Search
Home Blog Page 4343

The Line Between Etailers and Retailers is Blurrier than Ever

By
Absolutdata
-
4
Retailers
The Line Between Etailers and Retailers is Blurrier than Ever

Etailers

Both virtual and physical retailers are adopting an omni-channel approach by merging offline, online, and mobile capabilities—all with the aim of creating a seamless experience for shoppers.

The past two years have seen their fair share of hype about the line between online retailing and brick-and-mortar selling becoming increasingly blurred. And this trend isn’t over yet. In fact, the line just gets blurrier.

When Etail goes Retail

While it’s true that Etailers worldwide are a fast-growing breed, they feel an increasing need to not be an online-only solution for customers. Large Etailers are adding physical versions of their stores, so that customers can walk in, actually touch the products, and then order online either at home or with in-store kiosks.

Big name ecommerce players, like Amazon and eBay, have already created these showrooms to deliver physical experiences to the majority of customers that still enjoy them.

Why Physical Stores are Building Online Shops

On the other hand, physical shops are upping their game by taking the omni-channel route, a relatively new sales methodology that is gaining popularity because of the success of complementary experiences between online and offline interactions. Today’s customer wants a fully integrated shopping experience, so they can buy what they want when they want no matter where their product search started (or where the purchase will ultimately take place).

A combination of multi-channel strategies requires more technology in physical shops (like kiosks with endless-aisle solutions, product descriptions, and real customer reviews), thus blurring the line between physical shopping experiences and the wealth of data available to shoppers online.

You don’t have to hunt too far to see that this trend is expected to continue. For the first time ever, shoppers made more purchases online than in-store, with 51% of purchases being made online as of an early 2016 survey by UPS.
While offline sales still total more than online ones (just think about your monthly household needs), the number of online orders continues to grow, and it’s not too farfetched to assume that it may soon catch up in terms of sales as well.

With mobile devices are a key driver of online shopping growth, U.S. Etailers are expected to account for $523 billion in annual sales by 2020 (up 56% from 2015’s actual $335 billion). That whopping amount of predicted growth makes the future of etail look promising indeed.

Physical Store Purchases Stay Strong

The frenzied pace of growth in etail is partly due to its relatively small and humble beginnings. In other words, the only place to grow was up.

But the growth of etail doesn’t represent the full picture of modern buying trends. While online shopping is growing quickly in the billions, offline shopping still amounts to trillions spent each year.

Plus, having an inviting physical space with well-trained sales associates is a huge differentiator in a market where so many consumers are driven by experience, not price. At every price point, there’s competition, and the way retailers present themselves in person is a big opportunity to stand out and generate return business.

So while the relatively small base of online sales grows at a higher pace, physical stores have the chance to increase sales by doubling down on their existing strengths.

The big picture is not as grim for the retailers as certain stats may lead you to believe. The added complexity of choosing the right metric for comparison often casts the etailer in more favorable light.

Where the Industry is Headed

Online or offline businesses who view their counterpart as the enemy won’t succeed. Instead, cohesion is a defining factor. The future of shopping is about complementary approaches—where both types of businesses learn from each other and try to adopt new practices that they may have scoffed at years ago.

Many of today’s long-standing retailers have already started to rethink their strategies:

  • Wal-Mart bought ecommerce innovator Jet this year for $3 billion cash, investing more in its online presence than in expanding to new locations.
  • Another example of the blending of web and physical presences is Audi City. Carmakers have offered online new car configuration tools for a number of years, but Audi has taken this to a new level by creating a digital car showroom in London powered by Microsoft Surface tablets that project the customer’s designs onto large video walls.

On the other hand, online retailers are investing in brick-and-mortar stores to engage customers:

  • Retail giant Amazon is planning to build physical grocery stores to complement its online food delivery service
  • Rent the Runway is set to open its first store-within-a-store inside Neiman Marcus’ as part of a new partnership between the fashion tech startup and the luxury retailer. The move sees Neiman Marcus allowing an ostensible competitor 3,000 square feet to rent apparel and accessories to a demographic it has struggled with: millennial women. It also allows Rent the Runway, with its median customer age of 30, to get in front of an older, wealthy clientele.

More and more online retailers have opened up brick-and-mortar stores to expand their brand’s footprint and give customers a better feel for the entire product range.

Blurring the line with Access to New Technologies and Big Data

Location-based advertising is quickly proving to be a disruptive form of marketing that increases customer reach. Retail giants like Walmart, Target and Macy’s each have developed apps that allow users to search for product availability in stores nearby.

Many retailers also offer location-based coupons and deal notifications. These continued developments in technology are quickly forming the bridge between more traditional forms of marketing and digital methods, so that retailers can interact with customers in multisensory ways with a blend of online content and offline results.

The combination of physical and virtual sales is nowhere more apparent than in location-based advertising, which is already transforming the world into a “showroom without walls.” Both in-store and online channels deserve an approach that focuses more on customer engagement than purely on transactions.

