TechBytes with Patrick Welch, President and COO, Bigtincan

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March 30, 2018

Patrick Welch
President and COO, Bigtincan

Sales Enablement is a sector of the martech universe that grown by leaps and bounds in the last few years. Bigtincan recently unveiled Bigtincan Hub, an AI-driven Sales Enablement Automation Platform. We spoke to Patrick Welch, President and COO, Bigtincan to understand how their product helps users achieve better ROI.

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Tell us about your role and how you got here? What inspired you to be a part of a sales enablement company and Bigtincan specifically?

As the Chief Operating Officer of Bigtincan, I’m responsible for guiding the strategic direction of Bigtincan’s worldwide operations, with oversight of the sales, support, business development and marketing departments. This means that I help scale our business as demand for enterprise-grade mobile content management and productivity solutions expands. My favorite part of my role is working with our teams to identify innovative ways we can continually improve Bigtincan Hub to advance our clients’ objectives and sales enablement in general.

I joined Bigtincan because it presented a unique business opportunity. This company is changing the way that CIOs at Fortune 500 companies think about productivity and on-the-road capabilities of their growing remote workforce. Tablet adoption in the enterprise is exploding and Bigtincan is taking the next step by introducing a solution that’s extending the field workforce with all the right content resources, at the right time in the right location.

How does Sales Enablement pertain to marketers? How does Bigtincan help close the gap between sales and marketing?

AI is bridging the conversation and measurement gap between modern-day sales and marketing. Sales platforms that utilize AI are enabling tailored recommendations of content to sales teams trying to close their deals, in the precise moments that matter with prospects and customers. By overlaying machine learning as well, even the weakest link in the sales performance chain stands to become a profitable entity with the platform that ensures content that has worked well in the past is presented at the exact precise moment.

For marketers, this allows them to best understand which of the hundreds of pieces of collateral they produce are performing the best, in which sales situations (by industry vertical) – and ultimately allows them to be better stewards of their budgets, spending and refocusing content in formats they know are best delivering positive bottom line results.

Further, digitally savvy customers are constantly connected and putting mobile first because of the instant access to vast amounts of information. With customers in control, selling situations are becoming more complex. To maximize success, marketing needs to support sales through each stage of the sales cycle, and sales teams need to help marketing by providing feedback from the field, as they’re talking to prospects directly more often than marketing would be.

Bigtincan helps close the gap between sales and marketing by ensuring that both functional groups keep their efforts in alignment. Bigtincan Hub provides sales and marketing teams the insights, collaboration, customization, and mobility to properly approach and tackle any selling situation to drive more revenue to the business.

What exactly is a ‘Guided Selling Experience’?

The Guided Selling Experience is an approach that offers a real-world way to help salespeople be successful and give more targeted, impactful messages to customers. The B2B selling dynamic has changed dramatically. While historically, customers relied on salespeople for critical product, service, pricing, and performance information, today’s customers and prospects are far more informed and educated. This dynamic has limited the time spent in front of customers, and therefore, makes each interaction vitally important to the sales process. When the message and content are more timely and relevant, interaction time increases. When interaction time increases, win rates increase. By taking input data, Al-powered sales enablement technology helps guide the salesperson through the entire sales cycle, suggesting the best next steps, activities and assets based on the information. Acting as a virtual mentor, this technology guides a salesperson and recommends the right content to be successful while allowing them to benefit from marketing’s expertise, all while minimizing time spent manually determining these processes that will change from prospect to prospect.

AI provides the intelligence to recommend the right solutions during the conversation, without the rep having to do an arbitrary needs assessment. The Guided Selling component does that assessment for them.

How exactly does Bigtincan leverage AI technology? What value does AI bring to your product? How is this different from what other sales enablement companies are doing?

The Bigtincan Hub uses AI-driven features and automation to support each phase of the buying process. Specifically, this technology automatically delivers the latest and most relevant content to a user’s mobile device or computer, helping them create, customize, annotate and share content. Users can work where they are the most productive, with the help of automated data capture that eliminates manual processes and has adaptive learning capabilities to improve knowledge and skill.

With the use of AI in Bigtincan Hub, users benefit from embedded expertise and experience that improves business results and creates a better customer experience. This value enables sales, service and marketing teams to work more effectively to grow their pipelines, collaborate more effectively, move deals through the sales process faster, and increase win rates.

Bigtincan was the first AI-powered sales enablement automation platform. We approach the sales enablement process differently from our competitors by tailoring our solution directly to our customers’ needs – no matter what industry or job function they represent. It is not a one-size fits all solution – this versatility and functionality makes our approach unique and allows for an unparalleled experience for our customers to execute on their sales goals.

How does the use of AI in a sales enablement product help improve customer experiences and drive revenue? How can Sales Enablement help determine ROI from marketing efforts?

AI in a sales enablement platform helps improve customer experiences and drives revenue by vastly improving productivity and creating efficiencies. AI automates all the small, but critical tasks that are part of the sales process. By doing so, it frees up salespeople to do what they do best – spend time in front of prospects and customers. With automation that supports every phase of the buyer journey, Bigtincan Hub unlocks big gains in sales effectiveness, which translates to higher win rates and revenue.

Regarding ROI, there is a direct correlation between the performance of marketing and sales teams, as each is dependent on the other. If marketing teams are delivering the right content and sales teams are utilizing the content in a platform like Bigtincan where their usage and comments are automatically associated to the content, this will maximize business success and return on investment. It takes out the guesswork, so marketing can do more of what works and what salespeople want, and spend less time and money on content mediums that aren’t performing.

Bigtincan’s value comes when the marketing folks can quantify pipeline and revenue contribution of the content they produced and use by sales folks. This is the last mile in marketing, being able to measure the success of the content assets produced to enable revenue growth.

How is technology like Bigtincan’s changing the sales and marketing profession overall and enabling the digital salesforce? How is it following trends in Marketing like ABM?

Bigtincan’s technology is changing the sales and marketing profession by helping these teams become more effective and efficient. Bigtincan’s technology is also enabling salesforces to be more productive through its mobile-first design. This design allows a salesforce to work whenever and wherever they want with customers. In addition, Bigtincan’s technology enables the digital salesforce to drive the sales process with the most effective and targeted sales content anywhere, anytime and on any device.

At Bigtincan, we strive to stay ahead of marketing trends. The emergence of ABM allowed us to bring a micro-level focus to how our solution can better target specific accounts. ABM can be tricky once sales become involved because it’s difficult to get visibility into the effectiveness of content. With traditional methods, sales and marketing are still siloed, even in initiatives like ABM where alignment and visibility are crucial to success. With Bigtincan, marketing can create account-specific content and push it to the teams where it’s pertinent – the account owner/team – and keep track of usage.

Marketers can also tie sales content to marketing campaigns so that a prospect who interacts with content sent by sales, can be associated to a marketing campaign. Bigtincan then proactively checks CRMs to determine whether someone who interacts with a piece of content that sales sent out is already a lead, and if that lead should actually be a contact on an account as opposed to a dissociated lead. This enables marketers to get an account-level view of conent interactions as opposed to lead-level. This increased visibility makes it easier to replicate success and optimize ABM strategies.

What industries would benefit the most from using an AI-powered sales enablement platform?

Though arguably any organization with a mobile sales or service team could benefit from an AI-powered sales enablement platform, the industries that come to mind as really natural fits are the retail, life sciences, financial services, and manufacturing sectors. Each of these industries is dependent on having efficient and modern sales teams that directly impact the bottom line because of the products and services they sell.

The retail industry has gone through a drastic change due to the digital and mobile revolution. With the rise of e-commerce through Amazon, brick and mortar establishments are declining because they are not catering to customers in a way that is complementary with their predominantly digital lifestyle. Key to creating repeat customers is delivering an in-store experience that the customers just can’t get online. Sales enablement platforms like Bigtincan allow associates to stay on the sales floor more to help customers through “eliminating the back-office corkboard,” and provide product knowledge they need, in real time, to answer customer questions and make the sale.

There are many sectors that fall within the Life Sciences industry. Whether it is pharmaceutical or biotechnology, these sectors are facing an unprecedented amount of complex regulations and compliance challenges, so there’s a critical need to change the sales experience. It’s imperative that salespeople, marketers and service personnel in the life sciences industry do everything they can to optimize the time they spend with clients and prospects, which can be improved through the use of automation technology with time-saving tactics.

Financial services companies are experiencing some of the same struggles of the retail industry – providing an experience in-branch that customers can’t get online. With a large portfolio of complex products and services, employees need relevant content at their fingertips to impart that trust, and truly become a trusted advisor for a client. That initiative, along with strict compliance, provide a real need for Sales enablement platforms.

Many companies in the manufacturing industry are plagued with an outdated infrastructure (slow to adopt) which makes improving their old processes extremely difficult in the sales, marketing and field service departments. Too often there are missed business opportunities because interactions with customers are not as productive as they should be. By replacing these systems with new technology and automation, this will increase efficiencies and reduce costs, improving overall customer-facing operations.

