For marketers who walk the walk
You know the theory. Now here's the practice. If you want opinions you can trust, advice you can use and real-world experience to learn from, then there's no better collection of marketing experts than here.
Copy is dead. Long live SEO copy
I recently attended the IDM’s excellent one-day course covering Search Engine Optimisation and came away with several invaluable insights on the current and future demands on copywriting in digital. Principally, with the sense that everything old is new again…
2 comments | Full storySee the road ahead in your rear view mirror
If you are a heavy TV viewer like me, you can’t help but have noticed a Littlewoods commercial in heavy rotation. Easily mistaken for a summer holiday promotion, it features Myleene Klass, who last year swapped High Street retailer Marks and Spencer for the catalogue company. After a few views, you might start to think that “Spread the Cost” could embed itself as a consumer-friendly slogan in the same way as Tesco’s “Every Little Helps”. What you might not realise is that the campaign represents a return to its roots by Littlewoods and a surprisingly persistent survival of a core direct marketing concept into the digital age.
0 comments | Full story“Need-to-know” developments in marketing from April 2013
Doesn’t time fly? On the 30th April 2013 the WWW was officially twenty years old. How it’s changed and what a “wild ride it’s been” as someone @replied when I shared the below. We certainly owe a debt of gratitude to Sir Tim Berner’s Lee, not only for the invention, but also his dedication to keeping it open through his work with the The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and other non-commercial organisations.
0 comments | Full storyWhy is Customer Experience Management (CXM) SO important?
In an age when customers have access to vast amounts of data about your company and your competitors, Customer Experience is fast becoming the only real sustainable source of competitive advantage. In fact, creating a positive and consistent customer experience across multiple channels is one of the biggest challenges facing businesses today, especially when every empowered B2B Buyer expects you to know them and their individual needs.
1 comment | Full storyMy Data Discovery experience
Guest blog spot is handed over to one of the bright young things from our first ever IDM Data Discovery workshop. Thanks to generous funding from the DM Foundation and our sponsors, the workshop’s aim is to give talented, numerically-minded university students the inspiration and the business contacts to apply their analytical skills to a career in marketing. Here’s Dannielle Beechey’s take on a very hands-on two days…
0 comments | Full storyMulti-skilling the B2B Marketing Department
I remember back in the 90s when I attended University, that my Bachelor of Business degree with a major in Marketing was made up of many different subjects and modules that probably don’t even make it on to the curriculum for the modern day marketing degree. More importantly that degree did not include some essential skills and subjects that the modern marketer now has to take for granted – digital marketing, content creation and online brand reputation, to name but a few.
1 comment | Full storyIn at the deep end – and still learning…
Like many, I was new to the world of digital marketing. I graduated in Advertising and Brand Management at a time when digital hadn’t really made an impact in marketing. Yet as soon as I joined the professional arena it was obvious that digital was something I would have to tackle at some point if I wanted to remain marketable myself. Five years later and well versed in more traditional marketing forms, I had only flirted with aspects of digital marketing such as email and social media but the words affiliate, retargeting and more so the dreaded acronyms PPC and SEO meant very little to me…
0 comments | Full storyBig Data: Hype or Hero?
In case you hadn’t noticed, or were avoiding our freezing spring by relocating to a desert island with no internet access, Big Data is THE buzzword of the moment. Well in fact for the more savvy marketers it’s been “THE” topic for the last year, but you know it’s gone mainstream when the BBC’s Horizon devotes an hour to The Age of Big Data (4 April). Now call me a cynic, but any TV programme that leads with the statement “Big Data is set to become one of the greatest sources of power in the 21st century” can be fairly accused of hype.
4 comments | Full story10 Ways to Use Vine’s Six Second Video App for B2B
We’ve heard all the buzz about Twitter purchasing Vine, the six second video social networking platform, which is fast becoming Twitter’s rising star. So, you’re probably wondering what all the fuss is about. Well, that’s exactly what people thought back in 2006 when Twitter emerged on the social landscape. In fact, in this fast and ever-changing world, content has to be delivered quickly and succinctly, and this is where the Vine App, a six second social video sharing app, plays to the need perfectly. Here are few ideas on how you can use Vine:
0 comments | Full story10 Considerations when engaging the B2B Buyer
Hot off the press is news that the average B2B buyer is 57% of the way through the purchase decision before engaging a supplier sales rep (Source CEB & Google 2012). Now, while that stat alone (like all stats) should be taken with a pinch of salt, it was not one that hugely surprised me. After all, the first 2 stages of the buying process are making oneself aware of products or services that can help solve a problem or challenge, then considering which solutions may be appropriate. After that, (the second half of the process) buyers will short list, heavily evaluate and then purchase.
2 comments | Full storyImportant: tell ONS how the Census benefits you
The Census is changing, putting the geodemographics industry as we know it, at risk. The Office for National Statistics Beyond 2011 Programme is exploring alternative, more cost-effective options for census-taking in the future, including estimating the population size from existing administrative sources supplemented by sample surveys. This is why it needs your help. Guest blogger Alistair Calder, Head of Stakeholder Engagement & Communications, Beyond 2011, summarises how here.
0 comments | Full storyWhat’s new in digital marketing: March 2013 round-up
Early to mid March saw the annual SXSW conference take place in Austin, Texas. This is increasingly influential in highlighting marketing trends and technology. This year it seems that Omnichannel is the new term for managing multichannel marketing to emphasise the growing importance of social media marketing; and one of Smart Insights most popular posts on planning this month is a Digital Media Introduction infographic courtesy of Hallam Internet Marketing. Also in this post, all that’s new and significant in social, search, user experience and email marketing.
0 comments | Full storyROI – Not Fit to be King!
The marketing profession has become increasingly obsessed with measurement. Nowhere is this more obvious than in many of the discussions we have around Return on Investment (ROI) calculations, which are as frequently used to support poor and lazy decision making as they are for good.
2 comments | Full storyThe creative, the con man and your next campaign
It’s not often that arguably the world’s greatest con man and its greatest ad man find common cause (clients who were disappointed by their ad agency might disagree, of course…). Yet at Advertising Week Europe, both Frank Abagnale and John Hegarty spent some time warning about the risks around data.
0 comments | Full storyBask in your glory: 6 reasons to enter the IQ Talent Awards
Great work should be celebrated – and at the IQ Talent Awards, that means your individual marketing effort. This year we’re pleased that the IDM is supporting the Awards, recognising individual marketers for their work, rather than the campaigns that they’ve worked on. If you’ve done something great, then you’ve got a week left to enter. Here’s why you should.
0 comments | Full story
+44 (0)20 8614 0277