Marketing is not the only department affected by these blurred lines. Customization of products is now a main focus, and it requires that suppliers sync up with retailers. Plus, with data collection taking place at every step of the customer journey, product development is up for change at every stage. Data-driven decision making will continue to be transformational.

The future of retail opens up a lot of opportunities for all brands willing to learn from both online and offline models and leverage analytics to gain insight into their customers’ buying trends.

Best Practices for Maintaining an Effective Customer Reference System

By
Susan Thomas
-
0
Customer Reference
Best Practices for Maintaining an Effective Customer Reference System

In my previous article in this series on building customer references for technology marketing, I described some of the most effective ways to ask your customers to be a part of your program – distinguishing the all too typical “can you do me a favor” request from requests that demonstrate the advantages for the customer to participate in your program. In this post, I’ll outline some systems and software that allow you to track the progress of your program and ensure your company delivers a united front.

Once you have confirmed customers that will participate in sales, marketing or PR initiatives, your long-term success will depend on the system, policies, and communication you put in place. After all, companies that depend on a single person to track customer participation and/or don’t have a system that allows the information to be shared are destined to struggle with the program. And just like with other organization-wide activities, the best systems and software for your customer reference program allow collaboration and are intuitive and easy to update.

Policies and Systems

A customer reference program requires a well thought out system that will work in your organization’s structure. Your system, and your policies that support the system, must contribute to each step in your customer reference program, including consideration for who in your organization is involved and who in the organization needs to be notified as things progress with each customer. Likely most critical to the success of the system is deciding who needs access to the information in your organization and who should be allowed to change the status of a customer.

10Fold recommends a system based on a database that allows anyone to apply search terms or filters to identify viable customers for each opportunity by geography, product deployment, sales status and even by customer satisfaction status (updated by the customer service group).

From a policy and setup perspective, the 10Fold best practice is to be inclusive with the information collected for your customer reference program. Usually individuals in the sales, customer service, and marketing organizations have vested interests in the reference program. By sharing and collaborating with this broad group, you can ensure that your company provides a consistent and united front with all of your customers. If everyone in the organization contributes information, you can also prevent mishaps that might jeopardize a contract that the sales organization has in process with an existing customer or avoid asking a customer that is experiencing technical challenges to speak publicly.

The best way to design a system is to start by asking all the groups involved in the customer reference program to nominate or approve the customers that are approached for the program. By doing this, each group involved has the opportunity to provide their thoughts on the viability of each customer considered for the program. And, once a customer enters the program, each group can check and update the status of that customer. That means that marketing, sales and customer service teams all have veto power to use customers in the program.

If a salesperson flags a customer reference record with a pending status, then marketing can hold off contacting that customer until the new contract in negotiation is completed by sales. Similarly, if a customer’s satisfaction status has changed, the customer service organization can ensure the customer is listed as pending until the technical challenges are eliminated. If a marketing team vets a customer and concludes that they simply are not consistently positive about their experiences, marketing may veto a customer to ensure colleagues in marketing and sales don’t get an unexpected result.

Another important policy to establish is when and how to say thank you to active customer references.  Although you have already designed win/win opportunities for your customers, a thank you is a classy way to acknowledge your customers’ contributions. A thank you may simply be an email from a prominent company executive (perhaps the CEO) or it may be a clever gourmet food basket, gift certificate, or tickets to a popular event. Be especially careful about sending alcohol, cigars, or other gifts that may require a special interest – as the gift can backfire or offend. Whichever approach you choose, 10Fold recommends incorporating thank you gestures into your system to ensure that each customer participating is regularly recognized.

Software Options

In the best of all worlds, you can extend your CRM or sales or marketing system to incorporate customer reference fields. This allows you to ensure you are not keeping duplicate data (in separate software solutions that become silos) that can get out of synch with master systems. Don’t be confused by the referral program software – which is another platform that encourages your customers to directly make recommendations.

Of course, your organization may not have the time, money and/or resources required to modify your core CRM, sales or marketing systems. If that’s the case, consider applications such as CustomerWinHQ, a SaaS solution that makes tracking customers as simple as possible. It allows you to create a list of all of your customers in the program and it gives you opportunities to capture separate statuses for every category, by customer. It also offers easy sharing with clients and colleagues. Starting at a base price of $50/month, CustomerWinHQ charges customers based on the amount of data they store, not the number of users in the organization.

Strong Systems Ensure a Healthy Customer Reference Program

There is no doubt that a thoughtful, repeatable system that is supported by flexible database software is a great foundation for a healthy customer reference program. Most importantly, be sure to develop a system that supports information sharing and collaboration with everyone in the organization who has a vested interest. Use the system to inform your requests of these customers and to remind you to recognize active customers that may need a special thank you.

Interview with Doug Bewsher, CEO at Leadspace

By
Sudipto Ghosh
-
1
Doug Bewsher
Interview with Doug Bewsher, CEO at Leadspace

[mnky_team name=”Doug Bewsher” position=” CEO at Leadspace”][/mnky_team]
[easy-profiles profile_twitter=”https://twitter.com/dougino” profile_linkedin=”https://www.linkedin.com/in/dbewsher/”]
[mnky_testimonial_slider][mnky_testimonial name=”” author_dec=”” position=”Designer”]“I think that the change in user interactions is going to fundamentally change our way of interacting with one another.”[/mnky_testimonial][/mnky_testimonial_slider]

On Marketing Technology

MTS: Tell us a bit about your role at Leadspace and how you got here.

