharmaceutical companies have typically been lagging behind other industries in providing an omnichannel experience, since face-to-face communications are seen as beneficial as part of service delivery. Pharma marketing notoriously relies on complex customer journeys. This has never been the case more than now, with customers' increasing digital expectations. That's where Omnichannel Pharma comes in. If you're still deciding whether to create a digital/omnichannel marketing strategy for your Pharma business, or you're trying to get more digital buy-in, don't miss my free explainer blog 10 reasons you need…