Worldpay and Mastercard to Enter New Global Partnership Focused on Innovating Payments

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July 17, 2018

2018 RESCUECOM Computer Repair Report - Why Computers Break: Repair or Replace?

Do tech issues prevent you from using your computer or mobile device and frustrate you? Unless you are a tech expert, the answer is probably yes. So many things can go so wrong with your technology that you question fixing it at all. “Many customers ask if it’s worth fixing a computer that has a problem,” says David A. Milman, CEO of RESCUECOM. He goes on: “To determine whether you should fix your technology or junk it for a new one depends on how important your existing computer setup, programs, and data are to you.”

David A. Milman

When deciding to repair or replace, take an inventory of your computer and ask yourself the following:

Will the time & effort to replicate my system on a new computer cost less than repair?
Do I have the technical skills to move my data and install my programs on a new computer?
Do I have hundreds or even thousands of dollars to spend on a new computer?

If the answer to any of these questions is “No,” then a repair is your best bet. What are the most common computer repairs you might experience?

Also Read: ISG Impact Mobile App Enhances Customized, Interactive Access to Industry-Leading Insights

Why Windows?

Despite efforts to fix Windows apps, issues are more prevalent now. Developers focus on Google and Apple apps, making Microsoft’s app store smaller.

Windows apps being part of the Windows OS means a slew of problems. Microsoft updates sometimes cause more problems than they solve, but some do protect against glitches. Having system restore points, reverting to a previous update if necessary, or troubleshooting can provide fixes.

My computer is infected! Why, and how can I clean it?

Between new viruses, spyware subversively stealing personal data, popups, adware getting your browsing habits, and ransomware locking your computer until you pay a ransom, the Internet is scary. Constantly updated paid antivirus software is the only solution.

Also Read: Sift Uses Digital Element’s Geolocation, Proxy Data to Improve Mobile App Targeting Solution

I cannot log into my email.

Almost all email issues are forgotten passwords. You must remember them without giving them away freely.

What if my computer fails to boot or performs poorly?

Again, having restore points is key. Using a previous restore point is the best (sometimes only) way to fix bad updates or attacks harming your computer. Eliminating unnecessary programs also frees space.

How can I make my Internet more consistent?

Router configuration errors, wireless interference, or other such issues cause Internet connection problems. Your wireless carrier can tell you if Internet connection struggles on your phone warrant a fix or replacement.

Also Read: Google Bulletin Validates Vita Mobile Systems Crowdsourced, Geolocation Mobile App VITA

Can I recover lost data? How can I avoid losing it again?

Malware can steal and corrupt your computer’s data. Use the cloud to avoid this, and back it up to retrieve it.

What about Mac users?

If a Mac suffers from problems, Apple does have support. This does not apply to older machines, however, and a problem with a laptop means you need to ship it in for service and wait weeks to get it back. In these cases, professional local tech support is a better option.

The technical problems affecting people most commonly in 2018 are as follows:

Windows apps work poorly (49.4%)
I have trouble with Windows (18.0%)
My computer has a Virus/Spyware/Malware/Pop-Up Ads (9.7%)
Email Issues (4.6%)
Printer Difficulty (4.6%)
My computer will not boot (4.1%)
My computer is choppy / performing badly (3.6%)
My Internet connection is unstable or nonexistent (2.9%)
I lost data (2.9%)
Caused by User (0.3%)
Hardware Trouble (0.13%)
Mac Applications (0.07%)
Mac OS (0.07%)

Dialpad Raises $50 Million in Series D Funding to Reinvent the Phone Call

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July 17, 2018

Dialpad Raises $50M in Series D Funding to Reinvent the Phone Call

Company Doubles Down on Innovative AI Capabilities, Expands Talent Base

Dialpad, the pure-cloud business communications provider, announced it has raised $50 million in Series D funding. ICONIQ Capital led the round, with participation from existing investors Andreessen Horowitz, Amasia, Scale Venture Partners, Section 32 and Work-Bench, bringing Dialpad’s total funding to $120 million. The new capital will accelerate momentum for Dialpad’s real-time AI technology and further establish its products as business-critical tools for organizations across industries. Will Griffith of ICONIQ Capital will join Dialpad’s Board of Directors.

Dialpad Will Use the New Cash Injection to Strengthen Its Voice AI-Powered Standalone Call Center Products for Sales

The new funding follows the recent release of VoiceAI, which Dialpad is currently integrating into its entire product portfolio, including Dialpad, Dialpad Call Center and UberConference. Dialpad will use the new cash injection to strengthen its VoiceAI-powered standalone call center products for sales and support organizations; leverage its real-time automatic speech recognition (ASR) and natural language processing (NLP) technologies to develop real-time coaching and playbooks that enable frontline teams to personalize the customer experience; fortify overall go-to-market strategy.

“Smart CIOs know AI isn’t just another trendy tech tool, it’s the future of work,” said Craig Walker, CEO, Dialpad.

Craig added, “By arming organizations with VoiceAI’s real-time AI and insights, businesses can dramatically improve customer satisfaction and ultimately their bottom line. Our customers gain a definite competitive advantage by making every conversation more intelligent. ICONIQ Capital understands this, which is why we are thrilled to join their portfolio and access their expertise in disrupting traditional markets with innovative technology. With their support, we are well positioned to redefine business communications.”

Also Read: Pendo Introduces Pendo Vox to Democratize Access to the Net Promoter System

VoiceAI Could Now Sell More Effectively and Make Smarter Calls

Today, 92 percent of business and customer interactions happen by phone, yet 85 percent of customers are dissatisfied with their phone experience. Since its founding in 2011, Dialpad’s mission has been to make business communications great. More than 55,000 of the world’s most innovative businesses including WeWork, Uber, Motorola Solutions, Domo, Stripe, and Xero have abandoned their legacy communication systems in favor of Dialpad’s next-generation cloud architecture and easy-to-deploy platform that spans voice, video, messaging and conferencing. Now, by applying VoiceAI to all external and internal communications, Dialpad is enabling businesses to improve their customer interactions, sell more effectively and make smarter calls – automatically and in real-time.

“The unified communications, conferencing and call center markets are notoriously crowded and dominated by legacy solutions providers that have been slow to innovate,” said Will Griffith, Partner, ICONIQ Capital.

Will added, “The total addressable market here is massive. We believe that Dialpad is poised to become the leader with its bold vision for improving the way modern businesses communicate and its real-time AI capabilities across its entire product portfolio. Dialpad truly has an impressive team, from their executives to their engineers, which is why we selected them as our first AI-driven enterprise technology investment.”

Since Dialpad’s last funding round in September 2017, the company has added approximately 10,000 new customers and doubled its annual recurring revenue. With eight offices around the world, Dialpad plans to increase headcount by 50 percent by the end of 2018 and expand its global footprint into EMEA in 2019.

Also Read: Leanplum Reveals Emojis in Marketing Messages Lead to 254% More Engagement

SpotMe Named a Leader in G2 Crowd Summer 2018 Mobile Event Apps Grid

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July 17, 2018

SpotMe Launches New Product: Express for Webinars

SpotMe, a leading enterprise engagement platform for live event, virtual meeting and engagement apps, announced that it has been named a Leader in G2 Crowd’s Summer 2018 Grid for Mobile Event Apps. The company earned high marks for implementation, relationship and usability.

