The future of marketing and how to develop a network

What’s the latest in content marketing and how do we engage our consumers?

Dr Dave Chaffey of SMART insights discusses content in digital marketing. Dr Chaffey is the author of 5 bestselling books on digital marketing and he has been recognised as one of the 50 marketing ‘gurus’ worldwide who have helped shape the future of marketing. Dr Chaffey explains that businesses are investing more in content marketing. This has led to increased competition as more content is created, and so is competing for consumers' attention. Dave is very clear that it costs money to create good quality content.

Emotional engagement comes from ‘Nuclear’ content, which can surprise or delight people. He suggests that less is more, and that it is best to create one excellent or 'Nuclear' content weekly or monthly.

Dr David Chaffey considers how you can measure the ROI of your content marketing strategy. He recommends segmenting your audience, splitting your analytics across types of customers, so rather than just analysing the number of people who have come to your website in a month, to analyse how they have come to your website eg from social media or adwords, email - as these are all segments and shows you what resonates with each segment and why they convert. For example, SMART Insights did a campaign called 'actionable analytics': they then measured how many people came to their website from this particular campaign, and then how many of those converted. Dr Chaffey thinks that content personalisation will be the next big phase in digital marketing, particularly in B2B marketing. For more information on any of the above, please visit www.smartinsights.com.

Does networking scare you? Would you rather fiddle with your phone than work a room?

Francis Tipper of Spoken Word Ltd (www.spokenwordltd.co.uk) has plenty of helpful advice. She argues that networking should be seen as a marketing tool, as a way to deepen your knowledge about your clients, competitors and customers. She argues nothing beats face to face meeting people. She reassures that you do not have to be gregarious and extrovert to be a successful networking, because it is all about generating rapport. Her tips include actively listening to the other person and having planned out how you are going to introduce yourself. Most importantly, you have to be genuinely interested in the other person.

How do businesses build up a network from scratch?

Simon Lewis of the UK Marketing Network explains how he grew a network of 60,000 followers on LinkedIn. He explained that he started the network in 2009, just after the Crash, so realised he needed to do something different. He toured the country in a bus, with in a team of 5, stopping at major cities to do events and then encouraging people to discuss the event afterwards online. Then they found that people wanted full-day conferences, rather than smaller evening events. They then launched OnTheEdge! Conferences, which are based around specific industries.

You can contact the show at review@marketingcollege.com or @cmcpointsofview

You can hear the show at: www.cambridgemarketingpress.com/podcast/

Lauren Pettitt, Marketing Executive, Cambridge Marketing College

Tel: +44 (0) 1954 234940

Email: lauren@marketingcollege.com

Web: www.marketingcollege.com

Twitter: @cmcpointsofview