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How NOT to Handle a Collaboration Request When it Comes to Influencer Marketing

In the world of PR and social media, pitching is a common tactic that is used across the board. If you’re not familiar with the term, pitching is essentially the action of offering your idea to someone else in the hopes that they’ll be on board with what you want to do. Some methods of pitching include:

A PR agency pitching a client that they represent to a magazine editor so that their client is included in next month’s issue
A consulting agency pitching their expertise to a brand to showcase why their skill set is valuable and should be hired
A content creator pitching an upcoming trip to a hotel for free accommodations in exchange for content

Pitching started long before the dawn of social media and is now considered a standard practice across the marketing industry.

Also Read: The Influencer Crowd

Often times pitching and the negotiation that comes out of it occurs behind closed doors, and consumers only see the outcome—a beautiful magazine spread, a successful marketing strategy, stunning visual content on a blogger’s Instagram or a YouTuber’s travel vlog. What consumers don’t see is the back and forth negotiation between the pitcher and the receiver.

YouTuber Elle Darby recently came under fire when The White Moose Cafe in Dublin posted her email pitch on their public Facebook Page.

A snippet of her original email to the hotel pulled from the Independent:

“I work as a social media influencer, mainly lifestyle, beauty & travel based.

“My partner and I are planning to come to Dublin for an early Valentine’s Day weekend from Feb 8th to 12th to explore the area.

“As I was searching for places to stay, I came across your stunning hotel and would love to feature you in my YouTube videos/dedicated Instagram stories/posts to bring traffic to your hotel and recommend others to book up in return for free accommodation.”

Also Read: The Influencer Economy is Booming

A typical and professional response might include a simple “no, sorry” or even radio silence. Paul Stenson, The White Moose Café owner, instead chose to post the email that he received onto his Hotel’s Facebook page with his response:

“Dear Social Influencer (I know your name but apparently it’s not important to use names),

“Thank you for your email looking for free accommodation in return for exposure. It takes a lot of balls to send an email like that if not much self-respect and dignity.

“If I let you stay here in return for a feature in a video, who is going to pay the staff who look after you? Who is going to pay the housekeepers who clean your room?

“The waiters who serve you breakfast? The receptionist who checks you in? Who is going to pay for the light and heat you use during your stay?

“Maybe I should tell my staff they will be featured in your video in lieu of receiving payment for work carried out while you’re in residence?”

“P.S. The answer is no.”

Visitors to his page were quick to identify the sender, as the censoring was apparently done with a roughly ~80% opacity. Users noted that if you squinted or even simply turned up the brightness, you could still make out the name.

The post has since been removed, but comments calling her “entitled” and “a freeloader” still resonate, which prompted Elle to film and post this video onto her YouTube channel in defense of her actions:

As you may expect, supporters of Elle reigned down their own backlash onto the Dublin hotel across Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

“Following the backlash received after asking an unidentified blogger to pay for a hotel room, I have taken the decision to ban all bloggers from our hotel and café. The sense of entitlement is just too strong in the blogging community” Stenson writes.

Turning to our industry-leading influencers for their opinions, we received the below thoughts:

“When traveling, I frequently pitch accommodation collaborations. I always do my research first to make sure that the place that I’m pitching is actually in line with the content that I would regularly post— proving that I would like the place regardless. There have been many times where I’ve been in the opposite situation and hotels/resorts pitch me a collaboration. This is standard practice. If at any time either parties aren’t interested, it’s as easy as saying no or even simply ignoring the email. I’ve never felt the need or malicious intent to expose anyone or write a publicly scathing letter in response. Nor have I received that either. Why? Because we are all mature professionals. There’s no point in burning ourselves down in the process of not agreeing with someone’s pitch.” Victoria Hui (@thelustlistt)

“I’ve participated in numerous staycation campaigns that have been pitched to me directly from a hotel—-more so than I’ve ever pitched back to them. While I understand that there is a cost involved to cover the salary of employees who work at the establishment, this would be coming from a PR/marketing budget, which is a lot less than their typical campaigns. My rates are a fraction of what it would cost for a magazine or billboard spread. And I pride myself on spending the time to curate content that resonates well with my followers. I wouldn’t necessarily reach out to a brand if I didn’t think that my audience or personal aesthetic would be a fit.” Sylvia Jade (YouTube Channel: @beautycakez)

Also Read: Digital Influencers Preferred Over Celebrities for Brand Endorsements in 2017

It’s worth noting that while many brands/business owners may not be fans of influencer marketing, and may often be approached in a manner that appears entitled, platforms such as Buzz & Go exist to mitigate such relationships – ultimately proving that the tourism industry relies just as heavily on influencers, as influencers do on the tourism industry.

The lesson here? If working with an influencer isn’t right for you – just say so. It is important to understand that influencers are creative professionals and treat their content creation/storytelling like a business. Not everyone sees the value in influencer marketing yet (and that’s ok) but public humiliation is definitely not the answer.

Recommended Read: Influencers Who Work Harder Deserve Deeper Rewards

MaxAudience Announced as the Top Social Media Marketing Company in 2018

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February 6, 2018

Third-party research firm Clutch has released its report on leading Social Media Marketing Companies and has found MaxAudience to be the Top Social Media Marketing Company in the U.S. Clutch has posted the rankings publicly on Clutch.co and has MaxAudience listed in the #1 spot on their review site currently for 2018. MaxAudience is a strategic brand and marketing consultancy with online lead generation and conversion at its core. They assist medium and large-scale businesses with precise, high ROI, marketing campaigns that deliver inspiring results.

Clutch evaluates these companies based on their level of focus on Social Media Marketing Services and client feedback about their work. Other top firms in the top 3 for 2018 are Disruptive Advertising and Lyfe Marketing.

“Social Media Marketing is vital to all businesses, especially in their local markets. Clutch’s highlighted firms have demonstrated their Social Media Marketing expertise and we are proud to be listed with the best in the business,” said Mark McIntyre, CEO at MaxAudience.

Also Read: New Free Business Intelligence Offering From Global Database Will Disrupt the Marketing Database Industry

The agencies were selected based on Clutch’s proprietary research methodology, which uses quantitative and qualitative criteria to evaluate each company’s technical certifications, experience level, and market presence in the web design category. Clutch analysts also interviewed each firm’s past clients to learn how they approach challenges, develop strategies, and execute customized web design projects.

Matt Smith, CMO of MaxAudience said, “We are honored to win this award from such a reputable review source. Social Media Marketing is an incredibly important part of the digital marketing mix, and with proven winning strategies with a focus on customer acquisition, we’ve found our clients’ campaigns can boost company revenue as much as 20%. Our technical team is the best in the business and we’ve been together for a long time. I would like to recognize all of them for their hard work.”

A B2B ratings and reviews firm in the heart of Washington, DC, Clutch connects clients with the agencies and software solutions that can help them enhance their business. The company’s methodology maps agencies and software solutions based on consumer reviews, the type of services offered, and quality of work.

Grow.com Raises $16 Million Series B to Help SMBs Win with Data

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February 6, 2018

Grow.com, the reporting and analytics dashboard solution, announced that it has closed a $16M Series B round of funding by institutional investors led by Toba Capital. To date, Grow has secured $26M in total funding from investors. Series B investors included Toba Capital, Peterson Ventures, Pelion Venture Partners, Kickstart Seed Fund, and HubSpot.

The Series B investment will help to fuel the company’s growth to create the #1 business intelligence tool for SMBs and non-technical users by expanding sales and marketing efforts as well as creating new features within the app.

“As demonstrated by their phenomenal growth, Grow.com clearly dominates the SMB BI space. Grow has produced an amazing product for its business users. We’re excited to continue to work with Rob and his team in helping Grow become the world’s business intelligence tool,” says Vinny Smith, founder of Toba Capital.