Pierre Metrailler

“At SpotMe, we pride ourselves on providing our customers with a battle-tested, flexible software platform and adaptable service levels delivered by our world-class team,” says Pierre Metrailler, CEO of SpotMe. “We are honored to have been named a leader in such a competitive field and will continue to concentrate our efforts in solving meaningful business challenges with event apps and engagement workspaces.”

The companies included in the Mobile Event Apps Grid are ranked by customer satisfaction and market presence. Based on client testimonials, this report shows that SpotMe obtains the highest user adoption rate compared to other mobile event app vendors; in average, customer reviews have reported a 21% increase in app adoption with SpotMe over other platforms. Furthermore, 100% of SpotMe’s G2 Crowd users rated it with four or five stars out of five, and 94% of users find it easy to do business with SpotMe.

Also Read: Yext to Deliver Insights on How Voice Technology Is Changing Business at VOICE Summit

Michael Fauscette

“SpotMe is rated as an industry leader in our Summer 2018 Mobile Event Apps Grid Report,” said Michael Fauscette, Chief Research Officer, G2 Crowd. “In this report users of SpotMe expressed a high level of satisfaction with the product and identified the ‘attendee networking’ and ‘attendee survey’ features as highlights.

More than 200 organizations and 75 Fortune 500 companies rely on SpotMe to create change with transformative events and drive perpetual engagement with employees, customers, and partners. SpotMe software is built on a mobile-first foundation and designed to shape a distraction-free experience that puts reliability first. To date, SpotMe software has served more than 5 million users worldwide.

G2 Crowd rates products and vendors based on reviews gathered from their robust user community, as well as data aggregated from online sources and social networks. The Summer 2018 Mobile Event Apps Report is based on reviews collected through June 2018.

Leanplum Reveals Emojis in Marketing Messages Lead to 254% More Engagement

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July 17, 2018

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Leanplum Reveals Emojis in Marketing Messages Lead to 254% More Engagement

New Study Analyzes Emoji Usage and Engagement in Push Notifications and Emails over the Last Year

Leanplum, the leader in mobile engagement, announced a new Mobile Marketing Trends report, Unlocking Engagement & Growth With Emojis, that confirms the effectiveness of emoji usage in push notifications and emails. The data verifies that emojis are significantly more likely to influence mobile engagement and aid retention.

“We used Leanplum to test the effectiveness of emojis in push notification campaigns,” said Joanna Hill, Head of Digital at Miss Selfridge. “In one of our tests, we saw an 81 percent lift in open rates and a 363 percent lift in revenue from the message with emojis.”

The report, a follow-up to the popular study released last year, confirms that emoji popularity and engagement continues to rise. For this year’s report, Leanplum analyzed 300 million emails and push notifications between June 1, 2017 to June 1, 2018, including worldwide data. Some of the findings:

Emoji usage continues to rise. The average number of emojis used per message and the percentage of messages including at least one emoji both doubled in the past year.
Emails with emojis are opened 66 percent more than emails without emojis.
Push notifications with emojis are opened an astounding 254 percent more than push notifications without emojis. That’s 3x higher compared to last year’s report.
Apps that use emojis experience 26 percent fewer uninstalls. In addition to in-the-moment engagement, emojis contribute to long-lasting user retention.

Also Read: Walmart Establishes Strategic Partnership with Microsoft to Further Accelerate Digital Innovation in Retail

“As Leanplum’s latest study reveals, emojis continue to be an impactful marketing tool for driving mobile growth — emoji usage in mobile messages doubled this year, and user engagement tripled as a response to these delightful campaigns,” said Joyce Solano, SVP of Global Marketing at Leanplum. “Emojis convey emotion and personality from brands, which help marketers deliver in-the-moment engagement and build long-lasting user retention.”

Leanplum’s mobile engagement platform captures more than 24 billion mobile data points daily and delivers over 50 million messages every hour, providing the real-time insights and capabilities to help marketers deliver in-the-moment engagement and build meaningful customer relationships. This gives Leanplum a vast source of data intelligence on push notifications and their effectiveness on mobile marketing campaigns.

Also Read: Zone·tv Studio Introduces a Revolutionary AI-Powered Predictive Personalization Platform

Juniper Research: IoT, Analytics Packages to Drive $35 Billion New Revenue Opportunity for Operators

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July 17, 2018

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New Ad Fraud Study: 22% of Online Ad Spend is Wasted Due to Ad Fraud in 2023, According to Juniper Research

Juniper Study Pinpoints Key Growth Areas

A new study from Juniper Research has found that by 2022, mobile operators can collectively generate an additional $35 billion per annum from new and underdeveloped revenue streams. If implemented, these, together with cost savings identified in the study, would enable operators to offset the impact of falling voice and data revenues and maintain, or even increase, current margins.

In Future Mobile Operator Business Models: Challenges, Opportunities & Strategies 2018-2022, Juniper argued that services such as IoT (Internet of Things) enablement, A2P messaging, carrier billing and big data analytics would collectively deliver a net increase of more than $7 billion this year. It observed that with the number of connected devices expected to nearly triple between 2017 and 2022, from 17.5 million to 51.5 million, demand for ubiquitous connectivity would accelerate; representing a clear opportunity for the expansion of enterprise-facing products.

The new research also stated that while big data collection presented some challenges around security and anonymisation, raw or packaged data could be monetised via pay per usage, metered usage or flat subscription.

For more insights, download Juniper’s complimentary whitepaper, ‘Mobile Operators ~ 5 Mission Critical Strategies to Future-proof Your Business.’

Also Read: Research Shows Customer Experience Top Reason Consumers Choose a Brand

CRM Enhancement ‘Critical For Customer Retention’

Additionally, the research outlined strategies through which MNOs can reduce costs across their operations. It argued that significant improvements were required in CRM (Customer Relationship Management) to maximise customer retention, critical in saturated markets.

Windsor Holden

According to research author Dr Windsor Holden, ‘There are still high levels of dissatisfaction with regard to issues such as time taken to answer complaint calls. Furthermore, as operators seek to diversify and offer new services they will, in turn, need to ensure that their CRM services are robust enough to cope with the inevitable array of queries these will provoke.’

Meanwhile, the research also recommended that operators should implement network sharing to reduce site lease and infrastructure costs. It claimed that the strategy would reduce both capital and operating expenditure, plus enabling faster deployment and reducing carbon footprints.

Juniper Research is acknowledged as the leading analyst house in the digital commerce and fintech sector, delivering pioneering research into payments, banking and financial services for over a decade.

Zone·tv Studio Introduces a Revolutionary AI-Powered Predictive Personalization Platform

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July 17, 2018

Zone·tv™ Studio Introduces a Revolutionary Predictive Programming & Personalization Platform Powered by Artificial Intelligence

Zone·Tv Studio Makes a ‘Spotify-Like’ Experience Possible for Any Television Channel

Zone·tv™ is introducing a revolutionary, feature-rich suite of powerful video services under the zone·tv Studio brand, that enables completely new ways to engage and empower viewers through next-gen TV experiences. With zone·tv Studio content owners and video distributors (e.g. MVPDs, vMVPDs, traditional networks and new over-the-top networks) can now create self-branded, linear TV channels that can be personalized and customized by and for each viewer in the household for the first time, shattering the limitations and norms of the traditional model of linear pay-TV.

