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…
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 strategically manage your marketing spend with 8 integrated simple marketing budget templates
Setting strategic and channel direction, working toward commercial objectives and KPIs, and monitoring your success is great. But if you're not tracking your ROI per channel it's hard to understand how much money you've had to spend to see a return. That's why you need a practical, accessible marketing budget.
How much budget is allocated to marketing?
The latest CMO survey found that yearly growth in marketing spending is predicted to rise from 11.7% to 13.6% in 2023.
Within this growing budget, digital marketing spending, which currently accounts for 57.1% of marketing budgets, is expected to grow by 16.2% over the next year.
A competitive marketing environment in 2023 means…
Using capability maturity models to audit your digital maturity and set targets to improve digital marketing effectiveness
We've been adding to our visual tools to help all members assess how well their businesses are adapting to using digital media and technology and to set targets to improve their results from digital marketing.
We have collected these visuals together in a single download so that you can easily review them and print the most relevant for you. We've designed them So members can use them for different scales of business and roles. There are more than 10 templates which cover:
Digital marketing for small and medium businesses using our RACE framework
Digital transformation for larger businesses
Digital channel marketing activities including SEO, Social media, email and content marketing
You can see one example, which I designed for reviewing digital marketing effectiveness with senior leaders in small and medium or larger businesses. The other templates…
My example dialogues and use cases showing how ChatGPT is much more than ‘yet another AI chatbot’
I’ve been advising on digital marketing and new innovations for over 25 years. Since it was called Internet Marketing… This tends to make you super cynical as to new claims about marketing innovations. Over this time, many of the techniques for digital marketing and approaches to planning digital marketing strategies and campaigns have remained similar.
Much Martech now promises to be be ‘AI-powered’ while still relying on manual analysis and customizations. In fact, I’d say that it’s the development of search and social media platforms that have been the main drivers of change. Until now, that is...
Having tested ChatGPT, I believe it will spark mainstream adoption of AI amongst marketers, since it will be used as a practical tool to support creative development to help marketers working on search, email and social media marketing.
I…
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…
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…
Practical ideas for you to use including how to use ChatGPT
Each year, for the last 10 years, or so, I have identified the latest trends in digital marketing and forecast what the major trends will be in the year ahead. The aim is to help marketers and business owners find new marketing ideas, review their budget investments and put together their plans. There’s always a lot of interest as businesses consider tactics they can deploy to gain an edge by using some of the latest techniques.
This review covers the latest developments in digital marketing across the many digital marketing channels tools that businesses can use shown in the visual below based on our RACE digital marketing framework. I cover ChatGPT at the end of the article. We developed this to help businesses develop a robust approach to developing integrated digital marketing strategies across 25 key activities which we define as…
7 strategies, tactics and tips to stand out. Plan your first 100 days on the job, as a new starter, to make an impact in your marketing career
Starting a new job can be tough. In the first 100 days on the job, not only do you have to contend with the technical side of your role but also your new employer’s culture, politics, processes, and people.
The Trading Economics United States Job Openings report in March 2022 stated that US job openings hit a record high:
The number of job openings in the US rose by 205,000 from a month earlier to a series high of 11.549 million in March of 2022, above market expectations of 11 million, as work shortages persisted.
Meanwhile, in the UK, Job vacancies rose to a new record of 1,318,000…
Review how to integrate digital marketing into your marketing team's structure through Digital Transformation
The latest Smart Insights research study shows how common Digital Transformation projects or programme are today with 30% already having a programme up & running and 31% planning to within the next year.
Yet, digital transformation doesn’t occur overnight. There are a series of steps to go through to get there and the critical factor is the staff. Imagine a world where your Digital Working Party, Digital Group, or Digital Collective is in place, they’ve had several meetings and agreed on an action plan! What’s next? Let's take look at options and examples of how you structure your digital team. Also, crucially, what does this mean in terms of your marketing funnel?
We've got marketing tools and templates to support you in building a strong digital strategy, and structuring your marketing team to get the most…