Where do you see the sales enablement industry evolving over the next 3 years?

With the digitization of sales becoming more prevalent, sales teams will look towards optimizing their strategies to become even more effective, efficient and productive. I believe in the next three years sales enablement will move beyond using AI-capabilities and focus on leveraging other emerging technologies. Sales enablement platforms will need to continuously evolve along with digital transformation to help deliver high-growth as a result of new products and services, access to technologies that improve productivity and speed administrative tasks and dynamically deliver the best, most effective content to support each customer interaction.

Unification reduces the number of point solutions and increases high-value experiences that transform the customer journey for sales executives.

Thanks for chatting with us, Patrick.
Stay tuned for more insights on marketing technologies. To participate in our Tech Bytes program, email us at news@martechseries-67ee47.ingress-bonde.easywp.com

SXSW: Mobile Video, YouTube, Facebook – 3 Data-Driven Takeaways

By

Megan McKenna

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March 30, 2018

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SXSW: Mobile Video, YouTube, Facebook – 3 Data-Driven Takeaways

Though its overall influence has waned over the years, SXSW still spotlights some of the biggest trends and challenges in digital advertising and media. 2018 was no different. From brand safety and transparency to Facebook and mobile video, Austin was a hotbed for discussing problems and predicting how we can fix them. But what I found interesting was how central data was in each conversation.

With that in mind, here are three data-driven takeaways out of SXSW, based on what I saw and heard.

The Surge in Mobile Video Means More Cross-Device Targeting

Mobile video was a big focus on marketers and platforms. From Cheetos to HBO, there were tons of mobile-enabled VR and AR experiences at the show. Facebook even announced that they’ll launch a news video section this summer. Brands and vendors are simply adapting to consumer preferences and demand. It’s expected that three-quarters of all mobile traffic will be through video in the next five years.

Also Read: Five Video Marketing Blogs You Should Read

For marketers, this underscores the need for more cross-device targeting. With cross-device targeting and device ID targeting, marketers can identify a single user and match up their interests no matter where they’re browsing from. This helps cut down on that fragmentation and lets brands direct their marketing at users whether they’re online, offline, mobile, or somewhere else. Unfortunately, this has been a problem area for most advertisers. Today, only 20% are confident in their own cross-device strategy. As mobile video explodes, marketers will need to build a smarter and comprehensive cross-device approach.

YouTube’s Brand Safety Issues Are Impacting Data Transparency

At SXSW, YouTube announced it’d be leaning on Wikipedia to help them fight back against certain brand safety threats. Over the last year, brand safety has really stepped into the forefront as the central issue in advertising. YouTube’s challenges have enabled that, but other players in media and technology, from Facebook to certain publishers, have also contributed to concerns. Advertisers want brand-safe inventory, period. They also want greater transparency on their buys. They’re forcing change. This is good for the category.

Also Read: Programmatic Clean-Up on Brand Safety: It’s Just a Conscious Process

We’re seeing this impact the data industry, as well. Marketers are shining a brighter light on the overall ad supply chain. They want greater transparency, not just about their inventory, but also the data they buy and feed into their DSPs. More advertisers are asking how accurate the data they’re being sold is and how partners can validate quality continuously. The higher standards are good for advertising, in general, and will cause all boats to rise. Advertisers see better ROI and spend more money. This is good for sellers and vendors.

After News Feed Tweaks, Publishers Need to Be Data Scientists

Publishers at SXSW had a lot to say about Facebook – and I can’t blame them. After Facebook tweaked their News Feed to prioritize content from friends and family, deprioritizing publishers and brands, many notable publishers saw their traffic nosedive. To that point, Facebook had been a valuable channel for third-party distribution. That’s largely gone. So, publishers are angry and wondering what will happen next. As I see it, this will create an opportunity for them to re-focus their efforts on on-site audience engagement and personalization.

This means more innovation in the way publishers use data. Audience enrichment is a good example. This is when publishers mix website data they already have with data gathered on those same users while they roam the internet. This combination creates a fuller view of an audience. Then publishers can create content tailored to the audience’s interests, behavior, and demographics. This means a better on-site experience. It also lessens the reliance on third-party distribution, which Facebook shows us can be unreliable. In addition, more data on a publisher’s audience means a more valuable audience, increasing inventory’s cost (even if traffic sees a downturn). Data is the key here.

For me, data was the common theme at SXSW. And these three areas, specifically, will remain top-of-mind long after Austin. Come Cannes Lions, we’ll probably be discussing the same topics. But in the meantime, it’ll be interesting to see how things evolve.

Also Read: 3 Data Hacks That Will Increase Marketing Effectiveness

Snappy Kraken Announces New Video Production Services to Enhance Marketing Outcomes for Financial Professionals

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MTS Staff Writer

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March 30, 2018

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Snappy Kraken Announces New Video Production Services to Enhance Marketing Outcomes for Financial Professionals

Advisors Who Add Quality Video Content to Their Digital Communications Strategy See the Results

Snappy Kraken, a MarTech company focused on helping financial professionals automate their marketing and business processes, recently announced an affordable, professional video production service for financial advisors. In addition to producing studio-quality videos for advisory firms, Snappy Kraken’s video production team is now available for on-location shoots at financial services conferences and/or advisory firm office locations.

Real Pain Points

Snappy Kraken Announces New Marketing Program for Financial Advisors at the 2018 T3 Advisor Conference — Robert Sofia

“Most advisors struggle to pull off video marketing successfully, and yet, video is vital to any modern marketing strategy. Including video on a webpage can increase conversion rates by 80% and, according to Hubspot, 90% of consumers say that video is helpful in their decision-making process,” said Snappy Kraken CEO and co-founder, Robert Sofia.

“But many advisors just don’t know where to start or how much to pay for a good quality outcome. At the same time, many advisors have fallen into the trap of doing videos just for the sake of doing videos – this only creates more noise and does not really serve the advisor as well as it should. For this reason, we see the need to help advisors better represent themselves to prospects and clients. And, for those who don’t want to come to Ormond Beach for video production, we are happy to send our traveling production team to their office – or even their conference – to capture and produce meaningful, high-quality video footage that will become a true digital asset.”

Also Read: Snappy Kraken Delivers “Snackable Content” for Dynamic, Automated Marketing Make-Over

“In addition to offering video production services, we also bring a consultative approach to the engagement, helping advisors and firms understand the specific purpose for each video. Having done this for many advisors and financial enterprises over the years, I can confidently say that we bring something special to the equation. We’re not just another video production company — we’re a production team that specializes in serving the financial industry,” Sofia concludes.

State-of-the-art Studio

In 2017, Snappy Kraken invested nearly six figures to create a state-of-the-art video production studio. At their Florida studio, the Snappy Kraken production team focuses on creating professional “interview format” videos for advisor use in automated drip marketing campaigns.

“Financial services is a people business. Clients choose the advisors they like, trust and respect. Featuring videos on an advisor’s website is a way to set their firm apart from the competition and show who they really are as a professional,” said Sofia. “Advisors who utilize a good video strategy can engage website visitors instantly with videos that show off what makes them the best choice. It’s hardly a differentiator to show a stock animated video that thousands of other advisors also have,” adds Sofia. “Our production team will handle everything so the advisor can showcase what really makes them unique.”

Also Read: Five Video Marketing Blogs You Should Read

The Right Videos Done the Right Way

Snappy Kraken typically recommends that advisory firms produce a professional Homepage video that communicates how they will serve the prospective client’s needs. An About Us video that builds confidence and motivates the visitor to get in touch is a good second video to produce. Additionally, firms and advisors can show viewers the kind of person they really are with a Personal Bio video that can be featured on their website and social media profiles.

Another example of how financial firms are now using the Snappy Kraken studio is bringing in one or more of their executives to record “passion videos” for their websites and digital marketing needs. One such team: TradePMR.

Robb Baldwin

“My team and I were very impressed by the experience we had in the Snappy Kraken studios shooting a series of videos for our new Get There campaign,” said Robb Baldwin, founder and CEO of TradePMR. “Some of us used the teleprompter; others just mentally prepared and spoke from the heart. We appreciated having the side room for final preparations before entering the actual studio to shoot our individual segments. Snappy Kraken offered us a makeup artist and a beautiful set, including three camera angles, professional lighting and sound. They were patient when a retake was necessary and provided good advice on how to look and feel our best during the daylong session,” Baldwin concludes.

Also Read: 8 Proven Strategies to Make Video Marketing Successful for Your Small Business

On-Location Video Services, for Firms and Conferences

While the studio is the center of the production services, the Snappy Kraken team is also mobile-ready and can go “on the road” to shoot on location. “Some firms have asked us to come to their offices or to shoot at a conference location. This allows us to capture people in the environment where they feel most comfortable,” adds Sofia.