Zone·tv Studio is an artificial intelligence-powered service for content discovery, channel curation and video delivery. Using proprietary intelligent software built by zone·tv, video distributors and content owners can now deliver a “Spotify-like” experience, which for the first time is not based on what a programmer wants to show the viewer, but instead based on what the individual viewer wants to see. The robust tools seamlessly create intelligent, personally curated, automated and highly engaging thematic linear channels that help subscribers discover content that appeals to their own sensibilities.

Also Read: Walmart Establishes Strategic Partnership with Microsoft to Further Accelerate Digital Innovation in Retail

“Traditional video distribution is in a state of disruption as hundreds of direct-to-consumer streaming services are emerging, making it difficult to maintain customer loyalty,” said Jeff Weber, CEO, zone·tv. “Our technology means that any video distributor or content owner can build new, precisely targeted, compelling channels which enable a more relevant content consumption experience for their customers. Zone·tv studio enables the simplicity of traditional linear channel programming combined with the intelligence power of A.I. to bring new user experiences to TV services.”

Zone·tv Studio features a comprehensive technology stack that can enhance video distributors’ existing entertainment services or create new ones. Key components of the cloud-based zone·tv Studio include:

Zone·tv Programming Studio is designed for authoring a channel, which can be done by humans, automated by the zone·tv A.I. Studio or both.
Zone·tv A.I. Studio assesses the channel content, enhances the asset metadata via video indexing, classifies it and incorporates additional, relevant, trending information using zone·tv’s own signal networks. All channel content is stored in the cloud and seamlessly interconnected with similarly themed channel content built upon a sophisticated Machine Learning curation algorithm. By leveraging the close integration of zone·tv’s Programming Studio and A.I. Studio, content curators and the Machine Learning algorithm can best predict viewers’ preferred programming and easily curate services accordingly.
Zone·tv Ad Studio allows for the management of advertising in channels and is designed to integrate with ad tech partner services for ad decisioning and ad insertion, all fed by rich metadata and content parameters that only Studio can provide. Zone·tv Ad Studio provides the most relevant advertising that becomes a part of the programming story for each channel.
Zone·tv Configuration Studio enables rapid delivery of the partner’s content service to any end-point device or system.

Examples of how the zone·tv Studio works can be seen in zone·tv’s proprietary Dynamic Channels and On Demand channels, available on a wide array of pay-tv set-top boxes, bring-your-own-device (BYOD) services and smart TVs. These Dynamic and On Demand channels leverage every component of Studio to deliver beautifully curated content that is personalized and predictive for the ultimate viewing experience.

The zone·tv Studio learns what viewers love to watch and presents similar content, automatically and in real time. This unique capability empowers viewers to create their own channels with the click of the TV remote control and “zone·ify” their own channel.

The result? Each viewer’s channel is personalized just for them. The zone·tv Foodies channel you are watching could be focused more on grilling while your neighbor’s Foodie channel could deliver more about desserts, and all the viewers had to do was watch the shows they love.

Because the service is entirely cloud-based, video distributors and content owners can quickly onboard their existing libraries of exclusive or licensed content, enhance the metadata, curate, program and deliver an A.I.-enhanced video service without the need for any special equipment.

“We are giving our partners an edge not only through superior tools and algorithms, but also by breaking through the psychology of doing things the way they have been done in the past – which makes the traditional video distribution industry vulnerable. It’s a very exciting time and we believe it’s our time, too,” added Weber.

Also Read: HubSpot Launches Marketing Hub Starter to Give Growing Businesses the Tools They Need

Walmart Establishes Strategic Partnership with Microsoft to Further Accelerate Digital Innovation in Retail

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July 17, 2018

Walmart establishes strategic partnership with Microsoft to further accelerate digital innovation in retail

Five-Year Agreement Will Leverage a Broad Base of Cloud, Ai and Iot Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Use

Walmart Inc. announced it is establishing a strategic partnership with Microsoft Corp to further accelerate Walmart’s digital transformation in retail, empower its associates worldwide and make shopping faster and easier for millions of customers around the world. Through this partnership, Walmart has chosen Microsoft as it’s preferred and strategic cloud provider tapping into the full range of Microsoft’s cloud solutions.

“Walmart’s commitment to technology is centered around creating incredibly convenient ways for customers to shop and empowering associates to do their best work,” said Doug McMillon, Walmart CEO. “Walmart is a people led, tech-empowered company, and we’re excited about what this technology partnership will bring for our customers and associates. Whether it’s combined with our agile cloud platform or leveraging machine learning and artificial intelligence to work smarter, we believe Microsoft will be a strong partner in driving our ability to innovate even further and faster.”

Also Read: Striim Strengthens Platform for Cloud-Based Analytics

“Walmart is a pioneering retailer, committed to empowering its employees and delivering the best experience for its customers wherever they are,” said Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft. “The world’s leading companies run on our cloud, and I’m thrilled to partner with Walmart to accelerate their digital transformation with Microsoft Azure and Microsoft 365.”

Walmart is already using Microsoft services for critical applications and workloads and is now embarking on a broad set of cloud innovation projects that leverage machine learning, artificial intelligence, and data platform solutions for a wide range of external customer-facing services and internal business applications. The flexible, secure and rapidly scalable global technology will significantly accelerate Walmart’s ability to execute in three key areas:

Digital transformation: The investment in Microsoft Azure is a continuation of Walmart’s cloud journey and extends across Walmart’s family of brands and international businesses – allowing them to leverage Microsoft’s public cloud to:

Capitalize on depth and breadth of Microsoft’s compute capacity
Ability to seamlessly manage workloads in an elastic environment
Leverage expanded access to new toolsets to innovate faster
Drive a more cloud native environment and therefore continue to manage cost

In a five-year agreement, Walmart has selected the full range of Microsoft cloud solutions, including Microsoft Azure and Microsoft 365 for enterprise-wide use to help standardize across the company’s family of brands. As part of the partnership, Walmart and Microsoft engineers will collaborate on the assessment, development, and support phase of moving hundreds of existing applications to cloud native architectures. For example, to grow and enhance the online experience, the company will migrate a significant portion of walmart.com and samsclub.com to Azure, including its cloud-powered check-out enabling Walmart to grow with rising customer demand and reach more global markets than ever before.

Also Read: HubSpot Launches Marketing Hub Starter to Give Growing Businesses the Tools They Need

Innovation: Whether it’s a continued focus on site availability and speed, or the ability to quickly and seamlessly launch new features, customers will continue to see Walmart innovating to save them time and money across the shopping journey. There are also massive benefits to operating at scale as Walmart builds a global IoT platform on Azure – from connected HVAC and refrigeration units to reduce energy usage in thousands of U.S. stores or applying machine learning when routing thousands of trucks in the supply chain.

Changing how we work: Walmart continues to foster a curious, collaborative, accountable, and agile culture to position the company for further growth. To do that, it’s critical to have tools that encourage those skills and traits. Through this partnership, Walmart is investing in its people with a phased rollout of Microsoft 365 providing associates with the productivity tools to foster a culture of collaboration, creativity and communication. Microsoft’s modern workplace platform supports connected teams and breaks down silos – with access to a full range of tools including Microsoft Workplace Analytics, Microsoft Stream, and Microsoft OneDrive, Walmart associates will have access to leading collaboration, productivity and sharing tools so they can save time and work better.

