According to Gartner, by 2017, 89% of marketers expect customer experience to be their primary differentiator. This blog post will review marketing customer experiences, both good and bad, and explore how inbound marketing methods can lead you to better customer relations, online and offline.

How does your marketing technology stack up?

Marketing technology is the tool set used to plan, execute, track and measure each and every digital interaction with consumers.

Yet many of us struggle to use the powerful insights hidden deep within the stack.

The rapid introduction of digital marketing channels over the last three decades has transformed the marketing space into a technology-driven discipline.

As marketers we championed the collection of data as websites, search engines, online advertising, social media channels and email were introduced.

We understood that the digital traces created by users were evidence of their intent: the intent to explore, to compare, to enquire and eventually to buy.

How these digital traces are being stored, managed and analysed may well define competitive business development for the next three decades.

Too many articles exist that tell marketers to “work the room”, or “follow up with potential leads”, but there’s nothing really substantial that you don’t already know being shared. What about the practical things a marketer needs in order to create the most effortless conference experience; one where people seek you and where your services are followed up by potential clients? As monotonous as industry conferences can sometimes be, they are a must for marketers who want to show their genuine beliefs that they can serve potential leads better than any other company.

If you are in marketing, you’d better understand what the new role, of Chief Marketing Technologist, is all about.

The Havard Business Review summed up the CMT as “a new type of executive responsible for bringing marketing and technology together”^[1].

Simply put, the CMT is the bridge between a CMO and CIO: her task to wisely direct the growing marketing spend on technology whilst translating marketing requirements for IT.

The more marketing invests in systems, software and services that can augment other business functions; the greater the need for someone with broad insight into the deployment, integration and analysis of such technology.

At The BrandManager, we have an SEO checklist we follow when applying it to on-page content optimisation. Our SEO checklist ensures that we are maintaining our website content strategy for lead generation. There are plenty of techniques that exist  to improve your search rankings - here are 4 that we’ve already discussed - but what are the actual elements for successful content optimisation on any one of your website pages?

‘Content marketing alone won’t deliver organic traffic. Content marketing employed strategically will deliver the organic traffic you want and need.’ (Neil Patel)

We’ve all heard the phrase, ‘content is king’. But if you think that simply creating reams of content is going to make you a great marketer, think again. Creating content for the sake of creating content will have you joining the ranks of B2B companies who waste hundreds of thousands of dollars a year on content that’s not aligned with their customers’ journey, and produces little in terms of ROI.

Something that will help you avoid this situation is a content strategy. You’ve probably heard the term being thrown about a lot, but may still be wondering what on earth a good B2B content strategy actually looks like.

If that’s the case, follow the steps we have here, and you’ll be well on the way to creating a content strategy that will help you cut down on wasted time and money, and produce an ROI that will be the envy of your competitors. 

Some of you may be pleased to know that I almost titled this blog post “Marketing Leaders Tear Shreds off Small Business Websites” but each of you would have felt cheated because it’s a flat out lie and blatant click-bait.

Most marketers understand “personalisation” as automated actions like sending emails that say “Hi [insert name]”, or recommending products based on previous searches, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. If you’re one of the 81% of marketers whose data has improved customer engagement through personalisation, get ready to take the next step with Smart Content.

 Why old school tactics don't cut it anymore

The challenges of the digital marketplace can appear at times quite overwhelming for the modern marketer. Like a vast ocean of opportunities where the waters are calm and seemingly inviting one minute, yet stormy and unpredictable the next. For a business, navigating through these ‘uncharted waters’ can be daunting yet for today’s consumer this is their environment where they move at speed, expecting marketers to explore, adapt and invent new ways of engaging with them.