Also Read: SmartAction to Fuel Accelerated Growth with Management Recapitalization by Staley Capital and TVC Capital

Rob Nelson launched Grow in 2014 with the goal of empowering data-driven leadership by simplifying reporting and analytics. Although cost and complexity put other BI products out of reach for many small to mid-sized companies, Grow is specifically designed with SMBs in mind. With its beautiful interface, robust tools, ease-of-use, and competitive price point, Grow are both powerful and accessible to non-technical users.

“At Grow, we believe in using data to drive company culture and decision making. Our goal is to give CEOs the ability to feel confident and in-touch with their business, whether or not they’re in the office. Thanks to our institutional investors, we are able to continue to push these efforts,” says Rob Nelson, founder and CEO of Grow.com.

Grow empowers SMBs to accelerate growth by aligning team objectives and inspiring strategic decisions. With increased data visibility, leaders are able to gain unique insights, make data-driven decisions with confidence, and reach the full potential of their business.

TechBytes with Amit Sinha, Founder and CCO, WorkSpan

By

Sudipto Ghosh

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February 6, 2018

Amit Sinha
Founder and CCO, WorkSpan

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Most businesses continue to struggle with unlocking the true potential of their strategic partnerships. Any successful go-to-market initiative requires a reliable partner engagement across the journey that helps the company better orchestrate their networks. According to WorkSpan, a leading marketing network catalyst, 60% of alliance Go-To-Market relationships fail, mostly due to the lack of coordination to make deal progress, unreliable data, and poor distribution of sales and marketing assets. In 2018, there is a serious need to understand the ‘state of Joint Marketing and Joint Sales’, and how companies can better leverage automation and collaboration tools. We spoke to Amit Sinha, Chief Customer Officer and Founder of WorkSpan as part of our TechBytes series.

Tell us about your role at WorkSpan and the team and technologies that you handle?

As the Co-Founder and Chief Customer Officer at WorkSpan, I lead multiple efforts—spanning user experience, marketing, and customer success. At its core, I help facilitate a culture of curiosity to build persona-driven solutions for alliance professionals. The problem today is that alliances have been neglected when it comes to function-specific tools. This includes difficulty reporting, managing programs, and getting their regional teams/partners’ regional teams to participate effectively in these programs. But we see them, we hear them, and we have the solution for them.

Together with my team, we’ve created The Go-To-Market Network for Alliances, where businesses can engage, manage, and measure their joint solutions, joint marketing, and joint selling in a shared, secure, cloud environment.

What are the core tenets of your Go-To-Market network? How do you provide a competitive playing field for all your partners?

The core tenet of The Go-To-Market Network for Alliances is that it isn’t any one company’s network; it’s an ecosystem for all companies to discover and create new joint solutions. The network allows for cross-pollination of ideas and the ability to initiate new partnerships.

Once on the network, alliances can effectively coordinate, contribute, review, approve, and release their joint solutions to the market. This includes setting goals and raising funds, creating and sharing solution assets, tracking marketing activities and sales opportunities in real-time, and measuring results through customized reports that seamlessly integrate with their and their partners’ CRM/marketing systems.

The competitive playing field for all partners is built into the network itself. Remember: it’s not mine, his, or hers—it’s ours. Everyone has access to the same features, and the ability to discover and initiate new joint solutions. That’s the power of the network. With the acceleration of innovation in tech, companies need to rapidly build new joint go-to-market solutions to keep up with consumer demand and expectations. The Go-To-Market Network for Alliances allows them to do this—and at scale.

What aspects of Joint Marketing and Joint Sales do you see converging in 2018? What tech tools would you recommend for truly unified marketing and sales campaigns?

I see joint marketing and joint sales converging as it relates to joint solutions. In order for alliances to engage, manage, and measure effectively, marketing and sales teams need to be unified under their alliance counterparts. After all, their initiatives exist because of the larger, overarching joint solution. This requires a shared platform where each partner can integrate their own CRM/marketing systems, so that all activities and results are properly sourced and reported as they relate to one another—not in silos. That’s why we created WorkSpan, because there is no tech tool that does this.

How can collaboration technologies remove inefficiencies in marketing and sales processes? Which collaboration tools would deliver the best ROI for the modern global marketing teams?

In order for collaboration technologies to remove inefficiencies, they need to offer more than just messaging and file sharing features. Instead, they need to cover the end-to-end process a team or organization encounters when planning, managing and measuring an initiative. This includes setting goals, raising and allocating funds, assigning roles to activity owners, monitoring performance in real-time, and generating reports that feed in and out of each company’s CRM/marketing systems. Basic questions to ask of your collaboration technologies:

Is it providing visibility across all activities?
Is it driving accountability?
Are results being measured, and are they properly sourced?

The best collaboration tool to deliver ROI for modern global teams is one that redefines what it means to collaborate. Ask yourself: Am I enabling my teams to work smarter and more effectively with this tool, or are we just using it as a substitute for email? If the answer is the latter, you’re using the wrong tool.

According to your latest report, nearly 27% use at least 10 marketing tools for collaboration. Do you see the number growing by 2020?

I see this number going up if collaboration stays restricted to mostly messaging and file sharing. The problem with most—if not all—collaboration tools, is that they try to be a “one size fits all” solution. Unless there’s an actionable, problem-specific solution that integrates across each company’s CRM and marketing systems, entrepreneurs will continue filling this void with more and more collaboration tools.

What are your predictions for demand-gen platforms and campaign performance tools in 2018?

I predict that better reporting will be the focus of these tools in 2018. Unless “drill-down” reporting is a staple, ROI will remain a vague measurement; lacking insight into specifics such as bottlenecks. Executives want to drill down and see which teams in which regions are performing best, where a campaign or program stalled, and how they can reallocate resources and funds to better-performing initiatives. It isn’t enough to know how good or bad something performed, you need to know why.

Also, I think a lot of demand-gen platforms and campaign performance tools have been focused on customer engagement, but few have focused on how the go-to-market coordination works so that the customer experience isn’t broken. We are that solution.

Thanks for chatting with us, Amit.
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

Interview with Aaron Glazer, Co-Founder and CEO, Taplytics

By

Sudipto Ghosh

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February 6, 2018

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

[mnky_testimonial_slider slide_speed=”3″][mnky_testimonial name=”” author_dec=”” position=”Designer”]“Brands have to be reactive to the new digital touch points that are emerging in order to be in constant contact with their customers.”[/mnky_testimonial][/mnky_testimonial_slider]

Tell us about your role and how you got here. What inspired you to launch a Mobile Customer Experience Cloud?

I am the CEO and Co-Founder of Taplytics. We started off building mobile applications and saw an interesting trend developing; the future front door of a business was not going to be a physical store, but a mobile app in the palm of their customers’ hands.

From there, we strived to help businesses build the best mobile experience for their customers. We now see customer experience as an omnichannel journey that Taplytics can help stitch together. Our initial core experimentation technology and culture inspired the formation of the Taplytics Experience Cloud, which helps marketers and brands build the best end-to-end customer experience possible.

How do you see customer data acquisition models evolving with the availability of Cross-Device Measurement Technologies?

We’re already seeing a shift in cross-channel acquisition strategies; they’re moving from single channel to omnichannel. Customer touch points are continuously evolving with technology, and brands will need to think about how each experience is connected to the ones in other digital channels.

Amazon is doing a really good job with this by connecting their app to their web experience, and even leveraging social media like Instagram to make it easier for their customers to purchase what they need. One of their secrets is attributing any viewed, added to cart, or even wishlisted items to your user ID no matter what platform you’re on. This allows them to continuously customize what their customer sees upon first open of any platform in sections called “inspired by your shopping trends” and “related to the items you’ve viewed”. They further connect this data to the content in their social ads, emails, and push notifications with those specific items.