Also Read: Seismic Deepens Partner and Product Ties with Microsoft

HubSpot Launches Marketing Hub Starter to Give Growing Businesses the Tools They Need

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July 17, 2018

HubSpot Launches Marketing Hub Starter to Give Growing Businesses the Tools They Need to Start Marketing Right

New Software Tier Builds on Features of Free Marketing Tool with More Powerful Engagement and Nurturing

HubSpot, a leading CRM, marketing, sales, and customer service platform, launched Marketing Hub Starter, a new software offering that aims to give growing teams the tools they need to start marketing right. This new tier of HubSpot’s platform is designed with small businesses in mind, consolidating the capabilities of existing disparate marketing tools into one platform and offering an affordable alternative to other comprehensive software solutions on the market.

“Historically, small businesses looking for an economical way to get started with marketing have had to cobble together disparate point solutions to perform tasks like sending emails and targeting ads. Unfortunately, what they save in dollars they often lose in time spent trying to connect and manage all of those systems,” said Kipp Bodnar, CMO of HubSpot.

Kipp added, “Marketing Hub Starter gives growing marketing teams the tools they need to get started in one easy to use platform without the enterprise software price tag. And when they’re ready to take their marketing to the next level, HubSpot will grow with them by making it easy to add features as needed.”

Marketing Hub Starter builds on the foundational lead capture features available in HubSpot’s free marketing tool to help teams engage and nurture their contacts. The product is powered by HubSpot’s free CRM and includes:

Email marketing, including a drag-and-drop email editor and post-send analytics
List segmentation based on contact properties, email activities, and form submissions
Integrations with Facebook and Instagram lead ads
Custom lead flow fields for more targeted nurturing
Essential reporting that goes beyond email opens and clicks to track returning contacts, top personas, engagement over time, ad performance, and more

In conjunction with the launch, HubSpot also introduced a new Academy lesson that provides an in-depth look at the features of Marketing Hub Starter.

Also Read: HubSpot Reveals New Slack Integration for a Deeper Product Connection

GroundTruth Appoints New SVP of Engineering Amit Goswami

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July 17, 2018

GroundTruth Earns MRC Accreditation for Visitation Data

GroundTruth, the leading location platform that leverages data and insights to drive business performance, today announced the appointment of Senior Vice President of Engineering, Amit Goswami.

Goswami will lead GroundTruth’s global engineering team and position the company for its next phase of growth. Specifically, he will be focused on scaling GroundTruth’s location platform further and making Cost Per Visit the new gold standard for marketing.

Sunil Kumar

“Amit brings rich industry experience and fresh thinking to GroundTruth during this exciting period in our company’s history,” said Sunil Kumar, CEO, GroundTruth. “With a proven track record of success, we couldn’t be more thrilled to have him join the leadership team and oversee our talented engineering group.”

Also Read: Konnect Digital Inks Global Mobile Distribution Deal With Euronews

Goswami has over twenty years of engineering experience and has spent the last ten years in the advertising industry. Before joining GroundTruth, Goswami led product and engineering at audio adtech startup Adswizz. As a product leader, he was instrumental in transitioning Adswizz from a media company to a programmatic platform company. He played a crucial role in scaling its engineering organization, platform, and tech stack to cope with increased traffic, which ultimately played a role in Pandora’s recent acquisition of Adswizz. Prior to Adswizz, Goswami was the Head of Product Development at RhythmOne. Goswami received his MS from The Indian Institute of Science and his MBA from Cornell University.

Discussing the opportunity around location-based advertising, Amit Goswami added: “I worked on some really interesting projects in audio, but in the end, it was just another format like video with similar business models like Cost Per Impression and Cost Per View. Location-based intent and performance, however, is a disruptive and innovative concept. The widespread use of smartphones has made location a true proxy for the store visitation behavior of the offline consumer, which has led to new pricing models such as Cost Per Visit. I’m extremely excited to be joining the GroundTruth team, and I couldn’t have found a better company to partner with in disrupting the marketing industry and helping businesses drive results.”

Goswami will report into GroundTruth CEO, Sunil Kumar and will be headquartered in Mountain View, CA with global reach.

Recommended Read: DocuSign to Welcome New Board Directors

Seismic Deepens Partner and Product Ties with Microsoft

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July 17, 2018

Seismic Deepens Partner and Product Ties with Microsoft

New Educational and Go-To-Market Initiatives Underscore Continued Product Integration Success

Seismic, a global leader in sales and marketing enablement, announced that the company has strengthened its relationship with Microsoft in both go-to-market efforts and product integrations.

First, Seismic will be a sponsor and exhibitor at Microsoft Ready, the company’s annual internal marketing, technical and sales kick-off event. Seismic will be showcasing a host of new product features at the event, including those built on Microsoft Azure Machine Learning and Microsoft Cognitive Services functionalities.

Seismic is also now a prime exhibitor in the Chicago Microsoft Tech Center, showing how Seismic’s integration of Microsoft technologies benefit large enterprises. Additionally, the company’s offerings are now included in the Microsoft Technical Solution Professionals demo environment in the Americas, providing direct visibility into integrations for prospective Microsoft buyers.

Finally, Seismic sponsored a webinar with Microsoft for customers in late Q1 on the theme of artificial intelligence and financial services. The webinar is the first in a series of co-marketing initiatives designed to educate the market on the how new and innovative technologies are helping marketing and selling teams be more effective at their jobs.

“Having such a strong relationship with Microsoft, which shares a passionate commitment to success when it comes to making enterprise marketers and sellers more effective at what they do, has been a huge benefit for Seismic,” said Doug Winter, Seismic co-founder and CEO. “Whether it’s through pursuing joint customer education initiatives or a steady stream of new product integrations, Seismic and Microsoft have made great strides in recent months. We look forward to seeing what we can continue to produce together in the near future.”

Also Read: For a Reported $800 Million, Salesforce Acquires Datorama

Integration excellence

The deepened go-to-market relationship between Seismic and Microsoft has sprung out of long and fruitful product ties with business applications created by Microsoft. In fact, one of Seismic’s marquee offerings, the dynamic content personalization functionality LiveDocs^® technology, is built on an innovative application of the Microsoft Office 365. LiveDocs componentizes each specific area of a document so that individual pieces, like a logo, or customer name, is automatically connected back to the source of that information, whether it’s being held in separate Excel spreadsheets or a CRM. When a change is made to the source material, it is automatically reflected in all documents containing that material. With this structure in place, LiveDocs makes the creation of highly personalized and on-brand content incredibly quick, decreasing the average creation time by 87.5 percent.

“We pride ourselves at Lockton on exemplary customer service, and the speed at which our teams can compile customized and relevant content for customers through LiveDocs directly aligns with that mission,” said Tellye Hedrick, senior vice president and director of business process at Lockton, the world’s largest privately owned, independent insurance brokerage firm. “We are always looking for innovative, intelligent platforms that make a significant impact for our marketing and sales teams and help them deliver industry leading solutions to our clients. The way Microsoft Office 365 and Seismic interact is just that.”

Additionally, through powerful integrations with CRMs like Microsoft Dynamics 365, sellers can access all the content they need, such as whitepapers, eBooks, research reports, and more, intelligently ranked for each unique interaction. For those important meetings, Seismic’s content collaboration platform WorkSpace also integrates with Dynamics 365 to automatically bring in the right people per opportunity to work together on preparing for meetings.

Finally, Seismic’s analytics suite, LiveInsights, is built on Microsoft PowerBI and shows content creators content performance in aggregate. This includes which pieces of content are being used by client-facing teams more than others, what documents are being engaged with by clients more than others, and what content is truly moving clients through the sales cycle, making the entire content creation process smarter.