After holding the position of CMO at many companies, including Salesforce.com and Skype, I am now CEO at Leadspace – helping marketers be more effective, in contrast to being one myself!

Having lived and breathed B2B Marketing for so long, and seeing how people actually use Sales and Marketing Automation, including the successes and challenges they face, I wanted to be at the forefront of the next B2B Sales and Marketing trend towards “intelligent CRM” – bringing intelligence and analytics into these workflow systems.

MTS: How does Leadspace assist customers with audience management?

Just like B2C marketers before them, B2B marketers are moving from leads to accounts, and finally audiences. By “audiences” I mean distinct groups of companies – and more importantly, the people within companies that form buying centers and “demand centers”, to coin a term from SiriusDecisions.

Finding these audiences requires an audience management platform, which allows B2B Marketers to understand the total addressable market for their products, prioritize potential accounts, identify the specific personas, and then engage them through ads, email, sales, content – wherever – all from a single platform. Leadspace is pioneering this idea of an audience management platform for B2B sales and marketing.

MTS: What part did Leadspace play in their customer, Microsoft, receiving the 2017 Revvie award for (Enterprise) Marketing Team of the Year?

The Microsoft Marketing team are amazing – having won not just the Revvie, but also Large company ROI programs at SiriusDecisions in 2016. While it comes down – as always – to great people, great strategy, and good execution, we’re delighted to see that Microsoft’s decision to standardize on Leadspace for their data management and predictive scoring formed a key component of their success.

MTS: What do you see as the single most important technology trend or development that’s going to impact us?

I think that the change in user interactions is going to fundamentally change our way of interacting with one another – both in a personal and business sense. We will find it weird in 10 years time that people walked along the street looking at their phones all the time, not letting an assistant talk to you or read the news, or have it overlaid in context.

At the same time, we’ll also find it weird that we spent so much time looking at Gmail, Salesforce, or Hubspot interfaces on a big screen. Instead, we’ll be presented with the pertinent information at the right time – with a recommendation on what to do.

I think this is why you see such emphasis on large technology platforms trying to build out the “AI’ side of their platforms, as the specific form of interface will increasingly matter less – whether it is Alexa or Slack that you get your CRM data from – and it will need to be everywhere

MTS: What startups are you watching/keen on right now?

I am interested in various companies looking to build applications on the new engagement platforms. For example, there are some really interesting applications we use in Slack, such as Champ, which help us build a faster moving, more informed and agile team. The same is true in the consumer space with applications built on Alexa and Google Home, and while few are yet mainstream, I think there will be a lot of very impressive innovation in this space.

MTS: What tools does your marketing stack consist of in 2017?

The great thing about working at Leadspace is that we get to use our own tool on a regular basis, and experience firsthand all the benefits I described earlier. We feed that data and intelligence through our CRM, Salesforce, and Marketing Automation Platform, Marketo.

We also have Uberflip to help manage our content, PFL for direct mail campaigns, and paid advertising tools – i.e. Facebook and Adwords – as some of our standout technologies.

MTS: Could you tell us about a standout digital campaign? (Who was your target audience and how did you measure success)

We always focus on targeting the right audience when it comes to our marketing campaigns.  For example, in our most recent campaign, we used Leadspace Audience Management Platform to identify our high-target enterprise accounts and the individuals in Demand Gen or Marketing Ops personas at those accounts.

After understanding the audience, we developed a campaign strategy including email and direct mail to grab their attention. We started off with some emails to get them familiar with Leadspace, and then sent them a “teaser” box, offering them a free Amazon Echo if they agreed to a meeting with us.

By taking the time to evaluate the audience, compared to our database and prioritizing the right people within high-value accounts, we were able to increase our deal size, sales velocity and pipeline.

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

AI is going to transform B2B Sales and Marketing, and every business leader needs to be building their knowledge and skills in this area. However, like all CRM and technology deployment, it is all about test and learn, and focusing on tangible results, not a “big bang” approach – what we call the “crawl, walk, run” approach. Leaders need to set a path, focus on where the results can truly be shown today – whether it is in AI-driven data management or predictive segmentation, and from this foundation of real results, start to experiment with the earlier stage applications such AI-driven marketing programs or intent based recommendations.

This Is How I Work

MTS: One word that best describes how you work.

Agile.

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

Google Inbox, Slack.

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

Techmeme – a single place to stay on top of the news you need in tech in real time. I like to try to stay one step ahead on the news.

MTS: What are you currently reading? (What do you read, and how do you consume information?)

I am trying to move to only using my Pixel XL for everything. However, I have also moved back to real books as a balance to all the digital media – I’m currently reading the “Three Body Problem”.

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

Sleep on it.

MTS: Something you do better than others – the secret of your success?