Leveraging data across all channels can help modern marketers stay at the top of mind and make personal connections with all of their customers. Combining cross-channel data will uncover important pieces of the purchasing journey, like buying intent to hyper-personalized product suggestions. In these cases, customers will be targeted as individuals rather than segments, and experiences will become even more contextual as the cross-channel data signals are combined.

How has the maturity of data science and analytics influenced the creation of real-time customized experiences for mobile?

As mentioned above, there are more data points than ever before. There are endless combinations of actions a customer can take before making a purchase or engaging with a brand. The problem is that many companies have trouble connecting all of these cross-channel data points and thinking about the customer experience from a holistic approach. Comprehensive and well-managed data is key to understanding increasingly complex customer journeys, which must be personalized to the consumer involved and the type of product they are buying. The need to draw meaningful insights from this surplus of data drives the desire for AI.

The evolution of AI will help create personalized recommendation models and custom one-to-one experiences for customers no matter what platform they live on. These custom experiences will be served up live based on real-time actions adding value with each and every interaction the customer has with the brand.

What are the core tenets of Taplytics Experience Cloud?

The customer experience is getting more complex with every new technological advancement. Brands have to be reactive to the new digital touch points that are emerging in order to be in constant contact with their customers. However, we see far too often that the user experience is fragmented as customer move across channels.

The Taplytics Experience Cloud aims to help marketers tackle this disconnect in the market through the different components of the cloud:

The Taplytics Experimentation Engine helps brands discover what experience delights each customer the most, through iteration and experimentation at all touchpoints and in all channels.
The Taplytics Engagement Platform helps marketers create contextual pathways of engagement for their customers no matter where they are.
Taplytics Launch Control helps brands mitigate risk of failure by allowing them to launch and roll-out new features or products incrementally to their customers. Real-time feedback can be monitored during the launch and if anything goes wrong these features or products can be immediately rolled back.
Taplytics Analytics helps teams own the data they need. Teams are able to build custom dashboard and reports without relying on share data teams and resources.
Taplytics Data Warehouse helps put data at the center of customer experience decisions. Brands can house and analyze their data from any source all in one place to gain further insight on their customer.
Taplytics AI – Dexter helps teams identify areas of opportunity to improve customer experiences at every touch point. Through machine learning, Dexter can not only help automate processes, but surface areas of the customer journey to make the highest positive impact

What are the benefits of leveraging proprietary AI-powered experience performance platforms for the B2B ecosystem?

AI is no doubt going to play a large role in reshaping the way we work. The amount of data available is continuously growing with quickly changing marketing needs. We see that this data growth is too much for teams to handle, and the valuable insights being generated are enormous — if understood. Teams are spending more time taming and analyzing the data than building creative solutions and products to better serve their customers.

‘Dexter’, Taplytics’ AI-powered technology, can improve both customer experience as well as internal efficiencies. In the case described above, our AI-powered experience platform can help create efficiencies within the business by surfacing when and where to make changes in the customer journey that will make the biggest impact.

Which startups in martech/ad tech are you watching/keen on right now?

Drift – Drift has carved out a unique spot in the sales and marketing space for companies looking to build a better online experience. As more companies, specifically brick and mortar, see their customers spread across channels multiple digital channels, it is important for them to receive the same experience across all of them.

Now, online chat isn’t incredibly revolutionary, but Drift is doing this differently by arming marketers with a way to interact with their customers in a scalable manner through chatbots, automated emailing, and in-app messaging. Anyone can install a piece of software, but how marketers set it up is what makes a difference. Drift’s combination of features and products allows the modern marketer to easily reach their customer when it matters most.

What tools does your marketing stack consist of in 2017?

Drift – Online chat
Zapier – Automation
Autopilot – Email Automation
Salesloft – Email Automation
Salesforce – CRM
Airtable – Collaboration
Gmail – Email Vimeo – Video Vidyard – Video

Would you tell us about your standout digital campaign?

Taplytics is at the center of most digital customer experiences. We have our ears and eyes open for specific experiences that most customers would not notice themselves.

Taplytics is at the center of digital customer experiences, which makes brands, look to us for insight on the latest digital product trends. We have our ears and eyes on the ground at all times on the lookout for things that most customers and brands wouldn’t notice themselves.

As an attempt to boost our website traffic, we started publishing a series of blog posts that observed the strategies that tech leaders like Spotify and Google were implementing to test and rollout new features. These strategies and insights were hypothesized to be highly valuable to those in the industry looking for direction, which should boost website traffic.

After publishing this series, we saw a 3x increase in unique website sessions. This number was further sustained as we continued to publish these insights and share them within our online community. This signals to us that brands look to innovative companies for direction, which is what we hope to bring to our customers as we continue to spread the word about designing customer-centric experiences.

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

Staying at the center of our customers’ needs.

In any situation, it is important to keep a pulse on our customers and their needs. As their needs grow faster, it’s important to be prepared to serve them as quickly as they develop. AI a powerful differentiator in the industry, and should be leveraged to help solve our customer problems. Whether this is an internal efficiency or a way to better serve their customers, AI will be a large part of our solution.

One word that best describes how you work.

Iterative – The key to quick success is a quick failure and in order to achieve both, one must execute fast in order to learn and consistently iterate to improve.

Taplytics’ culture and product are built on this foundation and is the reason why we are where we are today. We understand that customers’ demands are constantly changing and the way we build and make decisions needs to be just as flexible. We embody this style of work every day and help the brands we work with adopt it as well.

What apps/software/tools can’t you live without?

Zapier – We have many internal tools hooked up to Zapier that data and alerts into the proper channels. This allows us to quickly react to any sales, marketing, or even engineering situation.

What’s your smartest work related shortcut or productivity hack?

Taking notes of the action items rather than the conversation items. This version of note taking I find to be more actionable and contextual. Rather than sitting on a pile of information and wondering what to do next with it, I make efficient use of my time executing on high impact items.

What are you currently reading?

Goodnight Moon (It’s my son’s favorite) 🙂

What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?

Strong opinions loosely held – Believe strongly in the things you say, but be willing to keep an open mind.

Tag the one person in the industry whose answers to these questions you would love to read:

Yuri Sagalov

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

[vc_tta_tabs][vc_tta_section title=”About Aaron ” tab_id=”1501785390157-b58e162d-0ae25a4b-c27aca64-108e51b0-80edaf37-bd3d357a-6c46b898-1fd0″]

Aaron is Co-Founder of Taplytics (YC W14). Taplytics is a Y-Combinator backed Mobile A/B Testing Platform that allows mobile apps to move fast, iterate and win. Most recently, he was a strategy consultant at ZS Associates. A graduate of the MBA program at the Rotman School of Management, Aaron majored in Corporate Strategy. Prior to completing his MBA, Aaron worked as a management consultant at Accenture.

[/vc_tta_section][vc_tta_section title=”About Taplytics” tab_id=”1501785390320-2d44fa50-740c5a4b-c27aca64-108e51b0-80edaf37-bd3d357a-6c46b898-1fd0″]

Taplytics is a customer engagement platform for digital product growth, enabling brands to deliver compelling experiences that drive customer value and positive business impact. Taplytics helps digital-focused brands like Zappos.com, Loblaw Digital, and RBC validate decisions to ensure that new products and features provide a positive impact on bottom line revenue. For more information, please visit: https://taplytics.com.

[/vc_tta_section][/vc_tta_tabs]

[mnky_heading title=”MarTech Interview Series” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fmartechseries-67ee47.ingress-bonde.easywp.com%2Fcategory%2Fmts-insights%2Finterviews%2F|||”]

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.