Also Read: AI-Powered App Cien Live on Salesforce AppExchange

Integrating AI with Social Media Marketing to Persuade Profitable Markets

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July 17, 2018

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Integrating AI with Social Media Marketing to Persuade Profitable Markets

Together, AI and Social Media Could Help Marketing Teams Scale New Heights in Customer Experience and Engagement

The decade belongs to the phenomenal rise of social media marketing and advertising. Thanks to Mary Meeker’s insights on internet trends in 2018, marketing teams have a fair idea of how social media companies impact the way customers interact with their brands of choice. Social media marketing companies now rely on data that are collected and analyzed to create revenue opportunities across multiple marketing channels. Charged by the ever-widening expanse of social media platforms, channels, and applications— the role of AI has grown many times over within a decade. AI is one of the fastest-growing technological segments, which has been used since 1990- and is still gaining rapid appreciation.

Every marketer has been afraid of the revolutionary capabilities of AI, due to its superior processing powers and superfast analytical capabilities.

The International Data Corporation estimates that spending on AI platforms will reach a startling $57 billion by 2021. Social media marketers are using AI for predictive measures so as to forecast user’s behavior and to solve issues as soon as they develop. Almost every single social media platform is beginning to leverage AI in some medium or another.

Also Read: How Deep is the Permeation of Artificial Intelligence?

Deployment of AI to Aid Social Media Engagement

Applying AI to marketing initiatives can be equivalent to a huge yet natural leap for many marketers. Some marketers may already prefer to use analytics to understand the social and sentimental analysis of customer behavior. AI-infused solutions may vary from intelligent assistants to complicated recommendation systems or may even incorporate lead-generation platforms.

Integration of AI into existing solutions can easily be done with the creation of API’s (application programming interface) which make way for a building block approach. Adoption of technique can be made after the initial efforts are acknowledged. The key indicator here is to connect the pilot project to the business’s central system so as to be optimized completely with functioning, actionable insights.
Focusing on the business value of data is significant for AI approaches. AI’s imminent strengths include finding value in new or underutilized data. Through the AI lens, the true value of structured and unstructured data can easily be focused on. Structured data ranges from data in databases and spreadsheets to licensed third-party referential data. Though, unstructured data can include random website data to analytical data pulled in from Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or Instagram. The data can be in the form of text, visual or audio formats.
AI is now being actively involved in all levels of business affairs. The AI-driven promise brings engagement for a more consumer-centric experience which helps aid marketers’ from ground-up. Stepping up on marketing endeavors, in addition to generating leads and revenue through AI capabilities, is going to be the core game changer in this strategic conversion. AI comes with strong underlying cognition processes that social media marketing teams must absorb and utilize. This will help gain viewership and engagement insights from consumers, for their social media marketing campaigns.

AI is making a significant change in the marketing realm through its capabilities that transcend the mundane synthesis of information. There is a blend of transformational benefits that AI brings to organizations and businesses. Marketing goals such as improving customer retention may have been a step to start with, but now AI augments decisions to reach, engage and preserve customer loyalty relationships with some of its sophisticated yet intuitive techniques. The domain of AI today is an umbrella of mushrooming sectors and industries which only look to be scaling upwards, with every new chapter.

Why Does Your Company Need AI-Powered Social Media Influence?

According to the 2018 Social Media Report by HootSuite, social media brands will continue to leverage AI technologies to “prioritize personalization at scale.” This includes AI leveraging social data to increase customer insights.

AI can help you understand
Artificial Intelligence can help companies understand what the audience desires by listening to conversations consumers have online. Kissmetrics and Google Analytics are examples related to platform analytics. These tools significantly change a marketer’s viewpoint by inducing interaction between a brand and its consumers.
Content Creation
One of the major aspects of social media marketing is content creation. Any marketing campaign identifies content creation as one of its vital aspects. Each minute, there is a spike in the volume of content data. Automated AI-powered social media tools can significantly reduce the time taken in content creation, thus producing faster results.
Optimization of Content
Content Optimization assists in ensuring visibility and leading traffic to your website based on relevant insights. If optimization isn’t in place, then the content which has more value is not focused upon. This is when AI-powered bots step in to create fluidity in analyzing content and optimizing it accordingly.
Customer Service using Chatbots
Customer Services is a field which requires improvements constantly. Even though AI-powered Chatbots are not going to completely eliminate the need for manual labor, they are striving to revolutionize customer service. Chatbots are being featured by social media apps in various sectors including restaurant services, finance, healthcare, e-commerce and retail. AI-powered Chatbots help improve services, register feedback on customer experience, provide suggestions based on a consumer’s previous buying experience and use each interaction data for consumer insights.
Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing has created its own dent in the marketing landscape and measuring its performance is a challenge that can be simplified by AI.
Influential’s AI-powered Influencer marketing platform is backed by IBM Watson and is an AI social data and activation technology. It matches brands to audiences by relying on machine learning through various social media apps.

Also Read: 5 Pinterest Hacks That Can Be Used For B2B Marketing

What are AI-Powered Social Media Monitoring Tools?

Social media monitoring tools assist brands by providing social media listening skills to identify the sentiments of consumers. These monitoring tools are increasingly efficient in dissecting the positive, negative or neutral outcomes of an audience in relation to its brand.

Marketers have a range of tools at their disposal to understand their customers and analyze their prospects in the social media sphere of marketing. These tools are constantly scaling new heights with improvisations that allow for better monitoring.

To qualify for the category of Social Media Monitoring, a product should:

Listen for specific brand mentions across social media
Identify customer sentiment
Segregate customer information
Recognize thought influencers on social media
Select trending topics/phrases online

The categories for Social Media Monitoring include quadrants such as high performers, contenders and the niche solutions compiled by G2 crowd.

The Leaders that have a strong presence in the social media monitoring sphere include;

Sprout Social, HootSuite, Brandwatch, Synthesio, Mention, Meltwater, Radarly, AgoraPulse, Sendible, Digimind Social, Socialbakers, Falcon.io, Talkwalker, Brand24, Sprinklr Core and Zoho Social.

High Performers in Social Media Monitoring include Oktopost, NUVI, Tailwind, Klear, Plumlytics Social, Mediatoolkit, SentiOne, Ubermetrics Delta, NapoleanCat.com, Komfo, eClincher and Mentionlytics.

Contenders have sufficient market resources and significance but have received average user ratings. These include Cision, Spredfast, Crimson Hexagon, Adobe Social, Verint, NetBase, CX Social, Fresh Web Explorer, Percolate and Salesforce Social Studio.

Niche Solutions do not have any market presence but have been rated positively on customer satisfaction. These include Twitterfall, Audiense, Tracx, Commun.it, Union Metrics, Keyhole, Zignal Labs, dlvr.it and Sprinklr Social Listening.

Conclusion

The power of Artificial Intelligence has merged with the power of Social Media, to only ride the tidal wave of AI-Powered Social Media Marketing. The AI market is estimated to be worth $9.98 billion by the year 2022. This effect will lead to a series of lasting implications for marketers, companies and social media experts. With the rise in increased competition for customer attention, marketers are vying to utilize every advantage for better optimization, engagement and a wider reach. While social media marketers won’t completely switch over to AI-based systems, social media managers who have embraced social with AI have an edge over analyzing results. Most importantly, content marketers can now apply AI to develop the power of social media marketing, thus generating high value for customers and the company alike.

