A digital marketing audit is an evaluation of the contribution and effectiveness of digital marketing for a business. It should include assessment of these factors with the analyst answering these questions...
Digital marketing strategy
Digital strategy
According to my article defining digital strategy on Smart Insights, A digital strategy defines an organization’s priority initiatives for future investment in digital technology to make a business more competitive by...
Direct to customer business model
The Direct-to-customer (D2C) model is enabled by digital disruption. It involves brands communicating their proposition and, in some cases delivering their services, direct to customers via digital media channels such...
Evaluating the micro-environment for digital marketing plans
The micro-environment should be reviewed along with the macro-environment as part of the situation analysis stage of digital marketing planning to inform strategies and tactics. The main factors to consider which are...
Using PEST vs PESTLE vs SLEPT for digital marketing plans
These acronyms are used as a framework for supporting marketing planning by reviewing the opportunities and threats of the broader macro-environment of a business. I’ve never been a fan of the amount of attention...
RACE marketing model
Why and how I developed the RACE marketing planning framework In the latest editions of my books on digital marketing and in our Smart Insights members resources, we feature the Smart Insights RACE planning framework...
Digital marketing goals
It’s important to have clarity on your goals for digital marketing as is the case with any business or marketing strategy. Whether you’re investing in digital media, digital experience, content, or marketing...
Digital transformation plan
A digital transformation plan defines a long-term roadmap for changes to business and communications models, resources, structure and process to enable an organization to compete through improving their digital...
SOSTAC® marketing plan model
I have featured PR Smith’s SOSTAC® Planning framework (explained more fully at Paul’s site: www.sostac.org) in all of my books on digital marketing strategy since it provides a simple, process-based structure for...
Discovery for consulting and agency client projects
An agency discovery checklist for digital marketing projects Discovery is a term often used by agencies and consultants to describe the process of knowledge transfer when starting to work with a new client, either...
Lifecycle marketing
Lifecycle marketing is closely related to always-on marketing (AOM). It shares the same definition. A planned approach to scheduling and optimising continuous marketing activities which support customer acquisition and...
Digital marketing
The aim of digital marketing is simple, to support Marketing aims and activities. So, in Digital Marketing, Strategy, Implementation and Practice, we simply define digital marketing as: “Achieving...
5S goals of digital marketing
The 5S of digital marketing are a simple framework to review and define the top-level goals of digital marketing in an organisation. They were defined by PR Smith in Chaffey, D. and Smith, P.R. (2017) Digital Marketing...
Competitor benchmarking for digital marketing – tools for different channels
Online competitor benchmarking is a structured analysis of the online services, capabilities and performance of an organisation within the areas of customer acquisition, conversion, retention and growth. Quantitative...
Zero-based budgeting for marketing (ZBB)
In their article Zero-based productivity—Marketing: Measure, allocate, and invest marketing dollars more effectively, McKinsey explains the rational for Zero-based budgeting as follows: Zero-based marketing—a...
Owned digital media
Businesses use owned digital media when you communicate using a channel you create and control and don’t have to pay for. Promotions that are delivered on paid and earned media can also be delivered for low-cost to...
E-marketing strategy
Electronic marketing strategy or E-marketing strategy was commonly used between circa 2000 to 2010 to show a broader scope superseding Internet marketing strategy which mainly referred to web marketing and use of SEO to...
Online Value Proposition (OVP)
Making your marketing more customer-centric using the 6Cs of digital marketing I have recommended creating an Online Value Proposition (OVP) in my books for many years. Today, it’s perhaps best called a digital...
Always-on marketing
Are you investing sufficiently in ‘always-on’ marketing activities to compete through digital marketing? In the pre-digital era, marketing activities were planned in campaign ‘bursts’ around new product launches and...
Customer persona
5 types of personas to consider creating plus examples Personas are a great way to create more customer-centred communications which better engage audiences with communications, both on a website, and beyond. My brief...
Digital marketing strategy
A digital marketing strategy defines the focus of digital marketing efforts to improve the contribution digital makes to an organization. Usually defined in a digital marketing plan and should include how digital...
Digital competence review
I use digital competence review to refer to assessing staff digital competences, i.e. their knowledge and skills of managing digital marketing. This contrasts with a digital capability audit where the characteristics of...
Digital capability audit
‘How do we compare?’ or ‘What does good look like?’ are common questions we hear when talking to businesses about their digital marketing maturity. It’s a great starting point to achieving excellence by...
Digital marketing plan structure
A digital marketing plan is typically an annual plan defining improvements to digital marketing, usually including a digital marketing strategy. It can also be related to a longer digital transformation plan. The guides...
Competitor analysis
Online competitor analysis should compare how the brand and marketing mix is communicated, for example brand positioning, product features and pricing. It should also review marketing campaign and always-on budgeting.