I learned at McKinsey the Pyramid principle for problem disaggregation and communication, which I believe is a critical skill for all business leaders.

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

David Ogilvy – a genius at taking Marketing and Advertising and boiling it down to key truths.

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

[vc_tta_tabs][vc_tta_section title=”About Doug” tab_id=”1501785390157-b58e162d-0ae25a4b-c27abf93-f793″]

20 years building world class brands in the technology. Created and led B2C and B2B product marketing, demand generation and brand building programs for disruptive technology products and services.

Specialties: Product Marketing, Digital Marketing, Mobile Marketing, Social Marketing, Advertising Sales, Monetization, CRM, Customer Experience Management, Brand Strategy, PR, Customer Acquisition, Customer Engagement, Online Advertising, Digital Advertising, and Social CRM.

[/vc_tta_section][vc_tta_section title=”About Leadspace” tab_id=”1501785390320-2d44fa50-740c5a4b-c27abf93-f793″]

Leadspace

Leadspace’s Audience Management Platform enables B2B companies to better engage customers and drive faster growth by allowing marketers to find and know their audiences.

As internal and external data multiplies, Leadspace uses AI to provide a single source of truth across all sales and marketing data, identify net new account and individuals, and recommend the best marketing activities.

Updated in real time, data and intelligence remains constantly accurate and actionable and can be consistently used across sales, marketing and advertising channels.

Based in San Francisco and Israel, Leadspace is trusted by more than 130 B2B brands and 7 of the 10 largest enterprise software companies, including Microsoft, RingCentral and Marketo.

[/vc_tta_section][/vc_tta_tabs]
[mnky_heading title=”About the MarTech Interview Series” link=”url:http%3A%2F%2Fstaging.loutish-lamp.flywheelsites.com%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.

TechBytes with Adrienne Weissman, Chief Marketing Officer at G2Crowd

By
Sudipto Ghosh
-
0
Adrienne Weissman
TechBytes with Adrienne Weissman, Chief Marketing Officer at G2Crowd
Adrienne Weissman
Adrienne Weissman, Chief Marketing and Customer Officer at G2 Crowd

MarTech brands are increasingly relying on customer experience and feedback management to build their B2B customer base. Naked Marketing, a necessary but seldom understood, has grown to become a key factor to achieve success in B2B marketing. Last month, the leading business software review platform G2 Crowd took a giant leap in the industry by raising $30 million in Series B funding. Coming on the heels of a phenomenal year that saw the company grow by 300%, G2 Crowd’s position in MarTech expounds the paradigm shift occurring in B2B buying market where SaaS buyers are increasingly behaving like retail consumers. We spoke to Adrienne Weissman, Chief Marketing and Customer Officer at G2 Crowd to understand how the leading B2B review platform influence software buyers to make the right decisions based on naked marketing of insights and feedback from professionals.

MTS: What is naked marketing?

Adrienne Weissman: Naked marketing stems from the reality that your brand and the solutions are completely exposed. Business professionals are regularly sharing both their positive and negative experiences with one another. These interactions strip away your fancy marketing tactics and expose your naked product.  Brands have historically shied away from facilitating these conversations, fearing that their business’s flaws would turn off prospects. But the interactions between a brand’s customers and prospects can be the key to the business’s success.

By embracing their nakedness, brands can add their own voice to the conversation that their current, former, and potential customers are already having. Customer advocates can do the selling for you as they objectively highlight your business’s strengths. Conversely, feedback from unhappy customers can simultaneously drive your product improvement efforts, increase the trustworthiness of your customer-reported strengths, and identify which customers may need a little extra attention.

MTS: In what ways can marketers expose their brands?

Adrienne Weissman: The best way to expose your brand is to encourage prospects to engage with current and former customers. Previously, businesses accomplished this through hand-picked reference calls.  But often those potential customers would search out other people using the product and ask for their unfettered opinions. Today, it’s accomplished through review sites, like G2 Crowd. Building a comprehensive library of authenticated customer reviews, on third-party sites like G2 Crowd, establishes transparency and trust with prospects – a critical component of closing business deals. Plus, the immediacy of review sites can shorten your sales cycle significantly.

MTS: What are the benefits of embracing negative reviews?

Adrienne Weissman: Negative reviews are a fundamental component of naked marketing. How you respond to and assist unhappy customers plays a large role in how prospects view your business. Publicly engaging with your unhappy customers and addressing their concerns show them (and prospects who are reading) that you care about the customer experience. Additionally, prospects researching your product expect to see some negative commentary. They know that no business solution is perfect and view a lack of negative reviews as untrustworthy. Negative feedback makes your solution, and its strengths, seem more credible to and helps set realistic expectations for those considering your product. All in all, negative reviews are essential to customer retention.

MTS: Thanks for chatting with us Adrienne. We look forward to having at MarTech Series again for more insights.