Cloudera Appoints Amy O’Connor to Chief Data and Information Officer

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February 5, 2018

Big Data Industry Expert to Lead Innovative Technology Team and Set Standards for running Data-Driven Businesses

Cloudera, the modern platform for machine learning and analytics, optimized for the cloud, announced that Amy O’Connor has been promoted to Cloudera’s senior management team as the company’s Chief Data and Information Officer (CDIO). O’Connor will lead a new team that will include customer digital experience, internal business systems, data science and analytics, IT operations and information security – focused on building new technologies and setting new standards for organizations with a “data-first” mindset.

“As our Cloudera CDIO, Amy will be a key driver of innovation to support Cloudera’s IT environment as a resource for our engineering, support, sales, and marketing teams as well as driving customer satisfaction,” said Tom Reilly, chief executive officer at Cloudera. “We look forward to the many contributions Amy will bring to Cloudera in her new role as she drives initiatives to better serve our customers, partners and employees using data, analytics and cloud-based services.”

O’Connor joined Cloudera in 2013 and has since been leading Cloudera’s team of industry experts and business value consultants. This team advises and guides organizations as they introduce Cloudera solutions and adopt an enterprise-wide, repeatable data-driven delivery capability. O’Connor was also responsible for helping Cloudera customers identify and address process and organizational challenges that impact the adoption of their data-driven solutions.

O’Connor came to Cloudera from Nokia, where she built and led their global data and analytics team and where she was an early Cloudera customer. Prior to Nokia, she led marketing and engineering teams at Sun Microsystems, as vice president of services marketing and head of strategy for software and storage.

“I am excited to bring our data-driven initiatives to a greater level of maturity here at Cloudera, where we run our business on our own Cloudera Enterprise Data Hub along with a combination of other cloud-based services. And also I look forward to continuing to share our data-driven best practices with our customers – assisting them in raising their own maturity in using data and Cloudera’s products and services to run their businesses,” said O’Connor.

Also Read: The Age of Choice : How Marketing & Business Will Change in 2018

Video is The Future of Content Marketing

By

Sudipto Ghosh

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February 5, 2018

2

Video is The Future of Content Marketing

In a chat with MarTech Series, Nuxeo’s Uri Kogan Predicts that AI Is Going to Be Critical in Creating the Millions of Variants That a Global Content Strategy Demands

In 2018, what would failure sound like? Running a marketing strategy in 2018 without the mention of video campaigns! Video now plays a central role in marketing outreach and campaign efforts across customer journeys. According to Hubspot, 54% of online customers prefer to see videos from their chosen brands in comparison to emails and social media-based content.

To understand the state of video marketing in 2018 and the impact of disruptive AI-driven technologies in content marketing, we sought predictions from Uri Kogan, VP, Product Marketing, Nuxeo.

Video Dominates Content

Uri Kogan, VP, Product Marketing, Nuxeo

Video is going to grow exponentially in importance as content. Historically, imagery has been a key digital asset (e.g. every demo in the digital asset management (DAM) space featured a grid of images). But, the video is clearly the future of content, given the influx and popularity of streaming services. In fact, Cisco predicts that 80 percent of all global internet traffic will come from video by 2019.

Not long ago, Mark Zuckerberg said he saw video as a “megatrend, on the same order as mobile.” That will hold true and organizations are going to have to grapple with how to shift from image-centric to video-centric content strategies.

Artificial Intelligence Helps Scale Content Creation

With the rise of personalization and targeting creating an insatiable programmatic advertising beast, content creation has become the bottleneck to marketing scale. You can’t really create a million different pieces of content when each one requires a human-driven creative process. AI is going to be critical in creating the millions of variants that a global content strategy demands.

Content Becomes Creative Again

As technology and automation are taking over the previously tedious and time-consuming tasks of scaling content and data analysis, content creators and marketers will be able to clear their process bottleneck and focus on creativity. Creators could spend more time conceptualizing while allowing the AI to build and personalize content in a multichannel and global manner.

DemandBridge Announces Acquisition of Kramer-Smilko, Inc.

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February 5, 2018

DemandBridge Announces Acquisition of Kramer-Smilko, Inc.

DemandBridge, an integrated business platform delivering seamless marketing solutions in the cloud, today announced the acquisition of Kramer-Smilko, Inc. The acquisition furthers DemandBridge’s commitment to empowering distributors/agencies with total quality control over their business, and the ability to maximize efficiency utilizing market-leading software and products. It also demonstrates the value of strategic partnerships and the commitment to providing the tools and expertise to enable their customers to grow. The new company will retain the DemandBridge name.

DemandBridge and Kramer-Smilko, Inc. have been providing premier distributor management software for more than 30 years. With the recent union of e-Quantum, Inc., together, the three companies bring more than 90 years of experience and growth within and beyond the Independent Print Services Industry. The Independent Print Services Industry is undergoing a period of intense change that is rejuvenating the competitive landscape in an attempt to embrace and empower technology innovations.

Also Read: DemandBridge and e-Quantum, Inc. to Combine to Create a Leader in the Marketing Automation Software Industry

The new, independent company will be led by current DemandBridge CEO David Rich, who himself brings more than 35 years of Enterprise IT experience. John Smilko will remain with DemandBridge in his current capacity. DemandBridge will combine the vision, talent, technology prowess and investments of all strategic acquisitions in order to remain vital and competitive in the marketing automation software industry. Together, the new company will evolve and transition its products to leverage DemandBridge’s presence on the Microsoft Azure Cloud and to integrate technologies in the pipeline—from Microsoft PowerBI and Cloud Foundry to other digital marketing technologies planned for 2018 and beyond. The combination and strategic focus will offer the scale, strength and flexibility to help customers and partners succeed with minimal disruption and the same/improved level of customer service.

For years, the industry has known DemandBridge for its complete set of end-to-end tools—that is, the technology that connects a company’s accounting, operations and inventory systems, as well as an e-Commerce portal and sourcing tool for on-demand marketing, promotion and print services. That technology is used by some of the industry’s largest Distributors/Agencies, over 3,000 loyal brands and 1.2 million registered users. The collective spend under management makes it one of the biggest Marketing Execution Platforms available in the market.

“We continue to uncover opportunities to help our clients succeed in new ways. End-user demands are changing, the brands themselves are changing, and the goals of our forward-thinking Distributor/Agency/Corporate customers are evolving accordingly. Simply put, Marketing Service Providers who want to grow their businesses beyond traditional services (i.e. Print/Promotional goods)…will need more enabling technology than the previous generations. By consolidating the talents of DemandBridge, e-Quantum and Kramer-Smilko…and together with customers who have expressed willingness to co-develop with us…we will take a major step forward to providing the resources and technology platforms this industry needs to confidently approach business in the 2020’s,” said CEO David Rich.

Also Read: Tech Partnership: Lead Liaison and ResponseTap Integration Connects Call Intelligence with Marketing Automation Share Article

Kramer-Smilko, Inc. has served the print sourcing and distribution market for 38 years. The software platform they have built, sold and supported now processes half a billion dollars in annual sales for its customer base. Kramer-Smilko has a strong presence in healthcare, banking, finance, and insurance, providing very sophisticated e-Commerce based supply chain management services. In addition to classic print management and distribution, they have integrated office supplies, print-on-demand, digital content management, one-to-one marketing, promotional products, 3rd party fulfillment, and MRO inventory capabilities into its offerings.

Kramer-Smilko Owner John Smilko, added, “This combination expands DemandBridge’s industry footprint, furthering DemandBridge’s growth and technology consolidation strategy. In order to leverage our capabilities and do what the industry requires with respect to platform development, we must have the strength of numbers that this partnership brings,” he continued. “Together, we will have the broadest, most integrated suite of products and services for Distributors, Agencies, and Corporations and the resources to grow along with our customers. Everybody wins!”