Pendo Introduces Pendo Vox to Democratize Access to the Net Promoter System

By

Sudipto Ghosh

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July 17, 2018

Pendo Draws 1,000 Attendees to Sixth Annual Pendomonium Festival, Unveils New Product Enhancements to Help Companies Drive Efficient Growth

Pendo Vox Provides a Free Email and In-App Tool for Collecting and Analyzing Customer Sentiment

Pendo, creator of the leading product cloud for digital products and data-driven product teams, announced Pendo Vox, a free tool that helps product teams quickly and easily collect, analyze, and share user feedback in any web or mobile app and via email using the Net Promoter System®️. Pendo Vox launches publicly at the Mind the Product conference in San Francisco.

Pendo Vox Makes it Easier To Implement and Measure Customer Experience Metrics

According to the May 2018 Gartner report “Customer Experience 2018 Benchmarks: Turning Return on Investment Into Reality,” two of the top three customer experience priorities for 2018 is to collect and analyze feedback and communicate actions to employees and customers, and to implement and measure customer experience metrics (n=209).

At the time of this announcement, Todd Olson, CEO and co-founder of Pendo, said, “Product teams that aren’t collecting NPS data are probably flying blind.”

Pendo Vox provides a direct solution to both priorities, making it easy to capture qualitative feedback using NPS, the most popular and widely accepted method for understanding customer sentiment and gauging user satisfaction. Using Pendo Vox, product teams can —

Create an NPS poll and one-question survey.
Deliver the survey in-app or through email to targeted customer segments.
Track NPS score, response rate, and distribution, and compare across segments and over time.
Integrate poll responses with Slack to share NPS scores and verbatims with their entire team in real-time for fast follow-up and a continuous pulse of user happiness.

Todd added, “Pendo Vox is our answer to this. This is a particularly important product release for me, both because Pendo’s lack of email support had been a long-time adoption barrier for our NPS features; and because, by making Pendo Vox free forever, every single product team on the planet now has the chance to collect NPS data.”

How Pendo Vox Works?

Pendo first introduced in-app NPS polls and surveys to customers in February 2016. Since that time, Pendo customers have reported 2-10X increases in responses when they poll users while logged into their software. Henry Schein, a global distributor of health and dental supplies, increased its NPS score by 43 points in under six months after using Pendo for NPS. Public relations software TrendKite doubled the number of responses from previous surveys, using feedback to improve its onboarding experience and help users discover more capability within the platform.

With Pendo Vox, the company is making select features of its commercial product available for every product team to use free of charge.

Using Pendo Vox, product teams can deploy an NPS survey in their app or website within minutes by pasting a couple lines of JavaScript into the code and then using the step-by-step wizard to design a survey and select a target audience. A new integration allows users to deploy the same survey via email to reach a different or perhaps less active segment of customers. This is important for targeting a representative sample of respondents including both active users who respond to a survey in-app and less active users who are better engaged by email.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLZ4OHZg2Qc&feature=youtu.be

A simple dashboard allows product teams and their colleagues to track NPS scores and analyze feedback in real-time. These teams can then compare scores across customer segments to help identify product issues as well as potential advocates, or customers at risk for churn.

Currently, Pendo provides user insight, user guidance and user communication for digital product teams. With Pendo, these product teams can understand product usage, collect feedback, measure NPS, onboard users, and announce new features in-app—all without requiring engineering resources.

IBM Watson Services Market Outlook Bullish as a Resounding 49% Respondents Affirmative on Future Investments, Reveals Fact.MR Survey

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July 17, 2018

IBM Watson Services Market Outlook Bullish as a Resounding 49% Respondents Affirmative on Future Investments, Reveals Fact.MR Survey

Adoption of IBM Watson services continues to gain steady ground, with 19% respondents agreeing to use these services, according to a latest Fact.MR survey. The survey further found that challenges associated with effective integration of SBU and IBM Watson-based services, along with scant awareness on garnering value from advanced technology remain key impediments to widespread adoption. The silver lining from the survey was optimism and confidence among end-users, with nearly 49% of non-users showing an inclination to use these services in the future.

According to the Fact.MR survey, Watson Language Services were the most widely used services, whereas adoption of Watson Vision Services was the lowest. The motivations and end-goals of using IBM Watson Services varied from improvement in business agility, assistance with decision-making, and assistance in improving sales. Nearly 84% respondents cited ‘improve our business agility’ as the top reason for investing in IBM Watson services. Use of IBM Watson Services for sales improvement ranked lowest on the preference list of end-users.

Also Read: IBM Is Helping Wimbledon “Prepare for Greatness” in 2018

The research study reveals that IBM Corp., Accenture PLC, and TCS Ltd. are among the frontrunners, whereas KPMG International, Deloitte, Capgemini SE, Tech Mahindra, Wipro, and DXC are among the key competitors in the IBM Watson Services market. Accenture PLC has strong agreements with IBM to deliver services mainly in banking, insurance, and IoT, whereas TCS Ltd. continues to consolidate its position by offering targeted services to BFSI industries across the Asia Pacific region.

The latest business intelligence study by Fact.MR is bullish on the prospects of IBM Watson services market. The study opines that global revenues will grow at 17X during the assessment period 2018-2028. The digital transformation in the healthcare industry, combined with BFSI industry growth are among the key factors driving adoption among end-users. The steady increase in IT spending, which is likely to grow at 4.5% CAGR, is also a key contributor to the growth of the market during the assessment period. The pervasiveness of IoT in manufacturing, telecom, automotive, and other industries is also likely to create sustained opportunities for the adoption of IBM Watson services among end-users.

Also Read: IBM Launches Watson Data Kits to Help Accelerate Enterprise AI Adoption

According to the study, IBM Watson Language Services lead the way, accounting for over 50% revenue share of the market currently. Use of IBM Watson Language services in cancer treatment continues to be a key contributor to growth. The bullishness in the IBM Watson Language services can be gauged by the fact that an absolute $ opportunity of over US$ 8.6 Bn is likely to emerge during the assessment period 2018-2028. Among the various types of IBM Watson Language Services, adoption of implementation services is the highest, on account of high demand in commercial and industrial applications. Pervasiveness of enterprise digital transformation, combined with growing need of advisory services for enterprise mobility are also likely to create opportunities during the assessment period.

The report opines that adoption of IBM Watson Services is multi-pronged, and a range of end-users cutting across industries and sectors are investing in these services. Healthcare and BFSI are at the forefront of adoption, with these two verticals collectively accounting for over one-third revenue share of the market. The study expects healthcare and BFSI to lead the charge over the course of the assessment period, and increase their collective revenue share from over 35% in 2018 to over 50% in 2028.

Adoption of IBM Watson Services has remained robust in the US, as IBM has a robust network of efficient business partners in the country. The lucrativeness of the US in the global IBM Watson Services market can be gauged from the fact that the country accounts for nearly 38% revenue share of the global market currently.

Activating Customer Data with AI-Based Technologies in Business

By

Madhusudan Therani

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July 17, 2018

Activating Customer Data with AI-based Technologies in Business

To meet growing consumer expectations in a digitally-driven world, companies are dealing with large amounts of data and aim to create personalized consumer experiences at different touchpoints to stay relevant. The various consumer touch-points of an enterprise generate a wide variety of digital data and are also potentially great interaction points to improve an enterprises engagement with customers. Furthermore, as enterprises adopt digital technologies for their internal and external processes, a large amount of digital data is available about consumers, products, competitors and the marketplace within and external to an enterprise. Establishing the business-value that can be generated from this data and developing or deploying viable technologies in digitally-driven processes is the current focus of most enterprises.