“Having professionally produced video on the homepage of an advisor’s website is vitally important today. Further, the first video the website visitor watches needs to be all about them – meaning that the video must hit squarely on the visitor’s dreams and needs. The home page video should not simply be all about the advisory firm and how they serve clients,” said Sofia.

Joel Bruckenstein

“Snappy Kraken produced all of the official conference videos from this year’s T3 Technology Conference for financial advisors,” said Joel Bruckenstein, CFP, producer of T3 Technology Tools for Today, which provides a suite of informative solutions for financial services and financial advisory firms. “The onsite team did a great job and we are already in discussions about how Snappy Kraken can play a role at future T3 events.”

Also Read: Snappy Kraken Announces New Marketing Program for Financial Advisors at the 2018 T3 Advisor Conference

Marie Swift

“I loved how the Snappy Kraken team supported our PR and marketing plan for T3,” said Marie Swift, president and CEO of Impact Communications, who worked with Bruckenstein to produce and promote the T3 Advisor event. “I’ve worked with numerous video production and digital marketing teams over the years, so have a good basis for comparing how Snappy Kraken stacks up to the competition; I was impressed, in every way.”

Snappy Kraken at Conference in May

Snappy Kraken will be participating at TradePMR’s annual Synergy conference in San Diego, May 16-18, 2018. Experts from the Snappy Kraken team will provide free 1:1 advice to advisors attending the Branding Reception, which includes 3-hours of mini-presentations and real-time branding guidance in a more relaxed setting. Throughout the conference, attendees will have the opportunity to network with Snappy Kraken and other industry experts, sponsors and peers. They can ask for free website analysis, social media and digital marketing advice, compliance consultation, and more. Snappy Kraken will be focused on sharing best practices for video production and how to create a results-oriented, omnichannel marketing plan.

Recommended Read: Fast Forward Your Video Content Strategy in 2018

Cisco Announces New Chief Sales and Marketing Officer and New Chief Customer Experience Officer

By

MTS Staff Writer

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March 30, 2018

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Cisco Announces New Chief Sales and Marketing Officer and New Chief Customer Experience Officer

Gerri Elliott and Maria Martinez Join Cisco

Cisco announced that Gerri Elliott has been named Executive Vice President and Chief Sales and Marketing Officer, and Maria Martinez will serve as the company’s Executive Vice President and Chief Customer Experience Officer. Elliott and Martinez will join Cisco’s executive leadership team and serve as executive officers of the company.

Also Read: Need for Data Orchestration for Contextualizing Customer Experience

New EVP and Chief Sales and Marketing Officer

As chief sales and marketing officer, Elliott will align the sales and marketing organizations around the company’s go-to-market strategy and growth opportunity. She will also oversee Cisco’s brand and reputation in the market.

Elliott is an accomplished business leader who has driven growth, built world-class teams and led with vision and inspiration throughout her career. She joins Cisco with a breadth of leadership experience from roles at IBM, Microsoft, and Juniper, as well as various public board positions.

Elliott will join Cisco on April 30th. At that time, as previously announced, Chris Dedicoat, EVP of Worldwide Sales and Field Operations, will move into a senior advisory role, taking on a number of strategic initiatives for Cisco Chairman and CEO Chuck Robbins. Karen Walker will remain in her role as chief marketing officer reporting to Elliott.

Also Read: Forget Mobile First, It’s Now Social First

New EVP and Chief Customer Experience Officer

Maria Martinez

Cisco has created a new role encompassing services and customer success. In this role, Martinez will help build customer loyalty and ensure customers take full advantage of Cisco’s software, services, and subscription offerings.

Martinez drives for results, leads to a clear vision, and transforms organizations. She joins Cisco from Salesforce where she served as president, Salesforce Customer Success Group and Success Cloud as well as general manager, Salesforce Latin America. She’s also held a number of leadership positions at Microsoft, Motorola, AT&T as well as CEO of the start-up, Embrace Networks.

“I am excited to have two phenomenal leaders, Gerri and Maria, join Cisco’s executive leadership team. Their collective vision and vast experience in software, networking, services and customer success are a powerful combination as we drive greater momentum with our customers and partners,” said Chuck Robbins, CEO, Cisco.

Interview with Thom Gruhler, CEO And Founder at Fjuri

By

Sudipto Ghosh

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March 30, 2018

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[vc_wp_text]“Brands that leverage data, analytics, and AI to better understand customer needs and reduce the lag between insight and action are going to win out over those who don’t.”[/vc_wp_text]

[easy-profiles profile_twitter=”https://twitter.com/thomgruhler” profile_linkedin=”https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomgruhler/”]

Tell us about your role at Fjuri and how you got here.

The launch of Fjuri was directly shaped by my experience working as a CMO at Microsoft, and prior to that as marketing leader with global brands.

The challenges companies face in applying data to improve the customer experience are real. I knew if I was experiencing these challenges at Microsoft, one of the world’s largest tech companies with a tremendous focus on being data-driven, then without question, there were other marketers facing similar challenges who were in need of a resource to help.

Today, Fjuri helps brands across categories to improve their marketing strategies and customer outreach by leveraging data, analytics and automation. Our focus is on working with CMOs and senior marketers to solve for some of the toughest challenges marketers face today – by tapping into data intelligence in a more impactful way.

The name Fjuri comes from the furious change of marketing — what’s happening with digital disruption — and inspiration from the fjords in Scandinavia, the calm and tranquil body of water. We wanted to bring that energy to the furious pace of change — calm and peace and clarity.

How big is your team? How does technology drive them to succeed in meeting organizational goals at Fjuri?

Since launching, Fjuri has grown rapidly grown and now employs a mix of employees and consultants based in Seattle. Technology is at the heart of how our team works and collaborates. In addition to using a variety of marketing cloud and automation platforms with our clients, we use data analytics, project management and workflow automation software to enhance our own performance.

The efficiency of any team today depends on technology and automation. The better you define your core processes and the technology that support them, the more efficient the team becomes. Pair that with rigorous prioritization, positive teamwork and a continuous improvement mentality, and you’ll be on a strong path to effectiveness. Ultimately, technology and automation enable the team to focus on high value, creative intellectual work.

Tell us more about the work Fjuri is doing. What services do you offer CMOs and marketers?

We work shoulder-to-shoulder with CMOs and marketing teams on the ground to improve their marketing strategies and customer outreach by tapping into data analytics and marketing automation.

This includes the use of analytics to understand how current and potential customers behave and make choices and decisions in different contexts, as well as the design of demand generation programs to increase marketing performance and ROI.

In addition to offering digital and content marketing services, Fjuri excels at helping brands to apply first-party data and third-party data and programmatic machine learning to prioritize leads for sales and marketing.

What do you view as the biggest challenges facing CMOs and senior marketers today?

Today, the customer experience is the new brand. And yet, identifying the right data to model, predict, and improve CX is one of the toughest challenges facing CMOs and marketers today.

In an increasingly noisy marketplace, it’s difficult to find and connect with prospective customers. Adblocking, email management systems and new opt-in privacy rules are also giving more control to customers over how companies market to them.

We are also witnessing explosive growth in the marketing technology landscape, with the number of vendors growing from roughly 100 in 2011 to more than 6,000 marketing point solutions today. Marketers are faced with the complexity of choosing the right marketing technology tools for effective, end-to-end digital marketing.

At the same time, CMOs are under incredible pressure to drive measurable change in a rapid period of time and show how they’re moving the needle. Often they’re also being asked to drive revenue growth.

Fjuri helps CMOs and clients to navigate these challenges and create a custom MarTech blueprint for their company and make smart technology and design decisions around marketing processes, systems and tools, while also looking at the organizational capabilities required to effectively create value and drive ROI for technology investments.

How do you think young sales professionals should train themselves to master MarTech skills?

Customer preferences today are constantly changing, so one of the biggest areas of focus for young professionals in my opinion is learning how they can experiment, learn, and optimize customer engagement and experience in real time.

To successfully apply MarTech to their processes, professionals need to fully understand the customer journey, or various customer journeys across channels and touchpoints. The next step is to understand the challenges or gaps that exist – at the customer level – as well as identifying opportunities to improve.

Being successful with MarTech starts with understanding the customer decision journey and designing marketing processes to support delivering the best experience at each step of that journey. How do you deliver content and experiences at the right time, on the right channels, at the right moment? It’s about understanding the effectiveness of your engagement at each and every touchpoint and creating solutions at a larger scale. Technology should support the process and not the other way around.

Given the changing dynamic of data intelligence technologies, how do you see the approach for omnichannel marketing evolving by 2020?

Without a doubt, AI or machine learning will be the most transformative technology for marketers as we head toward 2020. High performing marketers are already leveraging AI to better understand the customer journey and make predictions about how customers are likely to interact, and then optimizing CX to shorten the sales cycle, driving stronger engagement and ROI.

As CMOs and marketers look to evolve in the future, they need both art and science, left brain and right brain skills. You need the science that data intelligence provides you and the art of knowing who your customer is and what motivates them. From there, you can use marketing automation or AI to personalize experiences and offers at scale.