Company locations will remain the same.

Study Quantifies Impact of SDL Tridion DX and Language Solutions on Global Content Delivery and Digital Experience

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February 5, 2018

Study Quantifies Impact of SDL Tridion DX and Language Solutions on Global Content Delivery and Digital Experience

Brands Can Experience 112% ROI with Payback in 15 Months and Expected Benefits of up to $8.3 million

SDL, a leader in global content management, translation, and digital experience, released a Forrester Consulting’s Total Economic Impact (TEI) commissioned a study, demonstrating the benefits that brands can expect from using SDL’s integrated solutions – SDL Tridion DX and SDL Language Technology and Services to enhance digital experience and customer journeys.

According to the Forrester Consulting study, “The Total Economic Impact Of SDL Tridion DX Content Management And Language Technology & Services,” SDL contributes to “ease of expansion, improved quality, and improved consistency of sites,” supporting a substantial web traffic increase. Interviewing customers from various industries, Forrester Consulting indicates that customers can expect a three year return on investment (ROI) of 112%, and payback within 15 months; and over the course of three years total benefits of $8.3 million vs. costs of $3.9 million, adding up to a net present value (NPV) of $4.4 million.

Also Read: Wibbitz Releases New Study Revealing Content Consumption Trends for Business Video

The study provides a quantitative analysis of overall benefits derived from implementing a global content operating model (GCOM), which alleviates organizational, technical, and localization challenges to enable global greater brand consistency, improved customer experience, and operational efficiency.

Further benefits highlighted in the study include:

Expand Your Footprint:
Brands find it easier to create and update website content with SDL solutions, enabling faster expansion into new regions and product categories. On average, companies experience 20% year-over-year traffic growth and attribute 25% of that growth to SDL.
Support More Content:
Brands can support 70% more content output (creation and delivery) without increasing the size of the team by realizing 42% efficiencies over three years – all by using SDL’s solutions to centralize and standardize content management.
Automate Localization:
Over the course of three years, companies can expect $1.1 million in localization cost savings due to automated workflows and project tracking, with 34% leveraging translation memory to reduce word count costs and duplicate efforts.

As one interviewed customer stated, “We ended up with between 2,000 and 3,000 microsites which individual country, business division, and product teams would create because they couldn’t get what they wanted out of the core web platform. So now, between the components and the templates we have, SDL will solve those needs,” Senior VP of web and digital marketing, an Energy Management Company.

Also Read: 92% of Marketers View Content as a Business Asset; Majority Look for Resources on Content Management

“We’ve long championed the idea for brands to build a robust GCOM strategy that manages security, localization, compliance, and workflows to deliver culturally relevant digital experiences – at global-local scale. This study validates and quantifies the concept, and offers insights into the way brands can realize substantial efficiencies and business gains when entering new markets,” said Arjen van den Akker, Director Product Marketing, SDL.

SDL Tridion DX is a digital experience suite that comprises of SDL Tridion Sites for web experience management – used by the interviewed organizations in this study – and SDL Tridion Docs for structured content management. It enables organizations to manage and deliver content-driven digital experiences on a global scale across the pre-sale, sale and post-sale phases of the customer journey on any channel or device. This is possible because Tridion DX’s headless (API-first) approach to content, as well as through implementation accelerators for best practice web and mobile experiences.

SDL Language Technology and Services provide powerful translation management capabilities, machine translation, translation productivity and localization services to efficiently and cost-effectively deliver localized content across platforms and channels.

SmartAction to Fuel Accelerated Growth with Management Recapitalization by Staley Capital and TVC Capital

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February 5, 2018

Also Read: PartnerTap Unleashes its Revolutionary Sales Collaboration and Intelligent Partnering Technology with Scribe’s Data Integration Platform

SmartAction to Fuel Accelerated Growth with Management Recapitalization by Staley Capital and TVC Capital

As Consumer Adoption of Artificial Intelligence-Powered Devices Reaches an Inflection Point, Smartaction Is Poised to Expand Its Market Leadership in Enterprise AI with Customer Service Solutions

SmartAction, the provider of the first omnichannel customer self-service platform powered by AI, announced that it secured investments from two growth equity firms: Boston-based Staley Capital and San-Diego-based TVC Capital. SmartAction’s cloud-based platform automates customer service communications in every channel, including phone, SMS, web chat, Facebook Messenger, and Skype, enabling customer service representatives to focus on high-value engagements that require the human touch.

“We are beyond excited to partner with Staley and TVC. Our innovative technology and proven implementation methodology form an excellent foundation. This investment provides us with a springboard for accelerated growth, which we are confident will lead SmartAction to establish itself as a true leader and an iconic brand for AI in customer service,” said Tom Lewis, CEO of SmartAction.

Also Read: Mobile Growth Summit 2018 Announces Speakers From Facebook, Google, Dropbox, Pandora, Reddit and Others

Over the last year, SmartAction has experienced considerable growth, with January 2018 usage of the platform increasing by 115% over January 2017.

Leveraging proprietary AI, speech recognition, and Natural Language Understanding, SmartAction solutions can automate customer service conversations traditionally requiring the aid of live agents, turning complicated processes into effortless experiences for customers. From simple outbound reservation reminders or inbound billing to complex three-factor patient authentications and emergency roadside service dispatch, SmartAction provides intelligent solutions for enterprise customers in over ten industries, including AAA/CAA, Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines, Office Depot, TechStyle Fashion Group, and MGM Resorts. The company plans to use this investment to expand sales and marketing efforts, continue product innovation, and grow internationally.

“SmartAction provides a highly differentiated solution that drives significant cost savings for their enterprise client base while improving the customer experience. The SmartAction team has unrivaled industry expertise and a deep understanding of the needs of their clients. They are revolutionizing the customer service industry,” said Renny Smith, Managing Partner of Staley Capital.

“We are delighted to partner with SmartAction and Staley Capital to further fuel the strong growth that the company is experiencing. SmartAction has a unique opportunity to capitalize on its competitive advantages and continue to expand significantly,” said Jeb Spencer, Managing Partner of TVC Capital.

ORIX Growth Capital and Silicon Valley Bank provided debt financing to SmartAction and G-Bar Ventures also participated as an equity investor in the transaction. Signal Hill, a Daiwa Securities Group Inc. company, served as the exclusive financial advisor to SmartAction on the transaction.

Recommended Read: Why Conversational AI is the Future of Business

TimeTrade Launches New Partner Program for Intelligent Customer Engagement

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February 5, 2018

TimeTrade Launches New Partner Program for Intelligent Customer Engagement

“Google My Business” Partnership Now Live

TimeTrade, the leader in omnichannel intelligent appointment scheduling, launched the Connect Effect Partnership Program, a new initiative designed to optimize intelligent customer engagement through TimeTrade’s industry-leading Appointments-as-a-Service platform. For the initiative, TimeTrade has partnered with multiple large enterprise brands, including Google, Salesforce, Microsoft, IBM, and others.

TimeTrade is included as one of the scheduling partner options to choose from when business owners add a booking button to their Google listings through Google My Business. If a business already has an account with one of the supported scheduling providers, the booking button will automatically be added to their Google listing.

“TimeTrade’s Connect Effect partners recognize that today’s consumers want intelligent customer engagement, which means human connections based on personalized services. Intelligent appointment scheduling allows consumer-facing businesses to establish the right connections with the right customers and prospects – across channels and at exactly the right moment,” said Gary Ambrosino, CEO of TimeTrade.

Also Read: TimeTrade, Mad Mobile Partner to Offer An Integrated Solution For Customer Engagement

TimeTrade designed its intelligent appointment scheduling platform to use artificial intelligence to give companies real-time customer insights and customized actions, producing better meetings and higher growth businesses.