Stay tuned for more on business insights on marketing automation, content marketing, video ad tech, programmatic and header-bidding technologies. To participate in our Tech Bytes program, email us at news@martechseries-67ee47.ingress-bonde.easywp.com

Five Ways to Get Personal with Your Marketing

By
Absolutdata
-
4
Five Ways to Get Personal with Your Marketing

computer

Personalized Marketing Is Where It’s At For Today’s Customers. How Can You Use Social Media And Big Data To Connect With Your Audience In A More Meaningful Way? Read This Post To Find Out.

“Right audience, right channel, right time” is practically a mantra for today’s marketers. If that sums up how you want to contact your customers, personalized marketing is what will make it possible.

Personalized marketing is pretty much what it sounds like: tailoring your message to an individual customer. At its basic level, personalization is crafting your message for the right group boomers vs millennials -; heavy Internet users vs. newspaper readers; dog people vs. cat people. It also means only pitching them the content, products, and services that appeal to them.

Why personalize? For starters, it’s good business practice. A study quoted on Pardot.com showed that personalized marketing emails were opened nearly a third more than their non-personalized versions and had a 41% higher click-through rate. Besides, people — especially those in the much-discussed Millennial demographic — have come to expect personalization from companies of all sizes and descriptions.

How Are Businesses Personalizing Their Marketing Messages?

As you might imagine, there’s a wealth of information available about your customers on social media. And the customers put it there. So it’s not surprising that companies are using Big Data and advanced analytics techniques to create ever-more personalized data.

How are some companies personalizing their marketing efforts? Let us count the ways:

  1. By geographic location
  2. By the customer’s known interests
  3. By interest groups (i.e. people who bought a certain brand of chocolate were also interested in…)
  4. By IP address
  5. By purchase history
  6. By when (morning, afternoon, evening) and how (tablet, smartphone, computer) messages are read
  7. By social media platform

These factors can coalesce quite nicely at some points. For example, it’s been estimated that about 70% of Pinterest users are women. So if you wanted to reach out to a female audience that’s visually motivated, technologically comfortable, and interested in crafts, where would you put your message? Exactly.

That’s a good start, but there’s still work to do. Let’s explore five ways to get personal with your marketing.

Personalize Your Marketing with These Five Steps

To successfully personalize your marketing efforts, you need to take advantage of the technologies available. That may mean investing or upping your commitment to Big Data products. Seeing as the alternatives are either crunching the numbers yourself or letting your efforts be outstripped by your competitors, it’s a good investment. You can even outsource data analytics if your company doesn’t have the inclination or space to do it in-house.

So, your true first step is getting the data in usable form. What then?

  • Embrace social media. From an advertising and marketing perspective, social media is the best thing since sliced bread. It might even be better than sliced bread. Your customers tell you all about themselves for free, and your message can go out to them at a significant savings over traditional advertising. Keep in mind (as we mentioned above) that social media platforms often have different user demographics. Use this to inform your approach.
  • Talk to Your Customers. Who’s the best person to ask about your customers? While data analytics can provide you with some amazing insights, it’s nowhere near as good as the customers themselves. Get into online chat, use mini polls, comb through customer support transactions, and peruse feedback. Your customers will tell you exactly what they want and what is important to them.
  • Market to Customers, Not Numbers. Customers have an account number. They are not an account number. Invest the time (and the information you’ve learned from previous steps) to create and deliver a marketing experience that matches their needs and expectations.
  • Create Content for People First. Content is important in marketing. So are search results. But your content should always be geared toward the customer as an individual. This might mean curating specific content for specific groups. Remember, your goal is personalization, not mass appeal.
  • Use Micro-segmentation. After developing user archetypes, you can further micro-segment your personas to slice and dice their purchase history, preferences and dislikes, triggers of purchase, etc., to design personalized messages for them.

Personalized marketing is used because it works for everyone. Your customers feel that they matter to your company. Plus, they get offers that make sense to them. You get a better chance of acquiring a loyal brand fan (and quite a few sales, over time). While it may require a greater investment of time and technology, we say the results are worth it.

Interview with Gareth Davies, Founder & CEO at Adbrain

By
Avinash Duduskar
-
0
Gareth Davies
Interview with Gareth Davies, Founder & CEO at Adbrain

[mnky_team name=”Gareth Davies” position=”Founder & CEO at Adbrain”][/mnky_team]
[easy-profiles profile_twitter=”https://twitter.com/GarethDaviesRM” profile_linkedin=”https://www.linkedin.com/in/gdaviesadbrain/”]
[mnky_testimonial_slider][mnky_testimonial name=”” author_dec=”” position=”Designer”]“AI has the power to create immense value out of both structured and dark data but the biggest beneficiaries will be people.”[/mnky_testimonial][/mnky_testimonial_slider]

On Marketing Technology


MTS: Tell us a little bit about your role Adbrain and how you got here?

I’m the founder and CEO of Adbrain, a company specializing in AI for identity. I founded Adbrain with the core belief that companies that truly understand their cross-device customers can create a strategic advantage out of customer data, with positive consumer and societal impact as a result. I was also incredibly frustrated that no-one had figured out how to build a privacy safe, media agnostic single customer identity framework. The major adtech solutions were (and in many ways still are) black-box walled gardens, denying marketers the ability to truly understand their customers. There had to be a better way, so I started Adbrain to positively disrupt.