How do marketers close the gap between automation, customer experience management, and B2B selling? What role do intelligent audience targeting technologies play?

For CMOs, this means bringing higher quality leads into the funnel and using lead nurturing and lead scoring to prioritize what expensive enterprise sales teams act upon. Revenue planning in close alignment with sales is important, as well as understanding conversion rates to create marketing actions that generate the necessary pipeline to support sales quota attainment. Ultimately, organizations need to have a single version of the truth: common metrics that represent the full marketing and sales funnel, allowing them to quickly make adjustments while maintaining synergy.

At Fjuri, we work with clients to evolve their marketing and sales approach to bridge this alignment gap and improve business performance.

How do you prepare for an AI-centric world as a marketing leader?

There are a number of things that marketing leaders need to keep in mind:

First, you need to make sure you have the right people, with bandwidth and empowerment across your organization to get strategic alignment around what business objectives you seek to achieve with AI.

Second, you need to make sure you have the right data, particularly behavioral data, to train machines to find value. Marketing automation already allows marketers to deliver personalization and relevance at scale. With AI and machine learning, marketers are able to take it several steps further to predict future behavior, identify patterns among customers that provide insight into the best way to approach them at each stage of the customer journey. AI and ML also allow us to optimize how we target and design marketing with much stronger ROI, which is absolutely critical for CMOs today, who are under increasing pressure to drive revenue growth.

The last thing I would stress for marketers is they need to develop a data-driven, performance-based culture that’s constantly experimenting to optimize the customer experience quickly.

In the long run, the brands that leverage data, analytics, and AI to better understand customer needs and reduce the lag between insight and action are going to win out over those who don’t.

Thank you Thom! That was fun and hope to see you back on MarTech Series soon.

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Thom is the CEO and founder of Fjuri. Prior to founding Fjuri, Thom led marketing team for Apps and Services Marketing Group at Microsoft, for commercial and consumer including Office/O365, Skype, Outlook, OneDrive and OneNote. In his role as one of three divisional marketing VP’s Thom led a cross-functional team of 400, accountable for business planning, product marketing, brand and integrated marketing, demand generation & CRM, sales & partner-channel enablement.

Prior to his role as Office Marketing leader, Thom was the Corporate Vice President and Global CMO of Microsoft’s Windows Division, where he led all division marketing, working closely with product engineers and field partners to ensure customer satisfaction and to drive revenue and market share in the highly competitive sectors of PC, Tablet and Smartphone. Thom also led US and global marketing for the new Windows Phone as Corporate Vice President and Global CMO of the Windows Phone Division.

Before joining Microsoft, Thom served as President of McCann NY, where he led the transformation of McCann NY, readying it for the digital age. He reset the leadership team, defined and recruited new agency talent, redesigned key work processes, and coordinated a multimillion-dollar redesign of the agency’s physical space. In 2008, Thom was recognized for his high-profile leadership, earning the advertising industry’s highest award—induction into The American Advertising Federation’s prestigious Hall of Achievement for professionals under age 40.

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Fjuri

Fjuri is a cutting-edge marketing consultancy arisen from decades of collective experience within marketing organizations. We work with our clients to enhance marketing strategy and execution to harness the latest approaches, world-class technology, data science, and the right analytics architecture to optimize marketing performance and deliver more significant and consistent value from your marketing investments

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The MTS Martech Interview Series is a fun Q&A style chat which we really enjoy doing with martech leaders. With inspiration from Lifehacker’s How I work interviews, the MarTech Series Interviews follows a two part format On Marketing Technology, and This Is How I Work. The format was chosen because when we decided to start an interview series with the biggest and brightest minds in martech – we wanted to get insight into two areas … one – their ideas on marketing tech and two – insights into the philosophy and methods that make these leaders tick.

C-Suite TV Announces Content Partnership with BizTV

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MTS Staff Writer

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March 30, 2018

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C-Suite TV Announces Content Partnership with BizTV

C-Suite TV’s BestSeller TV and Executive Perspectives Live Shows to Air on Hundreds of Broadcast Channels Nationwide on BizTV’s Platform

C-Suite TV, a streaming digital on-demand business video channel, announced a content partnership with BizTV to air select primetime shows from the C-Suite TV lineup. In return, BizTV, a channel dedicated to providing entrepreneurs with resources to succeed in business, will have select contributors air their programming on C-SuiteTV.

BizTV will air C-Suite TV’s primetime shows Best Seller TV and Executive Perspectives Live on their broadcast platform, available in over 59 million households nationwide. C-Suite TV shows will air every Sunday at 6 PM EST beginning on Sunday, April 1st. In exchange, BizTV shows The Ray Lucia Show and The Big Biz Show will air on the C-Suite TV platform. Both shows will be available anytime on demand as well as airports and hotels nationwide.

Also Read: Report finds C-Suite’s Use Of Social Media Is On The Rise

With over 30 million small businesses and 15 million home-based companies in the US, BizTV aims to provide original, educational and compelling programming about what it takes to succeed in today’s business world.

Jeffrey Hayzlett

“I’m excited to be able to join forces with BizTV as a way to help other entrepreneurs and business-minded individuals find programming that gives them an edge in a very competitive world. We are looking to provide business people with the resources to find the biggest trends and discussions taking place today,” said Jeffrey Hayzlett, Chairman and CEO of the C-Suite Network, host of C-Suite TV’s Executive Perspectives Live and C-Suite with Jeffrey Hayzlett.

Also Read: 6 Effective Ways To Drive ROI On Your Landing Pages

BizTV and C-Suite TV put businesses at the forefront with their one-of-a-kind programming featuring business executives and thought leaders across a number of industries.

Kelly Kantz

“BizTV is very excited to be partnering with C-Suite TV to provide some of the great business programming airing on BizTV, which includes The Big Biz Show and The Ray Lucia Show. C-Suite TV will be a great addition to the BizTV network adding some of their fantastic business programming to our lineup across the US,” said Kelly Kantz, VP of Programming and Marketing.

Also Read: Five Video Marketing Blogs You Should Read

Quincy Media Deploys Avid’s Story-centric TV News Workflow Across 14 U.S. Markets

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MTS Staff Writer

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March 30, 2018

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Quincy Media Deploys Avid’s Story-centric TV News Workflow Across 14 U.S. Markets

Broadcaster Accelerates News Production with Remote Collaboration Based on Avid MediaCentral

Avid, a leading global media technology provider for the creation, distribution and monetization of media assets for global media organizations, enterprise users and individual creative professionals, announced that Quincy Media has adopted Avid’s end-to-end story-centric workflow. Powered by MediaCentral, the new workflow facilitates remote collaboration for journalists and news teams across multiple Quincy television stations, enabling them to create content in the field, share material and break stories faster in broadcast and across digital platforms.

Family-owned Quincy Media, headquartered in Quincy, Illinois, operates television stations and digital platforms in 14 U.S. markets. To accelerate content collaboration among its properties, Quincy Media upgraded its news production infrastructure, turning to Avid to optimize news workflow for enterprise-wide collaboration, choosing tools and workflow solutions to create, distribute and optimize news content.

Also Read: Outbrain Partners with Telaria to Bring New Video Advertising Offerings

Brady Dreasler

“With our Avid story-centric workflow, our journalists are more productive by contributing finished assets and stories while they’re out in the field,” said Brady Dreasler, Corporate Director of Engineering, Quincy Media. “Our MediaCentral implementation makes Quincy as functional in the field as we are in the newsroom, having liberated our teams and amplified their collaboration so that we’re delivering more powerful stories in less time.”

Quincy is unlocking new levels of real-time collaboration with MediaCentral-based story-centric workflows incorporating newsroom management, production, and multiplatform content creation available to all team members from an easy to use web-based experience. All Quincy stations are connected via a centralized server giving journalists, editors and producers universal access to all available content on a single newsroom management system to build their stories.

Also Read: Poynter Receives $3 Million Grant from Google.org to Lead a Program to Teach Teens to Tell Fact from Fiction Online

Six of Quincy’s stations also pool content on an on-going basis to produce a shared weekly newscast called Wake up Wisconsin. One station produces the newscast and redistributes the content to the other six stations located across Wisconsin. “If it wasn’t for the connectivity and common standardized workflows we get with MediaCentral it would be close to impossible to produce this show,” says Dreasler.

Quincy Media equipped each of its journalists with a laptop, camera, and access to MediaCentral—which provides a common user interface and gives everyone across the station group access to the same creation and management tools. Each laptop includes Avid Media Composer | Cloud Remote, to enable remote video production. With the openness of MediaCentral, the field teams quickly upload their videos back to their station with the integrated IBM Aspera FASP high-speed file transfer software.0

Also Read: Facebook News Feed Update: Will the Revamp Add to your ‘Price of Opportunity’?