Sheryl Kingstone, Research Director, Customer Experience & Commerce at 451 Research, added, “Customer engagement is critical to every business, and customer loyalty is now being fought for on new battlegrounds, such as the level of consistency and personalization of the shopping experience. Live interactions and appointments are often an essential part of building customer loyalty and securing a sale. Companies like TimeTrade are harnessing the power of AI and machine learning to help businesses improve how they connect with their customers and create more personalized customer experiences.”

Also Read: Kitewheel Partners with Zeta Global to Bring Customer Journeys to ZetaHub

TimeTrade’s other Connect Effect partners include Salesforce, Microsoft, IBM, and other industry leaders.

“Making connections with customers based on personalized services requires scheduling, of course, and Connect Effect partners view TimeTrade’s intelligent appointment scheduling solution as an indispensable tool to helping both B2C and B2B sales and marketing teams optimize intelligent customer engagement through in-person meetings,” said Ambrosino, adding, “We look forward to working with a variety of partners across a broad mix of relevant channels as we broaden the use of our intelligent appointment scheduling solution.”

This year, TimeTrade will steadily roll out new partnerships with leading horizontal technology partners, vertical solutions, and tools for sales and marketing that function at the intersection of customer-facing channels and customer-facing employees. TimeTrade’s industry focus for 2018 includes technology partners, as well as vertical solution providers in financial services, banking, and retail industries.

Wylei Appoints J&J Veteran Denice Torres to Board of Directors

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February 5, 2018

Also Read: Rakuten Marketing to Host the Premier Conference for Online Performance Marketing Leaders at the 2018 Rakuten Marketing DealMaker Event

Wylei Appoints J&J Veteran Denice Torres to Board of Directors

Wylei Inc., an AI Predictive Content technology and marketing automation pioneer, today announced the appointment of Denice Torres to its Board of Directors. Torres is a recent past President for J&J, and an industry thought leader, with a strong background in digital marketing and executive management.

“The addition of Denice to the Wylei board is a major milestone for the company. Denice is a well-known and award-winning industry veteran and experienced executive. Her industry knowledge, mentoring and reach will be invaluable to Wylei,” said Wylei CEO Meg Columbia-Walsh.

The Wylei board provides leadership for carrying out Wylei’s mission to promote growth and revenue by leveraging advanced AI and machine learning technology to drive true 1:1 marketing personalization at scale. Torres joins the ranks of acclaimed board members including Meg Columbia-Walsh, John Martinson, Kevin Mably and Sheryl Goldstein.

Also Read: PartnerTap Unleashes its Revolutionary Sales Collaboration and Intelligent Partnering Technology with Scribe’s Data Integration Platform

Torres is a senior executive with an extensive healthcare and consumer experience developed across a 25-year career at Johnson & Johnson and Eli Lilly. At J&J, Torres served as Chief Strategy and Business Transformation Officer for the medical device sector, Co-Chair of the North America Consumer Business, President of McNeil Consumer Healthcare, and President of Janssen Pharmaceuticals, CNS. Prior to J&J, Torres held senior commercialization roles with Lilly.

Also Read: Latest Report: 90% Marketers List Email as One of Their Top Priorities in 2018

She has extensive experience in corporate and portfolio strategy and has managed all major business functions. Torres has a strong background in marketing and is passionate about exceeding customer expectations. In 2015, Torres was selected Woman of the Year by Healthcare Business Women’s Association.

Denice Torres has a BS in Psychology from Ball State, JD from Indiana University, and MBA from the University of Michigan.

Local Media Consortium Partners with Integral Ad Science to Deliver Better Results to Members for Brand Safety, Ad Fraud, and Viewability

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February 5, 2018

Local Media Consortium Partners with Integral Ad Science to Deliver Better Results to Members for Brand Safety, Ad Fraud, and Viewability

Using Integral Ad Science’s Automated Real-Time Platform, Local Media Consortium Members Can Seamlessly Eliminate Impression Waste, Streamline Workflow, Improve Inventory Quality, and Increase Revenue

The Local Media Consortium (LMC), a strategic alliance of leading local media companies, today announced a new partnership with Integral Ad Science (IAS), a global measurement and analytics company that builds verification, optimization, and analytics solutions to empower the advertising industry to invest with confidence and activate consumers everywhere.

By partnering with IAS, the LMC will enable its members – which include more than 75 local media companies representing more than 1,700 newspaper, broadcast, and digital titles – to ensure and deliver better results to their advertisers and address marketers needs for brand safety, ad fraud, and viewability for digital display and video ad inventory across desktop and mobile web. Using IAS’s automated real-time platform, LMC members can seamlessly eliminate impression waste, streamline workflow, improve inventory quality, and increase revenue.

Rusty Coats

“Thanks to IAS, our members – who offer more than 12 billion ad impressions each month to agencies and brands seeking to reach quality local audiences in brand-safe environments – will have even greater control over direct and programmatic deals. As media companies are increasingly challenged by ad fraud and ad blocking, IAS will provide greater means to verify and optimize inventory, helping participating members to validate and protect their ad traffic,” said Rusty Coats, CEO of the Local Media Consortium.

Also Read: VertaMedia Launches One-of-a-kind Holistic Demand Management Platform for Publishers

IAS scores ad inventory for the URL down to the impression level on the key metrics media companies care most about viewability, ad fraud, geo-compliance, and brand safety. It provides a single source of reporting that unifies publisher and customer data, eliminating discrepancies that come from multiple data sets. IAS’s optimization tool is powered by both machine learning and a dedicated FraudLab that makes sure ads are served to real people and reach the right audiences – all to maximize ROI for buyers and sellers.

Dave Marquard

Dave Marquard, VP of publisher product for IAS, added, “Our commitment to helping local media companies thrive through better ad inventory makes us an ideal partner for the LMC. By automating custom ad delivery down to the placement level, the LMC’s members will have a greater opportunity to monetize more of their impressions and deliver on custom advertiser standards for brand safety, viewability, and fraud-free environments.”

Recommended Read: Winning the Troll Battle

Insightly CRM Opens Engineering Office in Vancouver

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February 5, 2018

Insightly continues rapid expansion, having doubled headcount in 2017

Insightly, the CRM for building lifelong customer relationships, announced the opening of a new office in Vancouver, British Columbia. The office will form an engineering hub for employees building new capabilities for Insightly’s web and mobile CRM software which is used by businesses of all sizes.

“British Columbia has fostered a number of successful homegrown startups in recent years, and now its attractive urban center and highly skilled residents are increasingly drawing outside tech investment and creating a thriving ecosystem for innovation.”

Headquartered in San Francisco, Insightly has undergone rapid growth and increased its headcount by more than 100 percent in 2017 to over 160 employees. This will be the first international office for Insightly, located on Georgia St. in the heart of Vancouver. The location features 360 degree views of the picturesque Vancouver skyline and includes a shopping center, food courts and underground access to the Burrard station.

“Vancouver is a beautiful city and rapidly growing tech hub with great engineering talent, as evidenced by the many high-profile companies setting up shop in the city,” said Anthony Smith, CEO, Insightly. “British Columbia has fostered a number of successful homegrown startups in recent years, and now its attractive urban center and highly skilled residents are increasingly drawing outside tech investment and creating a thriving ecosystem for innovation.”

Insightly – The Relationship CRM

Changing customer expectations are causing a dramatic shift in the CRM market. Customers now command the conversation about how companies act, communicate, deliver their products and portray their brand. This shift is forcing businesses to fundamentally rethink how they engage customers, and therefore how they use CRM.