Numerous challenges exist as enterprises embark on this next phase – managing the flow of incoming data of all types – most of it being unstructured, data storage, aggregating and integrating data. Harnessing the integrated data and deploying it in various decision-making points by utilizing appropriate Artificial Intelligence-based technologies across the organization is another key problem. A key aspect underpinning all these efforts is the need to maintain the data fresh and relevant – which varies across different touchpoints. Apart from the scale of the data – figuring out which bits of data are relevant and will have a business impact – is something every enterprise has to solve for at the earliest.

As a first step towards this comprehensive data-driven effort to improve customer experiences, it is important to have a good understanding of the issues involved.

Also Read: Artificial Intelligence is Set to Explode. Is Your Data up to the Task?

Harnessing and Activating Customer Data – The Issues

Customer data currently sits across many silos in an organization – the marketing systems, the website, the Point-of-Sale systems, the returns systems, service and maintenance systems and many more. Integrating this data and providing a unified framework to access this data in a standard manner across the enterprise is essential. The data exists in many formats – structured, unstructured and a consumer has multiple identifiers across the different systems. Getting a unified 360-degree view of a customer is a key first step.

Pulling first-party and second-party data together in a meaningful manner and analyzing it for detecting individual and group trends and patterns at scale is a major task in knowing more about your customers and prospects. Much of the data needs to be cleansed and curated before it starts becoming valuable. Furthermore, data goes stale – as customers change their digital identifiers and personas. Keeping track of all these changes and propagating their effects is extremely important. Furthermore, the data needs to be made available at different touch points with the customer and also power a variety of decisions along the consumer’s journey within the enterprise’s purview. Once this data is made available, how to utilize it intelligently is where the AI systems play a key role.

Also Read: Key Metrics for Measuring the Effectiveness of Your Influencer Marketing Campaign

Enabling Decision-Making – The Role of “Intelligence”

Customer-centric decisions come in two primary kinds – generic decisions that apply to groups as a whole and individual decisions – customized interactions – with an individual. AI systems play a role in both of these.

Decisions such as what product features to build, what product options to provide, what price points to refer to, what kind of merchandise to store at different retail locations, what combinations of products sell together, what kind of promotions etc are all powered by the availability of data. Artificial intelligence, machine learning and optimization systems help analysts explore the variety of choices available for each decision and then make the appropriate decision. For example, well-known techniques such as market-basket analysis, Pareto analysis etc. power these decisions. Apart from understanding consumer behavior with your own product, it is important to understand how customers engage with competitors.

Also Read: Sales and Marketing Alignment Means So Much More Today

Decisions that engage a customer at each individual touch point are far more complex. Firstly, reaching out to prospects or engaging existing customers is a major task in any enterprise. Marketers engaging in omnichannel marketing monitor all channels and engage customers appropriately based on the channel. Tracking an individual across different identities and engaging appropriately is a complex task. Different types of messaging and media types are evaluated on-the-fly by analyzing consumer responses to different messages and taking appropriate action. Making product recommendations to a customer – both online and offline – is powered by AI-based recommender systems.

A key aspect to realize here is that the “intelligence” embedded in these decision-making systems address the following key items: a) which data is relevant for each decision, b) how to get the data and summarize it, c) how to utilize the data to specify a customer-specific action that is relevant, d) how to deal with noisy/incomplete data, e) how to make a choice that satisfies the customer and is also economically beneficial for the enterprise. These steps need to be executed – some apriori and some at the point of engagement.

Bottom Line

Leveraging customer data in enterprises requires a holistic and comprehensive approach. From gathering appropriate data, harnessing it and building AI-driven systems that deliver real value requires major investments in understanding the overall business processes and the underlying technology. Revisiting the core competencies of the enterprise and rethinking the overall consumer journey is essential to exploit advance AI and digital technologies effectively.

Joveo Inc. Announces a Revolutionary Host of New Features Aimed at Saving Job Advertisers Time and Money

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July 17, 2018

Joveo Inc. Announces a Revolutionary Host of New Features Aimed at Saving Job Advertisers Time and Money

Joveo, the only programmatic job advertising technology of its kind, announced a new feature set centered around automation and spend management for recruitment marketing agencies, RPOs, staffing agencies, and job boards.

These breakthrough features are designed to make everyday tasks and optimizations faster and more responsive, enabling clients to manage 3x the amount of campaigns and increasing their ROI by up to 90%.

Algorithmic Bidding

First to introduce machine learning and algorithmic bidding software, Joveo is able to ensure client hiring goals are met efficiently and effectively. Joveo’s groundbreaking Autopilot technology allows users to automate tasks like optimizing bids, enabling and disabling publishers and managing budgets with customizable rules which run for the life-cycle of the campaign. Media buyers have been able to cut their setup time by more than 50% allowing them to focus on building client relationships and growing their business.

Also Read:Aurea CRM Introduces New Ways to Increase Sales Performance On-the-Go

Budget Management

Using configurable budget threshold setups and by Joveo providing latent click information, advertisers can easily fine- tune their budget thresholds by publisher. This helps ensure that budgets are met accurately within +/- 2% of spend goals.

Job Expansion

Joveo’s “Job Expansion” feature allows users to automatically expand their audience by including new (or widely used) job titles and locations with minimum effort, thus increasing the reach and number of applicants.

Jahangir Mohammed

Earlier this year, Joveo raised $5 million in a series A round from Nexus Venture partners. “As promised, we have used the funding to continue to accelerate our product offerings, expand our partnerships and scale our AI/deep learning layer.” said Jahangir Mohammed, Head of Product and Engineering. “What you see here is the result of continued consultation with our customers to define which features would best assist them as they grow their businesses.”

Oracle Responsys Introduces the SMS Public Aggregator Network (SPAN) for Mobile-First Economy

By

Sudipto Ghosh

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July 17, 2018

Oracle Responsys Introduces the SMS Public Aggregator Network (SPAN) for Mobile-First Economy

Oracle Helps Businesses Launch Mobile Marketing Faster and Easier With Industry’s First SMS Public Aggregator Network

To help marketers quickly and easily source the best operator for maximizing the ROI of their mobile campaigns, Oracle Responsys introduced the SMS Public Aggregator Network (SPAN). Oracle’s SPAN is a powerful new self-service application within Oracle Marketing Cloud that makes it easier for customers to find, order, and manage SMS services directly from the aggregator of their choice.

At the time of this announcement, Tony Castiglioni, VP of Product Management, Oracle Responsys, said, “Marketers want to take advantage of mobile channels, but there are often too many barriers in the way. For SMS, one of those challenges is establishing aggregator relationships, which can be a time consuming and tedious task often made worse by limited choice and flexibility.”

Tony added, “Our new SPAN application eases this process and gives marketers the freedom to choose and use the aggregator best aligned with their marketing needs – whether it be by price, geography, or performance.”

SMS Open-Rates are Higher Compared to Emails

Mobile consumer engagement has become a central tool in today’s “mobile first” economy, with messaging now a preferred channel for reaching consumers. In fact, Gartner research states “various sources report SMS open and response rates as high as 98 percent and 45 percent, respectively — in contrast to corresponding figures of 20 percent and six percent for email.

