If digital marketing, you know… the crafted combination of SEO, copywriting, social media, content creation, content strategy, online PR and creativity plays an important role in your success (is it dumb of me to presume that for some people it might not?), then you’ll likely be aware of Dave Chaffey.

If you’re not familiar with Dave’s work then get yourself over to Smart Insights and feast on a wealth of great thinking and digital marketing brilliance he shares there. As essential for anyone serious about online success as it is well conceived and researched. And if you already follow him… then you’ll need no further recommendation I’m sure.

Guest speaker recently at the opening of Manchester Metropolitan University’s new Faculty of Business and Law HQ Dave gave a splendid presentation entitled ‘Best Practices in Digital Marketing Are They Always Best?’

Here are just some of the points he touched upon:

• Strategy is vital in setting out your approach on how best to Plan/Reach/Act/Convert/Engage
• Plan, plan, plan
• Important to apply KPIs
• Organisations should do much more to profile prospects
• Social matters – not as much as goooorooooooos bang on about but it will matter increasingly over time.
• Knowing that and having the chops to do something about it is a completely different matter.
• Creative, engaging content is key
• Don’t let social distract you from core digital marketing efforts that make money – seo, email marketing, affiliate
• Ethical schmethical – Grey hats are where it’s at
• Google+ IS a big deal. He showed figures claiming +42% increase in organic traffic for sites that actively use Google+
• The 3 click rule is nonsense
• Optimise your whole site – not just your home page
• Mobile is important, will be more important and is sector specific
• Test, test, test

Deeply informed insight delivered in style. Thanks Dave. Thanks too to William Seabrook for nabbing the tix.

As a copywriter in 2012 a broad and practical understanding of digital marketing and how best to apply that understanding is essential to the services I provide my clients. It’s also mission critical to my own online profile and success. Aren’t we all digital marketers these days, to one extent or another?

Thoughts?