Modern CRM uses customer relationship intelligence to orchestrate relevant and meaningful interactions at every stage of the relationship lifecycle from the very first touch to the final interaction. Each interaction generates data, and relationship centric companies can use CRM to harness and utilize that vast stream of data to customize and personalize each customer’s experience – building brand loyalty, trust and credibility in a fortuitous loop where every interaction deepens that customer relationship. Insightly’s new engineering hub will expand the capabilities of its CRM software to better help companies map, measure and grow their customer relationships.

Also Read: Unleashing Digital Video’s Potential for One-to-One Marketing

Siftery Track Helps Companies Save Money and SaaS Confidently

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February 5, 2018

Siftery launched Siftery Track to help businesses visualize and optimize their software expenditures. The product connects to an accounting system or other financial accounts and automatically generates beautiful visualizations of historic and forecasted spend by product, category, or team.

“The rise of SaaS, the emergence of new software categories, and the fragmentation of existing solutions have all contributed to the growth and complexity of most companies’ software stack,” said Vamshi Mokshagundam, Siftery’s CEO.

“Track helps companies tackle this new world of SaaS confidently, allowing for procurement decision-making to be more decentralized or responsive while maintaining oversight and budgetary discipline,” he added.

The service also includes an intelligence layer which sends alerts for new products, duplicate charges, unexpected increases in spend, and more. This helps budget owners stay on top of new developments and identify savings opportunities with minimal effort.

During its pre-launch early access program, the service has already been used by over 300 companies with a total of $2.3 billion USD in annualized spend – including $132 million in software.

“Our early access program has been so successful we had to stop sending out new invitations leading up to our launch,” said Gerry Giacoman Colyer, the company’s Head of Growth. He added, “We built the product to be magically easy to set up. Any growing or established company will find value immediately.”

Track is a freemium product whose core functionality is available for free.

Siftery is on a mission to help companies better discover, track, and buy software. Founded in 2015 in San Francisco, the company has built a best-in-class database of over 40,000 software products and the companies that use them. In February 2016, the company announced a $4M seed round from investors including Felicis Ventures, Founders Fund, 500 Startups, Draper Nexus Ventures, CherubicVC, Venrock, AME Cloud Ventures, and dozens of renowned individual investors.

Also Read: Metrics That Every Growth Marketer Must Measure

A Marketer’s Guide to Smarter Data Storage: Is Your Customer Data a Gold Mine or a Time Bomb?

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Reid Tatoris

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February 5, 2018

A Marketer's Guide to Smarter Data Storage: Is Your Customer Data a Gold Mine or a Time Bomb?

We’re living in a golden age of data. Not only can you know how many people visited your site yesterday, but you can also buy data that tells you who they are, what they buy, and what other sites they frequent. This is amazing for marketers, as more and better data means more effective targeting. But with this bounty comes a huge challenge. You have to store all that data. You have to protect it. If you don’t safeguard it, you risk a host of repercussions – angry customers, costly lawsuits, and government intervention.

The more customer data you collect and purchase, the more you become a target for smart, determined hackers, and additional levels of burdensome oversight. This introduces a new risk to your business that is often ignored. More is always better right?

Also Read: Distil Networks Enables Websites to Clean up Google Analytics for Free

Collecting information just because you can, may lead to more headaches than it’s worth. Marketers must think hard about what data they collect, how long they store it, how they will protect it, and whether or not they really need it. Here are the things to think about when making these important decisions.

Be sure the value of the data outweighs the added risk

It’s important to understand what types of data open up your organization to new risks. The main concern is Personally Identifiable Information (PII), which extends beyond name and address and can, in many cases, include zip codes, social security numbers, and even URL data. Storing PII requires adherence to government regulations, and opens organizations up to lawsuits if such data is stored improperly. Even worse, PII regulations vary wildly by country, and even by state.

The EU-US Privacy Shield frameworks are the best place to start, but they are not all-encompassing. In the US, the FTC is the primary organization overseeing the adherence of PII laws at a national level, but each state has its own jurisdictional requirements (yes, it is a huge pain). And keep in mind, these can be even more stringent than PCI requirements because they are government regulations, whereas PCI operates as an industry standard.

Most people view proper data storage as only a security concern, but if marketing teams are collecting this data, then they are responsible for introducing the risk.

Before collecting any new data, check with your security teams to make sure you have the proper procedures in place for handling it. And as a general rule of thumb, don’t store Social Security numbers. Not only does this data put a target on your back for hackers, but it opens your organization up to even larger liability. It’s just not worth it.

Don’t use email as a unique identifier

Thanks to recent, high-profile breaches, almost all internet users have had their email addresses compromised, leaving them vulnerable to resale on the dark web. Setting your own unique identifier gives your company an added layer of protection from potential breaches. This goes for login credentials as well as storage.

Ensure your security team requires each user to create a unique login that is not their email address. Yes, it will be a bit cumbersome, but they will be much angrier if their login credentials are stolen as a result of poor security protocol at the outset.

Also Read: Distil Networks Acquires Are You A Human to Build and Provide Stronger ‘Bad Bot’ Defense

Protect the data you must store

If storing PII is critical to your business, make sure your security and data teams take it seriously. They are likely familiar with the Privacy Shield framework mentioned above, but also check to make sure the following rules are in place:

Any hashing that is done should not be reversible.
Dictionary attacks (rainbow tables) against hashed values should be considered a threat.
Encryption should be executed at the application level. Full disk encryption does not appropriately protect data and should not be considered a holistic encryption at rest strategy for servers.
Never use proprietary encryption. Use open standards that have been well-vetted, such as AES. Make sure you use appropriate key lengths (256 or greater for symmetric and 4096 or greater for asymmetric).
Any data feeds going in or out should be protected by using TLS 1.2 encryption in transit and/or symmetric encryption of the data before sending it.

Set realistic password options

Your users are human beings. If you force them to create passwords that use numbers, capital letters, and characters, but can only be 8 characters long, they’ll use P@ssw0rd1. They’ll also be more likely to reuse a password from elsewhere. If you forget the characters, but force a longer password (say 16 characters) you are more likely to end up not only with a more secure password, but a unique one as well. A phrase like ‘redlionchocolatefeet’ will take a computer billions of years to crack, making it secure, but it’s also easier for a user to remember and less likely to be re-used on multiple sites.

Also Read: Distil Expands Capabilities to Offer Bot Defense Solution for Websites, Mobile Apps and API Servers

Don’t be your own vulnerability

When you and your team log into internal systems to access data remotely, you could be your own biggest threat. Are you using a unique password that can’t be stolen from a data breach on an external site? Using a password manager like LastPass or OneLogin to generate a unique password for each site will make sure you don’t leave yourself open to the security missteps of other companies you have accounts with.

If you have the option, use multi-factor authentication tools like Authy or Google Authenticator to provide even more protection. Anytime you give a new employee remote access, you are also giving hackers a new potential way in. The IT security team is responsible for putting good systems and policies in place, but it’s your responsibility to ensure your team follows protocol.

Goldmine or time bomb?

Make data collection an active choice, not something that happens just because you can. Don’t collect or store data you do not need, that isn’t tied to a documented business justification, and is not retained for longer than you have a valid business need to do so. Make your privacy policies extremely transparent on what data you collect, how and why you use it, and with whom it may be shared.

Yes, a giant database of user data that you haven’t figured out how to use could be a potential goldmine, but it’s also a ticking time bomb. Make sure the tradeoff is actually worth it.

Lightelligence Raises $10 Million to Build the Next-Generation AI Hardware

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February 5, 2018

Lightelligence Raises $10 Million to Build the Next-Generation AI Hardware

Lightelligence Will License the Technology Exclusively from MIT Technology Licensing Office

Lightelligence, the world’s first AI hardware company, is developing nano-photonics based technology to accelerate AI computation and more broadly information processing by leveraging the power of light. – namely, ultra-low latency, high throughput, and extremely high power efficiency. Lightelligence is an MIT-spinoff company working on next-generation AI hardware. They recently announced seed round financing around $10M, backed by top VC investors and leading industry technologists.