Quincy Media’s workflow also comprises Avid NEXIS, MediaCentral | Panel for Adobe Premiere Pro CC, Avid AirSpeed, and MediaCentral | Command. With Avid NEXIS, the media industry’s first software-defined storage platform, Quincy Media expanded its storage capacity for HD files and enabled multiple stations to easily access content stored on the system, quickly transfer media, and broadcast programs from multiple control rooms using Avid AirSpeed servers for playout.

Tom Cordiner

“With the power of its platform-based approach, Quincy Media has sharpened its competitive edge across its markets by dramatically accelerating its ability to gather content and produce stories with an optimally collaborative news organization,” said Tom Cordiner, Senior Vice President of Worldwide Sales at Avid. “Avid’s platform has helped unify Quincy’s multiple news operations to deliver stronger stories faster while establishing a new means to control operating costs.”

Videofashion Chooses GrayMeta to Unlock the Value of Decades of Fashion Content

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MTS Staff Writer

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March 30, 2018

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By Licensing Programs, Segments and Footage That Cover All Aspects of Fashion – Videofashion Will Leverage the GrayMeta Platform to Enable Their Audience to Search and License Their Content

GrayMeta, the leading provider of professional media players and metadata solutions for content owners, recently announced that they have been chosen by Videofashion, who launched the genre of fashion video in 1976, to help optimize their 22,000-hour library of content. The GrayMeta Platform is an automatic metadata creation solution which builds workflow efficiencies throughout media workflows. Spanning five decades the Videofashion assets are automatically tagged using artificial intelligence and machine learning – enabling faster and more efficient monetization of video.

Also Read: The Next Generation of Global OTT Platforms Has Been Unveiled Offering Cutting-Edge Streaming Technology – and It’s for Sale

Called the “world’s first video magazine” by Time Magazine, Videofashion News was founded by Nicolas H. Charney, Ph.D., along with co-founders, Marlene McGinnis Cardin and Anne V. Adami, in November 1976. They would go on to start the Videofashion Daily News Service, supplying all media markets with short-form fashion news and topical segments through a constantly-updated mRSS feed. Today, Videofashion shoots and edits all of their new content – in 4K – with the mission to share their love for the art of fashion with audiences worldwide on all media platforms – by producing in-depth, intelligent, and entertaining fashion, beauty, and lifestyle programming.

Also Read: Volley Media Announces Volley — a Revolutionary New Way to Capture and Share Live Event Video

By licensing programs, segments and footage that cover all aspects of fashion – Videofashion will leverage the GrayMeta Platform to enable their audience to search and license their content, especially previously unseen content. Using best-of-breed artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning services, the platform will automatically create temporal metadata – and incorporate the technical and temporal metadata harvested by the platform into their library. Worldwide customers will be able to quickly search by year, designer, city, trends, show, clothing, celebrities, models, and quotes. This new ability to quickly locate specific assets within the most extensive, privately-owned fashion library in the world will allow Videofashion to monetize their content faster than ever before.

Also Read: New Springbot Exchange Empowers eCommerce SMBs to Compete Against Large Retailers

Maritz Motivation Solutions Launches Cartwheel, New Creative Agency

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MTS Staff Writer

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March 30, 2018

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Maritz Motivation Solutions Launches Cartwheel, New Creative Agency

A New Digital Agency, Cartwheel Employs Data and Behavioral Insight to Build Creative Campaigns

Maritz Motivation Solutions, a leader in providing consumer and channel loyalty, employee engagement and sales incentive programs to U.S. and global companies, announced the launch of Cartwheel, a new full-service digital agency that uses powerful data and insights to build creative campaigns. Cartwheel will function as an independent agency, as well as service Maritz Motivation Solutions clients.

“From its inception, Maritz has enjoyed an exceptional reputation for producing memorable and creative campaigns, events and promotions. Cartwheel continues our pursuit of innovation, combining our creative talents with our emphasis in behavioral science,” said Steve Maritz, chairman of the Maritz companies.

Also Read: Four Tips to Design an Analytics Product that Democratizes Data

Drew Carter

“By building on our expertise in analytics, decision science and behavioral science, Maritz Motivation Solutions is in the midst of transforming our industry. Adding the creative expertise of Cartwheel takes our capabilities to another level, allowing us to add even more value for our clients,” said Drew Carter, president of Maritz Motivation Solutions.

Cartwheel is led by managing director Nick Foppe, who joined the company in 2017 with more than 20 years of experience in advertising, marketing and branding. Cartwheel utilizes proprietary research based on behavioral and decision sciences while building creative concepts that influence consumers uniquely through loyalty, Foppe said.

Nick Foppe

“Agencies focused solely on creative will continue to struggle for relevance in the future. Today, clients in the digital space want measurement: analytics, insights and return on investment (ROI). Clients are looking for assurance that their marketing investment will be effective. Our skill in behavioral and decision sciences is what makes us unique,” Foppe said.

Also Read: Creative Brainstorming for Ad Agencies: 14 Questions to Ask Before, During and After Every Session

Cartwheel offers comprehensive creative services, including those for loyalty and employee engagement programs, as well as advertising and branding, content strategy and other services, such as digital and social marketing plans. Data analytics and behavioral sciences serve as the underpinning for all of the agency’s offerings.

Executive creative director Jay Moore has been with Maritz for eight years and leads the creative team. “Big data provides marketers with more information than they’ve ever had before. Our mission is to help marketers make sense of data analytics and provide behavioral insight to deploy creative for the greatest impact,” Moore said.

Outbrain Partners with Telaria to Bring New Video Advertising Offerings

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MTS Staff Writer

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March 30, 2018

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Outbrain and Telaria Announced an Exclusive Partnership

Outbrain, the world’s leading content discovery platform, and Telaria Inc, the leading video monetization software company, announced an exclusive partnership to bring Telaria’s video platform capabilities to Outbrain’s premium publisher network.

The partnership represents a significant entry for Outbrain into the video marketplace. By working with a single platform partner, Outbrain now offers high-quality user experiences and controls, with no publisher development work, to ensure only the best video advertisers appear on publishers’ pages. Telaria’s data-enriched platform is the only solution that provides live reporting to help publishers unlock the fullest value of their video content. With comprehensive safety controls, a commitment to transparency and robust fraud protection, publishers and brands transact with confidence on Telaria’s platform.

Also Read: Outbrain Launches ‘Sphere’ for Unbiased Audience Development

With this partnership, Telaria is now able to connect its demand partners with Outbrain’s top-tier publishers and their audiences, providing a unique, brand-safe advertising experience at significant scale. Some of the world’s most well-recognized publishers utilize the Outbrain platform including CNN, Meredith Corporation, New York Post, and Condé Nast, reaching nearly one billion users every month worldwide.

Yaron Galai, Co-founder and CEO of Outbrain — Yaron Galai

“Video is a core component of effective storytelling. Through this partnership, we are thrilled to be able to provide our publishing and brand clients with the most premium and brand-safe video supplied by Telaria. In Telaria, we have found a trusted partner who is equally focused on delivering the best user experience for our audiences and we are excited to be partnering with the industry leader in this endeavor,” said Yaron Galai, Founder, CEO, Outbrain.

Also Read: Telaria Introduces Fraud Fighter for Premium Video Inventory

The companies will also work together to develop new, high-value video applications that will further empower premium content providers to thrive in the highly competitive digital ad market. The partnership is launching in the U.S. with plans to expand globally in the near future.

“We are excited to enable Outbrain and their premium publishers to tap into the rapidly expanding revenue opportunities in video advertising. Exclusive partnerships are rare in our industry, so this is especially meaningful because it speaks to a level of immense trust and confidence between our two companies. This partnership stands as a testament to our joint effort to prioritize inventory quality and ensure a premium, fraud-free, brand-safe environment for our agency and buyer clients, as well as provide independent monetization alternatives to the highly-conflicted digital duopoly,” said Mark Zagorski, CEO of Telaria.

MediaMath Joins Nonprofit Industry Consortium DigiTrust; Advances Consumer-First Marketing Philosophy

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MTS Staff Writer

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March 30, 2018

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MediaMath Join Hands with DigiTrust to Enhance Consumers Digital Experience

$Mediamath Logo$ MediaMath announced it has joined non-profit industry consortium, DigiTrust. The group aims to improve the digital experience across the ecosystem through a single and neutral, first-party and cookie-based user identification platform.

“The industry is overdue for a solution that solves for the reality of global fragmentation and inconsistency. We need to acknowledge that data-driven marketing creates a tremendous amount of value for both consumer and brand when done right, but may introduce real societal risks and concerns when done wrong,” said John Slocum, MediaMath, Vice President, DMP.

Also Read: MediaMath and Cision Bridge Paid and Earned Media

The consortium believes the standardized approach will improve both user experience and advertiser outcomes by enabling lossless communication from sell- to buy-side, decreasing reliance on ID syncs and increasing the scale and accuracy of both cookie targeting and cross-device/personalized targeting.

MediaMath defines “identity” in the context of digital marketing as the ability for people to understand and manage their presence across an increasingly complex portfolio of devices and services; and as the ability for industry to utilize that presence in the delivery of personalized offers, products, services, and communications that create value.