MTS: How do you see the cross device advertising and omnichannel targeting segment evolving over the next few years?

Whilst still two different animals, we’re seeing the convergence of Adtech and Martech as marketers start to bring their 1st party customer data (e.g. CRM, sales, call center) and advertising data (impression, click and conversion logs) together in one place. The role of the DMP (Data Management Platform) and the CDP (Customer Data Platform) are converging, and Identity – loosely defined by a single customer ID that ties a number of anonymized user specific IDs alongside known customer data – is the connective tissue that helps marketers tie online and offline, paid and owned to create a more complete and nuanced understanding of their customers. This single customer view leads to better customer engagement, fewer wasted impressions or sales opportunities and just a far better customer experience. As more people-based data ownership comes in house, marketers can focus on people and outcome driven campaigns (whether paid or owned media) and consumers will thank them. I also see TV and offline sales data rapidly being part of this new data landscape. That’ll be where things get really interesting.

MTS: What do you see as the single most important technology trend or development that’s going to impact us?

Without a doubt, it’s Artificial Intelligence. Whilst over-hyped at times, we’re only scratching the surface of possibility when it comes to machine intelligence. Within the marketing community, this will lead to more predictive, outcome oriented systems that focus on delivering critical business KPIs like sales, or brand affinity. CTR and last-click attribution will finally die. More broadly, the impact across multiple sectors and society at large will be profound, enabling innovation at unprecedented scale. But I don’t foresee people becoming obsolete. AI has the power to create immense value out of both structured and dark data but the biggest beneficiaries will be people, freeing us up from mundane tasks and helping us to ‘level up’ our own intelligence and skills. Whilst disruptive for many, this new wave of intelligence will make us smarter and richer in so many ways.

MTS: What’s the biggest challenge for startups to integrate a platform like Adbrain into their stack?

Adbrain has both an enterprise grade ‘Identity-AI-as-a-Service’ offering for data rich clients who are looking to build their own people-based marketing products (think large scale data owners, ad/mar-tech vendors and telcos) and a CPM data product for marketers. The challenge on the former is more around a client’s internal product development and prioritization, given that we offer a middleware capability where clients build on top. For marketers, we make our cross-device, people based targeting available through all the major DSPs and DMPs, activated as a CPM data buy. This significantly reduces the setup friction and allows brands to model cross-device user journeys, start cross-device targeting and retargeting, and valuable people based multi-touch attribution from day one. We’ve seen sales uplifts as high as 325% vs. standard targeting.

MTS: What startups are you watching/keen on right now?

Pretty much anything in the AI and data space, particularly those addressing the dual challenges of training data and the lack of readily available data science talent. There is still a huge amount of friction in the sourcing and qualifying of raw, unstructured data to train machine learning and AI models. Most people think data is ubiquitous, but high quality, privacy safe training data is harder to find than most realize. Folks solving this in the new data economy include companies like SafeGraph and Narrative. On the AI side, I love seeing cool new consumer applications of AI, but it’s the platform stuff that really excited me – addressing the ultimate question of how we enable and democratize data science at scale.

MTS: What tools does your marketing stack consist of in 2017?

As a B2B business, we focus heavily on marketing automation using a combination of Google Analytics, Hubspot, and the Salesforce suite, and plenty of owned and operated media.

MTS: Could you tell us about a standout digital campaign? (Who was your target audience and how did you measure success)

We were tasked by a global media agency with evaluating the influence of mobile interactions in driving conversions for a premium finance brand. The results showed that targeting “mobile researchers” drove a 325% increase in desktop conversions with a 31% cost saving.

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

You start with a data strategy and align your leadership team and wider business around the necessary investments and steps needed to unify, own and protect your first party data, including privacy and data governance. When it comes to the application level – namely where do I think AI can help me – it’s critical to first focus on the brilliant basics, questions like ‘what are the key business metrics I need to optimize for’, or ‘where can I drive greater process or business efficiency’. These may not sound sexy but before you dream up creative wow moments driven by AI, there’s huge value in the low hanging fruit. Focus is everything.

This Is How I Work

MTS: One word that best describes how you work.

Collaboratively

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

Slack, Gmail (out of need, not desire) and Google Now, my favorite consumer facing AI app out there – for now!

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

The classic do list. I keep a running to do list in Evernote, updated on my phone, and a more detailed project plan in a Google spreadsheet, with all the actions my team owes me, and when, so I can keep myself, and them, accountable. Separating the important actions from the urgent ones is critical in a startup (and elsewhere in life). If everything is an urgent priority, then nothing is.

MTS: What are you currently reading? (What do you read, and how do you consume information?)

I try and always have both fiction and non-fiction on the go. Right now, I’m reading Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ One Hundred Years of Solitude, and finishing Man’s Search for Meaning, by Viktor Frankel – a powerful psychoanalytical account of life in the Nazi concentration camps. It sounds depressing, yet I see it as an uplifting lesson in the power of the self and our ability to positively choose our reality. Beyond AI/data and marketing industry news (curated via Slack and Twitter) I’m an avid Economist reader. The depth of analysis on current affairs is invaluable, especially in a world of twitter soundbites and click bait!

