The Step Change Blog

What’s all this noise surrounding artificial intelligence? Is AI worth the hype? And how do you even get started? Do these questions sound familiar?

With marketing technology (martech) and AI becoming a critical part of mainstream business strategy, getting the buy-in from the top brass is essential. But lack of understanding, fear of the unknown, ethics, biases, and costs can get in the way. 

So how do you demystify martech and AI and get the ball rolling?

Last year saw tremendous growth in Australian ecommerce and is expected to maintain an upward trend in the next few years. Are retailers still on track with their online marketing strategy for 2020?

Once upon a time, everyone turned to CMOs to become champions for the brand for advertising, brand management, and market research. But today’s emerging technologies have pushed CMOs to wear new hats and take on a more blended role across IT, sales, and finance. 

The year 2020 is an exciting year for the ever-changing landscape of marketing. As we enter into a new decade, we share four important trends marketers need to keep their eyes on.

Today’s marketing strategies are constantly evolving. As we close out the last few weeks of the year, it’s important to reflect on what current marketing strategies continue to deliver the best results so you can plan for 2020 ahead with the right precision. 

Acquiring 300 leads every month won’t make a big difference if none of them ends up buying from you. Going after every lead can be very costly.

Robert Steers, our Director and Head of Digital, made a special guest appearance in the #Katietalks podcast to share his insights on social media trends and the changes he’s seeing in today’s business environment.

Assuming that content strategy and brand strategy are interchangeable is one of the reasons why most strategies fail. So let’s get one thing clear before we dive right into the details: A solid brand strategy informs your content strategy. A well-executed content strategy builds better brand reputation.

To stand out in a competitive ecommerce market, your brand has to be visible and distinct. It’s not enough to just create products: you need to build an iconic brand that your customers trust. 

Tracking your Cost-per-Click (CPC) has long been an essential marketing technique to measure your marketing expenditure and generate the best results for your online presence. But data shows that the cost of CPC targeting SEO has been halved, reflecting agencies and clients moving away from it.  

With reports around privacy issues, censorship, and loss of data on social media higher than ever before, alternative user-owned social networks are gaining popularity. But how does this impact brands and their social media strategy?

Many CEOs in Australia are under pressure to execute a winning digital transformation strategy. But why are so many organisations failing? 

To take the next step in transforming the customer experience and growing your business, having a clear visual of the customer journey is crucial.

Many retailers today are struggling to deliver the seamless online experience that customers want with a limited marketing budget. How can content marketing help them bridge this gap and improve the customer experience? 

In the wake of the Royal Commission, where the reputation of financial services institutions is at an all-time low, marketing leaders have been asking themselves: “How can I convince our clients to trust us now? Where can we spend our marketing dollars in a way that will yield a positive return?”

In the age of new retail, are your digital marketing strategies still relevant? The line between multiple devices and channels are blurring. To win customers, retail brands need to be able to follow and understand the customer journey throughout multiple touchpoints.

You can quite easily take all of that ‘big data’ collected on your ecommerce website and use it to fuel your email marketing campaigns. By implementing a number of simple triggers, you can create an automated sales-converting machine. Yes, we’re still talking about email.

Local area marketing is a big boost for local brands mainly because Google uses a searcher’s location to promote relevant local businesses.

Digital transformation has accelerated the game for healthcare. Patients now have more options and methods to monitor their health online or seek care. For healthcare brands, the clear path to success today is in establishing a solid online presence and effectively implementing mobile-first digital marketing strategies that get you front and centre to patients who are online.

In the financial services industry, converting leads to customers is vital. But with the speed of change in the marketing and technology space and in the wake of the Banking Royal Commission, marketing leaders in the finance industry are overwhelmed by the challenge of managing a genuine experience with their target customers, thus improving lead conversion.

Your mission and core beliefs alone won’t be enough to rally more sponsors and build stronger advocacy. With the strength of NFPs being donations and volunteers, how can you appeal to people’s emotions and intellect? With limited resources, what’s the best way to get your audience to care for your cause and give back?

How did Australia’s fastest-growing brands get to where they are? In this article, we look at some of today’s rising stars and the marketing strategy that helped drive them to the top.  

Personalised customer experience is no longer a rarity that’s saved for the top companies; instead, it’s the new digital imperative for businesses of all industries and sizes. B2B buyers now expect to experience a one-to-one experience at some point during their purchasing journey. However, delivering on this expectation is an entirely different challenge that has left many businesses struggling to connect.

Google has once again updated its core algorithm on 12 March with noticeable changes in its search indexes all over the world. Here’s a look at what we can expect from the March 2019 algorithm update and what Google is also up to in the future of search.

Marketing for small- to -midsized businesses is daunting. As with all great endeavours, there are no shortcuts to achieving digital marketing success. In this blog article, former VP of Sales at HubSpot and currently the CEO of Databox, Pete Caputa, shares the fundamental factor leaders tend to miss that can help turn a website into a lead generation machine.

Your website is more than just your online portfolio. Today, websites that are optimised for the customer experience are powerful tools that can help you make a sale and turn visitors into customers.

Getting a prospect to click a CTA on your website is good — but often not good enough. Many of these clicks do not lead to actual conversions. Luckily, remarketing gives marketers the ability to re-engage with potential customers and leads until they finally convert.

Digital marketing has taken over traditional marketing channels as it’s more engaging, more flexible, and it costs less. We’ve put together a list of brands that are standing out and cutting through the noise with their digital marketing campaigns.

Many informed businesses today are actively looking for ways to transform their business model or their culture to become more customer-centric, but many struggle to implement it or just don’t know where to start.

According to the 2018 Global Digital Report, the current number of social media users is at 3.196 billion — and scales up to 13 percent year-on-year. If you are looking for the next step in your marketing strategy, and if you haven’t done so already, amplifying your social media presence may just be it.