The DigiTrust cookie ID will be the standard across the MediaMath platform which will begin transacting on the IDs in Q2 2018. The company will continue integration throughout the MediaMath platform as the consortium scales further. Publishers interested in improved monetization on the MediaMath platform are encouraged to join the consortium.

Also Read: Digital Experience Data Reveals Customer Experience Isn’t Just for the Holidays

Slocum maintains that digital advertising is the lifeblood of the internet, and engine of the global economy. As the largest marketing channel for the companies that build the products and services we use every day, brands need marketing to work more than ever.

“MediaMath represents a significant investment of buy-side demand available to DigiTrust membership. This is further confirmation that consumers and every part of our industry benefit from an independent and neutral cookie,” said Jordan Mitchell, CEO, DigiTrust.

Building A Consumer-First Ecosystem

MediaMath’s entrance into the DigiTrust consortium is one of several initiatives being deployed to improve the marketing ecosystem, including the rollout of ads.txt to publishers within its premium supply offering, Curated Market. The company is actively involved in the IAB Europe Working Group on Transparency & Consent, which developed technology standards designed to provide consumers with greater transparency into and control over the use of their data. Additional consumer-first marketing initiatives will be underway throughout 2018.

Recommended Read: 3 App Marketing Trends That Will Shape 2018

Return Path Launches Comprehensive Deliverability Data for Email Service Providers

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MTS Staff Writer

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March 30, 2018

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The Return Path Partner Platform Offers an Innovative Way for Email Service Providers to Monitor Deliverability Issues Across Their Entire Customer Base

Leading email solutions provider Return Path introduced a groundbreaking new solution exclusively for email service providers (ESPs). The Return Path Partner Platform is the first and only deliverability platform designed to give ESPs the ability to proactively monitor and diagnose deliverability issues across their full client ecosystem.For an ESP, managing email deliverability for hundreds—or even thousands—of diverse clients in many different locations can be a challenge. Until now, they’ve had to spend precious time and energy logging into multiple systems to gather the information needed to identify and prioritize their clients’ deliverability problems. Return Path’s Partner Platform puts all of that deliverability data in one place, allowing ESPs to see what’s happening across their whole ecosystem at a high level or drill down for more details.

Also Read: Getting Promo Codes Right

“The Partner Platform was built with extensive input from our longstanding ESP partners. Unlike anything else available to ESPs today, this solution allows ESPs to take a more efficient and proactive approach to customer service. Rather than waiting for clients to approach them with concerns, ESPs will be empowered with the information they need to easily identify deliverability issues as they arise and provide proactive guidance for their clients,” said Ken Takahashi, Senior Vice President, Return Path.

Leveraging Return Path’s unique data assets, the Partner Platform gives ESPs the insight they need to easily identify what’s important and monitor deliverability for all their customers, in one place. Built on Return Path’s Consumer Network, the platform offers visibility like never before, using multiple sources to provide inbox and spam folder placement data in near real time, as well as detailed information on spam complaints, list hygiene indicators, and much more.

Also Read: Beating the Big Guys Is All About Brand Loyalty

“Return Path’s new Partner Platform empowers the way ESPs proactively monitor deliverability for all clients. This cutting-edge solution is imperative to our day-to-day responsibilities and improving customers’ deliverability,” said Sophia Jacobson, Senior Director Deliverability Services, Zeta Global.

Vidyard Expands Personalized Video and Video Messaging Solutions for Marketing, Sales, Customer Support

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MTS Staff Writer

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March 30, 2018

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New Capabilities Help Marketing, Sales and Customer Support Teams Deliver Personalized Customer Experiences Proven to Boost Audience Engagement

Vidyard, the leading video platform for business, unveiled its latest product enhancements to help marketing, sales, and customer support teams drive greater engagement through highly personalized video experiences. With its Spring 2018 update, Vidyard has expanded its Personalized Video solution to support personalized audio tracks as well as real-time personalization of video content to help marketing teams enhance website experiences and increase online conversion rates. Vidyard has also enhanced Vidyard GoVideo, its flagship video messaging app for sales and customer support, with Outlook and Zendesk integrations as well as a new reporting dashboard to track the adoption and impact of video across customer-facing teams.

“At a time when all of us are over-saturated with automated text-based communications, video is standing out as the best way to connect with customers and to build more personal relationships. New types of video experiences, including Personalized Video and one-to-one video messaging, are taking this to the next level and helping our customers boost engagement rates and shorten deal cycles. We’re now making it easier than ever to deliver these personalized video experiences across web, inbound and outbound marketing programs, direct sales and customer support teams,” said Michael Litt, Co-Founder, CEO, Vidyard.

Also Read: Ad Blockers: Take a Page from Video Game Advertisers

New capabilities launched by Vidyard include:

Enhancements to its Personalized Video solution to support dynamic, real-time personalization of video content on websites and landing pages as well as expanded support for audio personalization
Enhancements to its Vidyard GoVideo one-to-one video messaging app including new product capabilities and native integrations with Outlook and Zendesk
New Analytics and Reporting packages to help marketing and sales teams track the ROI of its video and the impact of one-to-one video messaging on its sales natively within Salesforce

New Personalized Video Capabilities Help Marketers Boost Conversion Rates

With personalized video, leading B2B, B2C, and not-for-profit brands are already reaching new heights in customer engagement by literally bringing their viewers into the story. More than just a creative way to stand out, it’s helping them boost click-through and conversion rates on key outbound marketing campaigns and email nurture programs.

“People are always expecting a sales pitch, so we don’t try to be a wolf in a sheep’s clothing. Our holiday video was just that. A genuine thank you to our customers for Quorum. We’re a fun company and we let that shine through by showcasing our culture. And by leveraging personalized video from Vidyard, we saw a 93.5% click-to-open rate, with more than 80% of recipients watching all the way to the very end. We’ve never seen this type of engagement before! I truly believe people buy from people, and from that moment we went from a company they do business with, to real people – fun people – they work with,” said Aisha Ghuman, Director Marketing, Field Enablement, Quorum.

Also Read: OTT Explosion Provides Safe Platform For Marketers

With added support for audio personalization, marketers can now deliver even more immersive video experiences that drive higher engagement by combining both visual and audible elements that are automatically personalized for individual viewers. And with Vidyard’s new real-time personalized video technology, marketers can surprise and delight website visitors with video content that is dynamically rendered with unique information such as their name, company name, company logo, industry and more. Personalized thumbnail images are also generated on-the-fly to ensure the videos stand out and garner the attention of website visitors.

“Real-time personalized video opens up exciting new opportunities for how digital marketers engage online audiences in creative, personalized and highly memorable ways. It’s not just a unique and interesting content experience, it’s a highly effective way to reduce bounce rates, increase time-on-page, boost engagement in key messages and ultimately drive higher conversion rates across your website and on key landing pages,” said Tyler Lessard, Vice President of Marketing, Vidyard.

Vidyard Puts 1:1 Video Messaging at the Fingertips of Sales and Support

With its Spring 2018 release, Vidyard is making it even easier to share one-to-one video messages and screen capture videos thanks to new integrations for its Vidyard GoVideo app. Sales and customer support reps can now easily capture and share custom videos from within Microsoft Outlook and Zendesk Support, in addition to the other apps already supported including Gmail, Google Chrome, SalesLoft, Drift, and MixMax.

Vidyard GoVideo offers customer-facing teams a simple yet powerful way to add one-to-one video messaging and screen capture videos to their everyday workflows and customer communications. Leading B2B sales teams are using the app to stand out with prospects and boost response rates by 300% or higher. In addition to the new integrations, Vidyard has also added support for offline video capture to ensure video recordings can still be made even if the WiFi connectivity is interrupted.

Also Read: 8 Proven Strategies to Make Video Marketing Successful for Your Small Business

New Reporting Packages Offer Insight into Video Effectiveness and ROI

As marketing and sales teams expand their use of video content there is greater need to evaluate its effectiveness and to understand how the use of video is influencing new pipeline development, closed revenue and more. To help businesses gather insights such as these and to better understand the true ROI of video, Vidyard has introduced a new analytics and reporting package as part of its Vidyard for Salesforce integration.

The new package includes pre-built dashboards for both sales and marketing audiences. For sales teams, managers will have access to pre-built Salesforce reports that display the number of videos sent by each rep, how much pipeline and revenue has been influenced by video content, and more. These reports will help sales leaders understand how video is being used by their team members and what type of impact it is having on rep productivity and effectiveness. Similarly, the new marketing dashboard gives marketing teams pre-built Salesforce reports with insight into how each video they are publishing is performing and how it is influencing sales pipeline and revenue. With insights like these, marketers can more easily understand which videos are having the greatest impact on revenue, so they can continuously optimize performance.

