Welcome to our digital marketing round-up
Here at Kurtosys we fall down the digital rabbit hole so you don’t have to. We’ve pulled out some of the best reports, eBooks and articles from the digital sphere, ready for you to use for effective fund marketing.
This week’s round up brings you a comic strip, Manchester, some startling insights into going cashless, and attempts to answer an age-old business question.
Visuals
Businesses Grow: The current state of the content marketing ecosystem
The content marketing ecosystem; it’s always a good exercise to check up on it every now and then. Courtesy of CopyPress, here’s an informative infographic displaying the results of a survey of 300 marketers, agencies and freelance creatives to find out their insights into the industry. Can you believe that 58% of their clients aren’t even aware of what content marketing is? What? Rude. I take it as a personal insult! Only kidding, but this is surprising considering 92% of those interviewed produce blog posts much like this one, either in-house or using external or freelance writers. Content. Apparently most places only have a small number of tireless marketing employees, too. We do try. These statistics exemplify what’s happening in content marketing, and is it just me or do those charts look suspiciously like a certain logo…?
Tech City News: Documentary: Manchester’s tech scene
Looking at the tech industry now, and more specifically it’s thriving hub in Sili-… Manchester? Yep, Manchester. Home to one of football’s greatest traditional rivalries, dreadfully rainy weather and Oasis, who are comparable to the weather condition mentioned just now. Seriously, the radio station I listen to in the morning needs to stop putting Oasis songs in the same slot, you know I don’t like them, right? Now you know. Britpop in general: overrated. In all seriousness, Manchester is home to many ever-growing young businesses in various tech sectors, benefitting from strong support, 1-to-1 mentorships and recent graduates supply potential to the “Innovation Corridor” between Manchester University and Manchester Metropolitan. Clearly their tech innovation is as solid as their efforts in University Challenge in recent times. This short-and-sweet documentary highlights the Mancunian attitude of “getting things done”, with the government supplying £10m of funding for Cityverve. Decent. However, the last person interviewed only referred to the “beauty” north of Manchester. The north/south divide epitomised right there. Typical.
Fyrebox: What’s Marketing Automation?
“And now for something completely different…” Back to marketing, just what is marketing automation and how can we do it? It’s an issue that recurs again and again, but rather than me trying to explain, why not take a look at this 6-episode animated comic strip? It’s a succinct and instructive feature, centring on the problems of a cute, confused alien lifeform, whose questions are answered by another more learned, but relatedly cute, extra-terrestrial. A professional human gets Photoshopped in at one point, quite humorously, and it even mentions some companies to get your marketing automation strategy kick-started. I’ve realised that these Socratic dialogue-type features are both frequent and helpful. Maybe I should start some. Watch this space.
Brand New: New Logo and Identity for Juventus by Interbrand
Remember last time I said that I struggled to find relevant marketing-related football articles? The internet must have heard me. Here’s a lesson for all brand marketing people, and how Juventus is applying its football philosophy to a broader market. Football die-hards really haven’t taken to the swaying from tradition; this simple re-designing has proved more controversial than the “Who’s Better: Ronaldo or Messi?” fiasco. Despite the tone of this article being heavily sarcastic, it still shows how versatile the new Juve identity is. Yes, there’s a pretentious movie-trailer style advertisement. Yes, the launch looked like a hellish black-and-white filtered show from an international fashion week. Yes, the “nightclub t-shirts” aren’t very good. But this new re-branding is a relatable, scary step for marketers. I’m personally not the biggest fan of Juventus’ new badge. Roma’s new badge on their away kit, on the other hand, is beautiful.
Life Lessons
Type A Communications: 12 Lessons I’ve Learned From Writing 1,000 Blog Posts
Tom Pick isn’t shy in displaying how many blog posts he’s created. But, this type of self-effacing article is perfect, as it’s probably best to take advice on how to write blog posts than someone who’s done it all. 1,000 posts? That’s a hell of a lot. Ultimately, it’s all about a regular routine, discipline, and having a serious passion for what you’re waffling on about. He also talks about the effectiveness of linking others that you have cited in “expert round-up” articles (hint hint). I guess I’m a chip off the old block in that sense. Also, I gave the whole “here’s how to create a good blog” thing myself; here are the links to Part I and Part II.
Grow & Convert: Why Marketing and Sales Don’t Get Along – A Marketer’s Perspective
Good vs Evil. Alien vs Predator. Gandalf vs The Balrog. None of these compare to the forever ongoing battle in business: Sales vs Marketing. And thank goodness for Benji Hyam, who has gone out of his way to give us marketers a valid war cry. We’re not just a “support system”, or there to “make things look pretty”. How demeaning. And whatever you do, Sales people, don’t lump us all together. You should be able to tell your PPC Pete from your Content Keith. And as suave as Sales people are, they don’t get to use Office Space memes like we do and get away with it. We win. Marketers Just Wanna Have Fun. I think I’ve made marketers sound a bit weird there actually. Really, we do genuinely feel the need to create an affinity with Sales to create leads and boost business, so… can’t we all just get along?
Consult Hyperion: Red lights for cash
Dave Birch’s blog is certainly one to keep both eyes on; his frequently posted, succinct articles are thoroughly well researched and offer his interesting insights into finance around the world. As has been outlined in the past few weeks in the FFMR, the pros and cons of a cashless society are constant vying against each other. In this article, cash seems to pose a big problem in India, for Uber drivers, and due to the use of counterfeit bills, sex workers. A switch to digital payments in red light districts has been proven to be far safer for those involved. Clearly, the argument for going cashless is getting even stronger with startling evidence such as this.
Industry News
EconoTimes: Davos 2017: China unites 25 countries to establish Global Blockchain Business Council
And following on from that, we have this: BLOCKCHAIN. Cryptocurrencies, how long will it be before they are the norm? 2017 is certainly already making huge strides towards digital payments, and what with the news of a Global Blockchain Business Council (GBBC) being formally established at this week’s hotly anticipated Davos Conference in Switzerland, that’s even more monumental. The talking point of the whole world has now been brought to major attention by representatives from 25 countries at the World Economic Forum. Exciting times lie ahead; it is the first time that the Chinese blockchain industry, which is developing rapidly indeed in terms of research, has actively tried to join global efforts to get the blockchain revolution stirring. It’s only a matter of time, ladies and gents.
City A.M.: Tech unicorn Deliveroo is planning to create hundreds of new jobs
Here’s an update on one of tech’s biggest success stories in recent years, Deliveroo. The UK-founded food delivery service is set to expand even further technologically, but its founder and CEO Will Shu’s heart still lies in London, where the company is hoping to create hundreds more jobs in “hardware engineering, behavioural economics and algorithm development”. Now starting to face competition from big-time rivals such as Amazon and Uber, themselves having developed heavily-funded speedy-food-on-demand services, it’ll be interesting to see where Deliveroo (at only three years’ old!) will go from here. Whatever the weather, I’d imagine the number of garishly-clad cyclists clogging up London roads is going to get absolutely mental. All of this is making me extremely hungry, so I’m going to leave it here.
That’s all for this week. Catch up with past Fund Marketing Fridays and don’t forget to return next Friday for more resources.
You can also tweet us with any resources that you’ve found helpful this week.