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

Be the best you can be. Or more simply, be authentic. Too many of us are taught from an early age to work on our weaknesses instead of doubling down on our strengths. Have the courage to be who you are, do what excites you, not what we believe others want us to be or do. I find the older I get, the easier this comes. And remember, authenticity is contagious!

MTS: Something you do better than others – the secret of your success?

I try and compete with myself, it’s exhausting trying to compete with others! That said, a strength I try and double down on is communicating a clear vision and getting people positively bought in and contributing to the journey. Easier said than done but probably the number one job of a startup CEO.

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

Larry David (the co-creator and writer of Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm). I’m fascinated by the creative process, and see a ton of similarities between building a company and creating content. Both require ideas to be brought to life, and allowed to grow organically – you can’t write the ending on day one!

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

[vc_tta_tabs][vc_tta_section title=”About Gareth” tab_id=”1501785390157-b58e162d-0ae25a4b-c27a01f1-59de”]

Entrepreneur and business leader focused on solving meaningful problems through data. Passionate about building world class teams that live and die by the values.

Founded Adbrain to help companies resolve single customer identity, power more enriching customer experiences, and build smarter businesses through data and AI.

[/vc_tta_section][vc_tta_section title=”About Adbrain” tab_id=”1501785390320-2d44fa50-740c5a4b-c27a01f1-59de”]

Adbrain logo

Adbrain powers marketers and their partners to understand and engage with their customers with a personalized, consistent message across devices, channels and platforms.

We’re backed by leading mobile, enterprise data and SaaS investors, headquartered in London, with offices in New York, Seattle and San Francisco.

[/vc_tta_section][/vc_tta_tabs]
[mnky_heading title=”About the MarTech Interview Series” link=”url:http%3A%2F%2Fstaging.loutish-lamp.flywheelsites.com%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.

Marketers Must Move To The Beat Of The GDPR Drum

By
Todd Ruback
-
0
GDPR

Flag of_Europe

For months, the drumbeat has been growing louder and – with less than a year before the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) becomes effective – the hype is now reaching full volume.

While many well-known brands have finished their GDPR gap analysis and have a clear picture of what they need to do moving forward, others have only just begun to consider the impact of the regulation. Whichever camp you fall into, the GDPR requires significant process change and corresponding change management, so few companies will be 100% ready by the enforcement date of May 25th 2018.

But there’s no need to let hysteria kick in; the GDPR should be viewed as a positive catalyst for change. The most important thing is to have an overall GDPR action plan in place and to work steadily against it, picking off the low hanging fruit first and staying focused on the regulation’s most critical aspects.

So, what should marketers be doing to ensure they keep pace with the beat of the GDPR drum?

The first step for marketers is to create a high level GDPR action plan, which should look something like this:

  1. Determine how the GDPR applies to you – If you are reading this post, pretty safe to assume that it does. Any company that collects, stores or processes consumer data, or who uses vendors to do so, is covered.
  2. Know what data your business collects and why, so you can determine if you need to obtain explicit consumer consent. Consent is the most important aspect of the GDPR, partly because the data protection authorities can easily see if it is in place by checking marketing touchpoints such as your website, and partly because infringements of the conditions for consent attract the higher level of penalty.
  3. Develop an internal privacy impact assessment (PIA) process. PIAs allow your business to systematically analyze data flows and the associated risks to data privacy, and to find the most effective way to comply with data protection obligations. Establishing this process will plant the seeds of an internal compliance group.
  4. Look at your tech stack and identify where it can integrate into middleware identity management systems or other databases to automate as much of your GDPR obligations as possible. For instance, you may be able to deploy a consumer-friendly consent management tool where an individual can exercise their new GDPR rights such as the right to object to profiling. You need to be able to receive a signal expressing this opt-out choice and then honor it, or risk severe penalties.

Marketers need to start with considering if the tech providers that make up their marketing stack collect and process data on their behalf. If this is the case they will need to work with those providers to ensure they are implementing their own GDPR action plan, and that they have the necessary processes in place, particularly regarding consent. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you are going to be at risk quickly. Your law firm and/or ad agency should be able to help.

Marketers will need to protect themselves against possible penalties incurred due to something their tech provider has done, or not done, which may involve revising contracts with their data processors to include indemnification obligations. Marketers need to be clear who is ultimately responsible for activities such as record keeping, security, sending data breach notifications within the necessary timeframe, designating a DPO, and having contracts in place with downstream subcontractors, to avoid being landed with hefty fines.

Putting these measures in place will require plenty of heavy lifting but it is essential because even if you cannot get all the work done in time, having a GDPR action plan with logical timelines shows an intention of good faith.

To assist the process it is critical to appoint a Data Privacy Officer (DPO) as soon as possible and to furnish them with the independence and authority to give candid advice. While the GDPR aims to empower the individual with control over their data, the consequence is most companies will have to totally reimagine their relationship to data and rethink their data strategy – understanding what data they collect, why they collect it, and where it goes. A DPO plays a vital role in this realignment process and also acts as a link to the regulatory supervisors, running interference and smoothing the rough edges.