Curaytor Announces Curaytor Brain, A Searchable and Sortable Digital Marketing Database to Help Small Businesses Grow

By

MTS Staff Writer

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March 30, 2018

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The New Database Makes Curaytor The First All-Inclusive Digital Marketing Solution Proven To Increase Lead Generation And Revenue

Curaytor, a full-service digital marketing company that helps small businesses grow, announced the addition of Curaytor Brain – a searchable and sortable (by results) database with more than 120,000 successful Facebook ads and 10,000 emails to help small business owners become instant digital marketing experts.

Also Read: Email Signature Marketing: 10 Tips on How to Drive Leads, Increase Sales and Boost Your Social Following

Chris Smith

Curaytor takes the guesswork out of digital marketing with its truly all-inclusive platform that includes: mobile-optimized and easy-to-use websites, Facebook ads that get thousands of comments, real-time email marketing statistics, sales software that tracks website and email activity, so you know who to follow up with, and online coaching from industry experts. The addition of Brain, available exclusively to Curaytor customers, creates a unique community of shared digital marketing content that allows each client to see every email and Facebook ad run by every Curaytor client. This means clients can search Facebook ads by keywords, budget and results to learn from top-performing Facebook ads in order to create targeted content that will maximize leads and generate sales.

Also Read: Forget Mobile First, It’s Now Social First

“We manage thousands of ads and millions of dollars in Facebook ad spend each year. Now, with Curaytor Brain, our clients have access to every single one of them. It’s easy to share posts on a social media channel and hope that it works, but it’s even easier to actually see what has already worked, then replicate that success based on your goals and budget. This transparent database of shared content, templates and analytics provide small business owners with the tools they need to create successful digital marketing campaigns that help skyrocket sales,” said Chris Smith, co-founder of Curaytor.

Also Read: Five Video Marketing Blogs You Should Read This Week

4C Debuts Advanced TV Week to Educate Advertisers About Audience-Based Planning and Buying Ahead of Television Upfronts

By

MTS Staff Writer

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March 30, 2018

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4C Insights (4C), a data science and marketing technology company, announced the inaugural 4C Advanced TV Week, a series of events, content, and education designed to help advertisers understand how to leverage audience-based planning and buying technology for the Upfronts season.

4C Advanced TV Week initiatives include 4C partners Inscape, Mediaocean, and NBCUniversal. Key efforts taking place during the week are:

AdvancedTVNews.com: A new website and resource that curates the best information about Advanced TV and related topics such as audience buying, OTT, cross-screen video, addressable TV, and more.
Use the Data: A 4C Advanced TV Whitepaper: A new report that explores the state of Advanced TV based on 4C’s work with some of the largest networks and advertisers in the industry, as well as interviews with more than a dozen experts including thought leaders from ABC, Blinc, Dentsu Aegis Network, Essence, Horizon Media, Hulu, Inscape, Mediaocean, Mediavest, NBCUniversal, Roku, Tremor Video, and Turner.
Advanced TV Webinar: A live webinar on March 29 featuring guest speakers Jim Nail, Principal Analyst, Forrester Research and Samantha Rose, VP, Director, Video Investment, Horizon Media, who will discuss new approaches to linear television advertising and how innovation in data, targeting, and measurement is making TV more efficient and effective.

Aaron Goldman

The week also features a speaking engagement by 4C CEO Lance Neuhauser at The Advanced Advertising Summit to discuss data-enabled TV ad buying and selling. Additional activity during 4C Advanced TV Week includes the “Audience Upfronts” – a series of educational events for agency partners – as well as sponsorship of a new series of video interviews by Beet.tv.

“Data from Forrester Research¹ shows that more than half of marketers are likely to be using Advanced TV in their plans this year so we think it’s clear that 2018 is the tipping point for a new era of television advertising,” said Aaron Goldman, CMO at 4C. “4C is propelling this innovation not only with an industry-leading platform for integrated TV, social, and premium video, but also by delivering education that ushers advertisers through change to fully realize the promise of true audience-based buying.”

Also Read:4C Surpasses $1 Billion in Annualized Media Spend and Introduces Pacing Dashboard

STRATACACHE Announces Acquisition of X2O Media from Barco

By

MTS Staff Writer

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March 30, 2018

0

X2O Media Secured Top Tier Customers in John Deere, Verizon, Fox News and Accenture

STRATACACHE announces it has acquired Montréal-based X2O Media from Barco. As the global market leader in digital consumer engagement and digital signage, STRATACACHE offers enhanced focus and new growth opportunities for X2O.

After its acquisition in 2014, X2O became part of Barco’s Enterprise division, which focuses on solutions for meeting and control rooms. Over the years, X2O secured top-tier customers including John Deere, Verizon, Fox News and Accenture. All customer agreements will continue to be managed by X2O to ensure world-class support and service for current customers. X2O Media employs about 45 people and will continue to operate from Montréal, Canada. The sale will be closed at the end of March 2018.

Also Read: Box Appoints Australia, New Zealand Leader as It Accelerates International Expansion

“With the acquisition of X2O Media, we will expand our portfolio with a complete solution for dynamic content display based on real-time data, plus add great new tools in the E-learning and broadcast markets.The X2O software platform versatility and its capability to address any display — be it fixed or mobile — will prove to be an important asset. This complementary technology will help us to further build on our core competencies in the ever-expanding digital display and data visualization marketplace,” said Chris Riegel, CEO, STRATACACHE.

Also Read: Ads on Top Unveils “Dynamix” Playlist Automation via API

“The X2O acquisition is a perfect example of the aggressive long-term growth strategy of the STRATACACHE Group. Working actively on over 400 deals per year, we are at the forefront of a long-awaited industry consolidation. Our investment strategy is to help unlock the potential in emerging digital media companies to grow faster,” said Dirk Huelsermann, Managing Partner, STRATACACHE Capital.

“The decision to divest X2O Media comes after a careful evaluation of its profitability and growth opportunities. As digital signage is no longer a strategic focus for Barco, we are convinced that selling X2O to a major player like STRATACACHE will provide the company with the focus and contacts it needs to reach the next level of global scale and success,” said Jan De Witte, CEO, Barco.

Recommended Read: The Importance of Marketing and Sales Alignment

Five Video Marketing Blogs You Should Read

By

Sudipto Ghosh

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March 30, 2018

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Five Video Marketing Blogs You Should Read

Video is hot, and there is no dearth of information about the new exciting innovations happening in the ecosystem. To get you close to “What’s Hot” in video marketing technology, we picked five must-read blogs you should dive into.

Introducing GoVHS, Vidyard’s Most Innovative Product! #AprilFools

One of the best product introductions in the video marketing series, Vidyard’s blog on GoVHS showcases why marketing teams should not lose touch with the ‘retro’. Hannah Cameron, Vidyard’s Content Marketing Pro, explains how GoVHS could help customers sail through this “new age of digital communication” as it gets noisier and cluttered. BTW, it’s a prank, or so we believe! But, great ideas.

10 Tips for Video Marketing Success

Simple, direct, and visually mesmerizing… this is not a blog, but an infographic that would inspire marketing teams to breathe a “new life into your message with engaging handcrafted video.” Explained by Laura Forer of Marketing Profs, the blog reveals why social media is the best place to share videos, and why Live Streaming is the killer way to drive audience engagement!

The rise of Virtual Reality technologies is a story in itself.

(Ssssh… talk to us, VR!)

Viewability For Display Ads Is Just 50 Per Cent; Video 60 Per Cent

Would you agree if we told you that the improvement in video performance could be a skewed factor? This article on the latest study by the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) is worth taking a look at. David Murphy, Editorial Director at Mobile Marketing Magazine, puts together the puzzle pieces to clear the air on viewability metrics accepted in the global advertising industry. In this report-based article, David reveals that WFA worked with Adloox, comScore, DV, IAS, Meetrics, Moat, and Pixalate to provide the global marketing industry with clear benchmarks to assess the performance of their own advertising.

How to Generate More Sales With Video Content

This article reveals why “it’s not Just ‘Go Viral’ or Bust with Video Content.” An easy-to-follow guide to creating videos, this quick-read could help any video marketing team reach more prospects, generate more leads, and bolster sales.

How These 3 Brands Are Crushing the Video Marketing Game

Love Dollar Shave Club? Then, this blog on video marketing for 2018 is for you!

We dug out this exciting blog on video marketing, written by Tabitha Jean Naylor, President of President of KodasChoice.org. Crafted, or rather shot like an arrow, the narration is sleek. This blog tells you what big brands are doing to stay afloat and sustain their legacy as marketing geniuses. Check out who else featured on this blog with Dollar Shave Club!

(Get to feature in our exclusive blog series as a Guest Author by sharing your insights! Drop us a line at news@martechseries-67ee47.ingress-bonde.easywp.com today)

Plantronics to Acquire Polycom for $2 Billion

By

MTS Staff Writer

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March 30, 2018

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Creating the Communications and Collaboration Gold-Standard So Good Ideas Are Seen and Heard

Plantronics, and Polycom announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Plantronics will acquire Polycom in a cash and stock transaction valued at $2.0 billion enterprise value. The transaction has been unanimously approved by the boards of directors of both companies, is subject to regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions, and is expected to close by the end of the third calendar quarter of 2018.

