Smart Insights is an online marketing training platform based in Leeds, United Kingdom. It launched in 2010 with the aim of supporting marketers to make better use of digital marketing using a planned approach to data-driven marketing techniques. To help engage its target audience of marketing practitioners and to position its advice, Smart Insights ran a launch campaign around its manifesto for future success in marketing, including these five calls to action:

• Digital marketing is marketing.
• You need a strategy.
• Measurement and optimisation are your foundation.
• Joined-up, customer-centred marketing is essential.
• Be agile.

The market opportunity arose since, while there were many blogs discussing individual digital media tactics such as search, social or email marketing, there were few publishers or training solutions offering practical guidance on strategy and planning to integrate these tactics as part of all marketing communications using a data-driven approach. Research suggested that deciding the best way to integrate communications, along with proving and optimising return on media investment, was a key challenge for marketers and many businesses didn’t have a dedicated plan to achieve this.

Value proposition, business and revenue model 

Smart Insights is an online training platform to help marketers develop practical skills to improve results from their marketing with a focus on digital transformation and data-driven marketing. Interactive e-learning is offered through learning paths integrated with templates to create action plans. Learning paths are toolkits based on different skills development needs, from digital marketing strategy, digital transformation and campaign planning through to improving results from individual channels such as organic search, social media marketing and developing skills in Google Analytics and website conversion-
rate optimisation.
Smart Insights offers a freemium subscription model where people can sign-up as a free member to learn how to improve their approach or develop their skills while sampling training advice and planning templates.
Each month Smart Insights gains 4,000 to 5,000 new free subscribers who are potential leads for the paid memberships.
To supplement its main online training subscriptionbased proposition, Smart Insights developed a hybrid revenue model similar to other training platforms and B2B publishers by also offering advertising for marketing vendors who are looking to develop awareness and generate leads. Free members who are not interested in the training proposition may be interested in services from B2B vendors, which include B2B martech suppliers such as email, marketing automation and digital experience SaaS providers, and also agencies. Because of the limited number of page impressions involved with B2B publishing it was found not to be effective to use a simple ad-funded model displaying banner ads on an ad network such as Google AdSense/Google Display Network to generate revenue on a cost-per-click basis. Instead, a content marketing partnership offering was developed, where B2B vendors can select from a package of options to generate leads, including featuring their white papers in e-newsletters or dedicated ‘solus’ emails to an email list of around 200,000 active opted-in subscribers to generate leads via landing pages on their sites where they can then nurture interest in their services. Other options include co-branded content including webinars and reports. Higher fees can be attracted through this model compared to a simple impression-based ad model. However, this requires investment to develop quality content plus a dedicated sales team to explain the options and manage customer accounts.

The team and technology 

Co-founders Stuart Miller, Danyl Bosomworth and Dave Chaffey pooled their experience across marketing technology, brand marketing, digital marketing and analytics, developed through their work in marketing for businesses as consultants and for agencies working with businesses from different sectors.

Questions
1 How do different measures of effectiveness show the most effective digital communications channels for Smart Insights?
2 How does Smart Insights differentiate its proposition within a crowded marketplace focusing on digital marketing skills development?
3 Organic search is the most important channel by volume – which factors have been important in achieving and maintaining visibility for Smart Insights within Google?