Integrating SMS into marketing campaigns requires finding an aggregator network that aligns with broader campaign goals. This can often be a laborious, time-consuming and complex process. But SPAN for Oracle Responsys removes this complexity by providing an easy-to-use, self-service application that enables customers to quickly and easily identify aggregator networks, based on region, price or route type.

Oracle Responsys Equips Mobile Marketers with Industry-Leading Tools

With the launch of SPAN, all Oracle Responsys customers can now take advantage of SMS to reach and engage customers. The new SMS marketing capabilities build on Oracle Marketing Cloud’s commitment to modern help marketers convert customers across devices with orchestrated mobile marketing.

In addition to the new SMS marketing capabilities, Oracle Responsys equips mobile marketers with industry-leading tools like Push, Rich Push, In-App and MMS messaging to connect with audiences across devices to drive customer engagement, retention, and grow mobile revenue.

Oracle Marketing Cloud is part of the Oracle Customer Experience (CX) Cloud Suite, which empowers organizations to take a smarter approach to customer experience management and business transformation initiatives. By providing a trusted business platform that connects data, experiences, and outcomes, Oracle CX Cloud Suite helps customers reduce IT complexity, deliver innovative customer experiences and achieve predictable and tangible business results.

Matrix Solutions Expands Ad Sales Platform to LATAM

By

Sudipto Ghosh

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July 17, 2018

Matrix Solutions Expands Ad Sales Platform to LATAM

Honduras-Based Grupo OPSA Deploys Matrix Solutions’ Monarch Media Ad Sales Platform

Matrix Solutions, a global ad sales platform built for media, announced Grupo OPSA has deployed Monarch, Matrix Solution’s modern media ad sales platform. Monarch will enable Grupo OPSA to gain operational sales efficiencies and capitalize on more cross-sales opportunities throughout the enterprise. Grupo OPSA, the largest media group in Honduras, is comprised of several leading publications and digital platforms, including La Prensa, El Heraldo, and Diez, as well as magazines Estilo, Buen Provecho, Motores, Casa y Hogar; including Estrategia y Negocios, leading business publication across the Central American region.

Monarch by Matrix Solutions will enable Grupo OPSA to gain operational ad sales efficiencies and capitalize on more cross-sales opportunities throughout the enterprise.

Matrix Solutions Empowers Groupo OSPA with Media-Specific Functionality They Needed to Sell More Effectively

Expanding Matrix Solutions’ existing International customer footprint to Latin America, Grupo OPSA is also the first customer on the Spanish-version of the Monarch platform. The Monarch platform is fully localized, allowing for language, currency, contact and other country/region demands and customizations.

Committed to adopting and executing a new media ad sales strategy, the Grupo OPSA team had previously implemented two different CRM systems, which were an advancement from their manual processes, yet lacked the media-specific functionality they needed to sell more effectively.

“We rely on multiple sales teams – national and local, within each of the markets we serve, which has made clear our need to capture and better utilize our data holistically,” shared Isabel Sabillón, Commercial Director at Grupo OPSA.

Isabel added, “After using two non-media CRM systems, we are pleased to have adopted Matrix Solutions’ media-specific solution, which will provide us with better sales workflow processes and as a result increase our bottom line.”

More Benefits to Groupo OSPA in Addition to Ad Sales Effectiveness

In addition to the localized features of Monarch, Grupo OPSA will also inherit extensive Customer Relationship Management (CRM) capabilities, in-depth reporting and forecasting, as well as actionable insights, pushed through both predictive and prescriptive analytics. Monarch, accessible 24/7 on any device, will also provide Grupo OPSA users with the necessary sales management tools to sell effectively across multiple platforms within their enterprise.

“We feel both honored and privileged to be working with Grupo OPSA,” shared Mark Gorman, CEO, Matrix Solutions.

Mark added, “Not only are they the largest and most credible media group in Honduras, but they are also our first customer to be based in Latin America and first to adopt a localized version of our Monarch media ad sales platform.”

Grupo OPSA went live with Monarch earlier this month.

Currently, Matrix Solutions makes media happen by helping media companies to better monetize their content. It’s flagship product, Monarch, is the only global ad sales platform built for media – transforming chaotic data into actionable sales information that delivers the insights necessary for prospecting, managing, evaluating and closing business.

Cramer-Krasselt’s Integrated, Marketing-Driven Approach to Public Relations Continues to Win Top Industry Awards

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July 17, 2018

Critical Trends Reshaping Influencer Marketing In The Age Of COVID-19 Identified

Leading integrated marketing agency Cramer-Krasselt (C-K) won eight industry awards for its public relations and social media work last month. The awards highlight C-K’s data-inspired, real-time, tech-integrated approach to telling clients’ stories globally across multiple relevant channels.

The awards range from local to national recognition, including two Silver Anvil awards recognizing C-K’s global campaigns. The Silver Anvils are sponsored by the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) and recognize the best in strategic public relations planning and execution – also referred to as the Oscar of the public relations industry. In addition, C-K received a Best of Show mention for receiving a perfect score, a first-ever, on behalf of the PRSA Chicago Skylines. The PRSA Chicago Skylines is a local extension of the PRSA Silver Anvils, recognizing exceptional communications programs in Greater Chicago.

Also Read: Clinch Delivers World’s First Dynamic Instagram Stories for Personalized Video Advertising

“Being recognized at the highest level, for global achievements, demonstrates the impact our philosophy and approach to PR makes for our clients,” noted Karen Seamen, president and COO of C-K. “It’s because of our results-oriented mindset and the great people at C-K that we were also recognized by the Effie organization as one of North America’smost effective independent agencies in 2018.”

At C-K, PR and social media are not a single-focus discipline only emphasizing earned media or one-way communication. The PR and social media practice, like all practices at the agency, is linked in the marketing mix because today’s consumers don’t get their information in silos and, to engage them, brands must follow suit.

Also Read: New B2B Platform Identifies What Customers Will Most Likely Buy From You Next

Details for the agency’s eight public relations honors include:

PRSA Silver Anvil: Integrated Communications, B2B for Cotton Council International
PRSA Silver Anvil Award of Excellence: for Global Communications for Cotton Council International
PRSA Chicago Skyline: Program Award for Integrated Communications, B2B for Cotton Council International, “The Cotton the World Trusts”
PRSA Chicago Skyline: Finalist in Best of Show for Global Communications for Cotton Council International, “The Cotton the World Trusts”
PRSA Chicago Skyline: Project Award for Best Use of Social Stories for Knott’s Scary Farm, “Nightmares Never End”
PRSA Chicago Skyline: Award of Excellence for Media Relations – Consumer Services for Cedar Fair, “Celebrating Found Seasons of Fun”
Publicity Club of Chicago: Golden Trumpets Award for Social – Video for Knott’s Scary Farm, “Nightmares Never End”
Shorty Awards: Finalist for Social – Brands & Organization for Knott’s Scary Farm, “Nightmare Never Ends”

“PR is ever-evolving,” said Mary Gura, Senior Vice President, Director of Public Relations and Social Media, C-K. “Our proprietary public relations and social media approach is focused on creating strategies and tactics that complement and enhance the rest of the marketing mix. This creates real business results for brands and makes our work award winning.”

New Predictive Analytics for Inbound and Outbound Leads Combine with Deep Account Insights to Revolutionize Group Sales for Hotels

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July 17, 2018