Compelling Strategic Rationale

With the acquisition of Polycom, Plantronics will become the partner of choice for the communications and collaboration ecosystem. The combination:

Accelerates Plantronics Strategy. Polycom brings a global leadership position in voice and video collaboration, accelerating Plantronics vision of delivering new communications and collaboration experiences.
Broadens Portfolio. With the addition of Polycom, Plantronics will have the broadest portfolio of complementary products and services across the global communications and collaboration ecosystem, and the ability to create exceptional user experiences.
Expands Market Opportunity. The combination positions Plantronics to capture additional opportunities across the $39.9B Unified Communications and Collaboration industry driven by innovation in video and the ubiquity of audio, building growth opportunities through data analytics and insight services.
Augments Services Business. Polycom significantly expands Plantronics services offering, providing a meaningful presence in management and analytics services.

This news will further accelerate Plantronics vision of an enterprise that is able to leverage powerful analytics, video and audio touchpoints to ignite all new communications and collaboration experiences.

According to Joe Burton, President and Chief Executive Officer, Plantronics, “With the addition of Polycom’s solutions across video, audio and collaboration we will be able to deliver a comprehensive portfolio of communications and collaboration touch points and services to our customers and channel partners. This will put Plantronics in an ideal position to solve for today’s enterprise collaboration requirements while capitalizing on market opportunities associated with the evolving, intelligent enterprise.”

Also Read: 6 Effective Ways To Drive ROI On Your Landing Pages

“Polycom has returned to growth by focusing on building strong ecosystem partnerships and delivering innovative, smart solutions for our customers and partners. Bringing Plantronics and Polycom together will broaden the breadth of solutions available to customers and partners and create a consistent end-user experience across many collaboration applications and devices. As one company, Plantronics and Polycom will make it even easier for all customers to solve big-business problems through human-to-human connections,” said Mary T. McDowell, Chief Executive Officer, Polycom.

“Siris recognizes the incredible opportunity in the Unified Communications industry and has been focused on building momentum in the industry for several years. We are excited about the long-term value that the combination of Plantronics and Polycom will create for customers, partners, stakeholders, and employees,” said Frank Baker, Founder, Managing Partner, Siris Capital.

Recommended Read: Forget Mobile First, It’s Now Social First

Impartner Spring ’18 Release Makes it Possible for Channel Managers to Create the Perfect Partner Experience In Real Time

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MTS Staff Writer

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March 30, 2018

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Impartner Spring '18 Release Makes it Possible for Channel Managers to Create the Perfect Partner Experience In Real Time

New CMS Breaks All the Molds: Makes It Fast and Intuitive for Channel Managers to Edit Complete Partner Experience and Not Just Content in Partner Portals

Impartner, the best-selling and most-award winning pure-play Partner Relationship Management (PRM) solution, today announced its Spring ’18 software release, which makes it possible for channel managers to edit, in real time, not only the content but also their partners’ experience in their Partner Portals – without the help of IT. The release continues the company’s ongoing focus on providing the world’s most powerful, most nimble channel-management tools. Impartner’s completely re-engineered Content Management System (CMS) allows users to both add and change pages by program segment, tier, region, etc., with a simple drag and drop interface, and make content changes using the solution’s new fast, sleek, intuitive control interface, the Momentum BarTM. Other key features in the release include enhanced sales enablement and segmentation functionalities.

Gary Sabin

“In 2018, the vendor with the best partner experience wins. This industry leap-frogging CMS solution is 100 percent focused on making it easier than ever for our customers to be able to continually optimize their partners’ journey with an easy-to-use, consumerized interface that users have come to expect from their business solutions,” said Impartner Senior Director of Product Management, Gary Sabin, highlighting Impartner’s newly re-engineered CMS.

Also Read: New Interactive Impartner Infographic Shows How Partner Relationship Management Enhances the Partner Journey

A Paradigm Shift for Sales Enablement

Sabin stresses this same paradigm-shifting engineering vision is the driver behind the release’s new sales enablement functionality. Vendors have long struggled to convert collateral layouts into formats that make it easy for partners to customize for their businesses by dropping in their own images, logos and text content. However, with Impartner’s new AutoSense technology, vendors can instantly scan and detect images and text in collateral material and ready them to be customizable by partners with the click of a button, removing dependence on professional services teams and running up timelines and expenses.

“Sales enablement materials are a critical part of the value partners expect from leading channel programs and one that we see driving a reported 56 percent increase in profitability for partners who have the resources they truly need to bring a vendor’s products to life in the market,” said Sabin. “By instantly making any existing collateral co-brandable, we’re removing the time, budgeting and logistical challenges that in the past, have caused vendors to limit the collateral they provide.”

Also Read: Largest Out-of-Home Advertising Database Surpasses 1 Million Assets

Segmentation in a Few Clicks

In its previous release, Impartner ushered in a new era of precision with its SegmentAI automated segmentation engine. With this release, SegmentAI features a new wizard, which takes Impartner’s segmentation functionality to another level by making it drop-dead simple for channel managers to bring their segmentation strategies to life with a few clicks.

“Visionary channel managers are dreaming up strategic segmentation schemes as part of their secret sauce to getting the most out of their channel partners, and imagining unique differentiated programs to stand out in today’s hypercompetitive channel environment,” Sabin said. “Until now, the challenge has been the difficulty of peeling those strategies off the whiteboard and actually implementing them within their toolset.”

Also Read: 10 Best SEO Names-Top SEO Agencies Selected by Online Marketing Industry

More Control Over the Heart of Your Chantech Stack

Self-service is also the focus of Impartner’s new configurable Single Sign On (SSO) solution. “Because a company’s PRM solution is the Grand Central train station of the chantech stack – the central hub from which partners can jump into other technologies that are constantly being added and reconfigured – our new SSO makes it easy for vendors to make the adjustments that are typical in today’s fast-moving technology landscape,” said Sabin. “Without having to turn to an outside vendor, it’s now 100 percent in the vendor’s control to add and remove technologies as they come and go – making it easy for vendors to maintain SSOs for their partners to ensure they have a seamless transition from their PRM to other technology solutions.”

MRP Sees Continued Innovation and Growth

By

MTS Staff Writer

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March 30, 2018

0

MRP Unveils Updates to Predictive Customer Acquisition Software to Strengthen Commitment to B2B Sales and Marketing Clients

MRP, a global leader in predictive customer acquisition, released its winter business update, demonstrating continued success, ongoing product enhancements, and marquee win.

As global marketing and sales teams increasingly turn to customer engagement solutions fueled by artificial intelligence to drive revenue, MRP has continued to pioneer predictive customer acquisition, the nexus of account-based marketing, predictive intelligence, and AI.

“In 2018, marketing and sales teams need to strengthen their tried-and-true methods with predictive analytics in order to convert active demand into engaged demand and into revenue. With MRP’s continually advancing predictive software and managed services, we’re increasing response rates, pipeline, deal size and revenue for our clients,” said Kevin Cunningham, CEO, MRP.

Also Read: Scale, Drive Revenue, and Win with ABM – 3 Lessons from B2BMX

MRP’s recent business updates include:

Product Advancement

MRP will launch a new interface on MRP Prelytix designed to drive greater collaboration between sales and marketing. Another forthcoming Prelytix addition will allow MRP clients to leverage the power of Prelytix and AI to optimize the workflow of inside sales resources.

New Offices in Philadelphia and Belfast

To accommodate a growing team, MRP headquarters in Philadelphia will move to a new office space in the coming months. Customized for MRP, the office space will include views of the Philadelphia skyline from the penthouse on the 37th floor, a cafe for employees and a world-class training facility to support the company’s rapid expansion.

MRP’s EMEA headquarters in Belfast will also relocate to accommodate company growth. In May, MRP and parent company First Derivatives will move into the newly renovated Weaving Works building in downtown Belfast.

Also Read: Intelligent Automation & Cognitive Systems: A Match Made in Heaven for 2018

Customer Success News

MRP secured several new client partnerships over the last quarter, including a contract with one of the world’s leading providers of both hardware and software, with high global impact in online advertising technologies, search engine, cloud computing and more.

Strategic Hires

Last month, Mariam Safi joined MRP as marketing manager. Safi holds an MBA from George Washington University and brings experience in varied marketing roles to her position at MRP.

In the past six months, the company also added 60 net new employees across all departments to its offices around the world.

Events

MRP has several events scheduled in the coming months. Next month MRP will attend MarTech West as an exhibitor. The company will host a panel discussion on artificial intelligence with other Philadelphia-area business leaders as well as experts on AI from Philadelphia’s academic and start-up communities on May 2 as part of Philly Tech Week. MRP will also attend SiriusDecisions in May as both a sponsor and a speaker.

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MRP’s recent business updates include:

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