The technology was developed at MIT after years of research in nanophotonics, deep learning and optical computing. The founding team includes world-renowned professors, PhDs, experienced entrepreneurs and industry veterans in the field of semiconductors and consumer electronics.

Lightelligence will license the technology exclusively from MIT Technology Licensing Office. The patents were filed when the founding team worked as researchers at MIT. The patents outline the foundation of the technology and cover the fundamental principle, component design, system design and algorithms.

Also Read: Why Conversational AI is the Future of Business

What makes Lightelligence’s technology unique?

What makes the technology unique is the implementation of AI computing on a novel architecture based on the photonic circuit, rather than electronic circuit. This is the world’s first realization of deep learning neural network computing in a photonic integrated circuit. The technology was first published in Nature Photonics mid-2017 as a cover story, followed by a series of research articles about novel neuron network algorithms inspired by this hardware innovation.

There are many areas where Lightelligence’s technology enjoys superior performance over competitors. On the cloud, their technology works as a co-processor to CPUs to accelerate deep learning training and inference. On edge devices, Lightelligence can develop powerful yet extremely low power systems to satisfy their stringent power requirement (e.g. drones).

Also Read: 28 Ways Artificial Intelligence Will Affect Your Business and Life in 2018

What is the context of AI computing?

The concept of AI computing or AI computing acceleration has attracted a huge amount of academic and industry interests. Billions of dollars have been poured into developing efficient hardware to enable faster, energy efficient AI computing. This is evidenced by the following industry news:

Nvidia is a direct beneficiary of AI computing where an increasing number of GPUs replacing traditional CPUs. Its stock enjoyed a 16x return over the 5-year period
Intel went on a buying spree in 2017, acquiring 6 AI hardware startups including Nervana, Movidius and Mobile eye.
Hundreds of millions of VC money were put into AI hardware startups including Cerebras, Wave Computing, Mythic in the US, Graphcore in the UK, and Cambricon, Deephi, Horizon Robotics in China.
In contrast to Lightelligence, all of these companies work off electronic domain by inventing new architectures or optimizing data flow. While there are obvious reasons why electronic integrated circuits have enjoyed their dominance over the past, most of these efforts suffer the following limitations:
Geometric scaling, otherwise known as Moore’s Law, is coming to an end. The latest technology at 10nm node is extremely expensive. The path beyond 5nm is obscure. This is to say, the scaling benefits enjoyed by electronic IC, speed-up by a factor of 2 every 18 months merely by the fact of manufacturing smaller devices, is becoming increasingly difficult moving forward.
Von-Neumann architecture. The fabric of modern computers is based off Von-Neumann architecture, is proving to be inefficient for AI computing where statistical computing overshadows high precision logic computing.

Recommended Read: Data Mining Would Be the Top Segment for AI by 2022

Fishbowl, Inc. Proves That Timing Is Everything For Effective Email Campaigns

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February 5, 2018

Fishbowl, Inc. Proves That Timing Is Everything For Effective Email Campaigns

Leverage Holidays to Make the Most Impact with Audiences

Pick any day of the year and you’re sure to land on a holiday, whether it’s traditional or quirky. A recent analysis from Fishbowl, Inc., the leading data, marketing and analytics solution provider uniquely serving restaurants, shows that tying into people’s desire to celebrate special events is a keen marketing strategy. They examined the successes of their customer’s 2017 Valentine’s Day promotions to gauge the impact of timing and messaging on email open rates and engagement. Just like love, they found that it’s all a matter of timing.

“Across the board, all retailers and restaurant businesses can benefit from a strategy that leverages timely, relevant events for their audiences. While traditional thinking is that the December holiday season and Mother’s Day are key drivers of restaurant traffic the fact is, any one-day occasion if properly conceived and promoted, can be a big win… for all dining categories,” said Eric Douglass, Senior Vice President of Customer Success.

Also Read: New Return Path Interface Provides Actionable Insights to Monitor and Improve Email Deliverability

The Fishbowl analysis found the following results.

Timing is everything – Open rates for emails sent 1-2 weeks in advance of Valentine’s Day were 39% higher than those sent the week of the holiday.
While personalization typically drives responses, use of the first name in the subject line was not a strong driver in the holiday lead-up.
Emails using Valentine’s Day message in the subject line outperformed those that did not use it.
- Words that performed highest included Sweetie, Sweetheart, and other variations on “sweet,” as well as Love, Lovers, and Amore.
- Valentine’s Day symbols and emoji also performed well when placed in subject lines.

“What this proves is that using appropriate messaging and tactics leading up to a holiday can drive engagement,” Douglass explained, “This creates a great deal of opportunity for restaurants that can tailor their offerings to capture the already-motivated consumer.”

Also Read: Latest Report: 90% Marketers List Email as One of Their Top Priorities in 2018

Fishbowl’s analysis also confirms what has been a growing trend in the industry – the shift away from fine dining being the exclusive category for “occasion-based” dining. As more and more brands in the quick-service, fast casual, and casual dining sectors expand their focus, the need for strategically crafted email content is amplified, and so are the rewards.

One of Fishbowl’s clients, The Krystal Company, serves as a perfect example. The large quick-service burger brand had already developed a limited time offer (LTO) menu with a slant toward Valentine’s Day – a cola slushie featuring Red Hots candy flavor. For Valentine’s Day specifically, the burger company developed specific marketing messages such as “Krystal Spices Up Valentine’s Day” and a “Two Can Dine for $6.99” offer. Designed to run from the beginning of February, the event-oriented approach is expected to boost sales during a period previously thought out of reach for quick-service restaurant (QSR) brands.

“In our segment, value is critical, but it can’t be your sole message. We’re a brand that is all about celebration, so combining a flavor-filled offer at a great price during a holiday period with which folks don’t naturally associate us, is compelling. No one else can offer a ‘2 can dine for $6.99’ deal – ours features six Krystals, two fries and 2 Red Hot Slushies – and letting our guests know about it ahead of the holiday drives traffic and incidence by hitting on the three key motivators of ‘value,’ ‘fun’ and ‘unexpected’,” said Alice Crowder, Vice President of Marketing for The Krystal Company.

Also Read: Why You Should Be Paying More Attention to Your Holiday Email Marketing

For the holiday of love in 2017, Fishbowl client Bojangles’ developed a marketing campaign to encourage guests to #BreakUpWithBland – a perfect fit for the regional chain of quick-service restaurants specializing in one-of-a-kind southern flavors like fresh, never frozen, Cajun-inspired bone-in chicken and made-from-scratch buttermilk biscuits. The star of Bojangles’ campaign was the use of the hashtag, which gave guests the opportunity to share the Valentine’s Day LTO with their friends and family through social media platforms, and takes email marketing to the next level.

“Our 2017 Valentine’s Day campaign encouraged guests to bring flavor to their life with our Heart-Shaped Bo-Berry Biscuits. Getting ahead of the holiday was the key factor to success, and with the incorporation of the hashtag, #BreakUpWithBland, the more time guests had to share the tag, the more people knew about our LTO. We created the email marketing campaign to inform guests about the limited time offer as well as our sweepstakes for the chance to win a hotel stay, personal biscuit-making lesson and a romantic Bojangles’ dinner,” said Brian Little, Senior Marketing Communications Director for Bojangles’.

Fishbowl’s data reveals that whether it be Valentine’s Day, graduation day or the Fourth of July, the theme of a single day truly can make a difference when applied correctly.

How Natural Language Processing Is Shaping The Future of Communication

By

Rebecca Hinds

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February 5, 2018