The GDPR provides an immense opportunity for constructive change and those that embrace the new regulation as such, will come out the other side stronger and more successful. The time has come for marketers to move to the beat of the GDPR drum, getting an action plan in place and setting in motion a positive shift in their relationship with data.

How to Identify Your Best Customer Reference – It May Not Be Who You Think

By
Susan Thomas
-
1
Customer Reference
How to Identify Your Best Customer Reference – It May Not Be Who You Think

Identify Your Best Customer

In my previous article in this series on customer references in technology marketing, I examined the various stages of customer advocacy that can help you determine the activity that is the best fit for that particular customer champion. In this post, I’ll take a look at methods that can help you identify your best customer reference.

We’ve all been there – pressed for a customer reference for a sales opportunity, or marketing or PR initiative – and people begin shouting out company names. Usually the suggestions start with blue chip companies – such as a large beverage company or a big retail brand. These companies come to mind first because we all understand that leveraging the brand of a large, admired company makes our own marketing and sales efforts infinitely easier. Yet, it is also true that sometimes pursuing a reference from the big brands can eat up a tremendous amount of time and resources and create sales challenges. This is the guessing game many in marketing have played.

10Fold recommends a data-driven approach when it comes to selecting the best customers to become your advocates. Over the past two decades we have devised and honed a filter that measures specific characteristics, indicating where a customer will be more (or less) referenceable. The characteristics measured include personal attributes of the individual as well as corporate facts. This filter allows our clients to choose customers that are compatible with their marketing needs.

We have developed a number of ways to help us identify the reference readiness of customers. These include satisfaction and success with your solution; any corporate situations they are in – such as a crisis – that would prevent them from participating in external marketing opportunities; and well-understood corporate policies that prohibit them from participating in marketing and PR opportunities. Following are some more complex filters that bear further strategy and thought.

Marketing Technology News: Mono Solutions Joins Bauer Media Group to Strengthen SME Marketing Services Across the Globe

Urgency Drives Decisions

Far too often the marketing or sales executive is tasked with quickly finding a customer who will speak on the record with the media or participate in a customer event. We’d propose that if you are in a hurry, this is the wrong time to pursue a large corporate brand. This type of company will make decisions more slowly, be much more cautious in approving opportunities for fear of brand damage, and be more demanding in following an arduous process.

Size Matters

Hooking the big brands can be like trying to date the most popular girl at school. The challenge is that both know they are desirable and they play that to their advantage in every way. If you are an early-stage company, we recommend starting the customer advocacy program with smaller customers, or companies that are in highly competitive markets. Both types of companies will appreciate the additional marketing and media visibility, especially when it is not paid for by them.

Titles Tip the Scale

In developing your customer into an advocate, you’ll have a stronger chance of success by selecting someone who has a title indicating a senior management role (10Fold recommends directors and above in most organizations, and VPs or GMs in very large corporations). These advocates will need “clout” in their own organizations to get the approval of corporate marketing to participate in “live” marketing and PR opportunities that are not pre-vetted and approved before an article or video publishes. Although often willing, managers or individual contributors have a tough time convincing corporate marketing that they can and should support you and your company.

Marketing Technology News: Gartner Survey Shows Inside Sales Organizations Risk Losing 24% of Employees This Year

History and Habits

A very good indicator that your customer will be able to participate in your marketing and PR programs is their history in participating in similar opportunities. You can search their social accounts (especially Twitter and LinkedIn) for references about speaking at conferences or articles in which they were featured. Most executives featured in media often build interest in the article by promoting it on Twitter or LinkedIn. If they are not active on social channels, a good old-fashioned Google search can often reveal articles and/or conference activity in which they were included.

Review Your Options, Approach Strategically

In essence, what 10Fold recommends is assessing the available customers strategically. It’s important to understand what you need, how long you have to develop the customer relationship and trust, and how much flexibility you will have in supporting a lengthy or arduous approval process. By applying critical filters to your strategy of selecting customers to approach, you can save time and apply your precious resources and time to the most appropriate customers for the opportunities at hand.

So, you’ve identified your best customer reference – now it’s time to actually get that customer to say YES to your ask. And in my next article, I’ll detail some techniques to achieve exactly that.

Marketing Technology News: Paysafe Announces YouTube Partnership

Brands Are Winning In 2017 By Making Passive Video Active

By
Chris Roebuck
-
0
Video
Video

Brands

Brands are expected to spend over $11B on digital video in 2017, a 67% increase from 2015. Facebook alone delivers over 8 billion video views daily. But if brands are spending so much on video and people consume so much of it, why does video in 2017 feel so uninspiring?

The Challenge

Consumer behaviors are changing rapidly. We are consuming more video on mobile, watching longer videos, and sharing video content like never before. Yet it feels like video formats are largely stuck in 2003. People are taking notice – to the tune of 75 million Americans, which is the number of people blocking ads in the US. Despite this setback, brands have the power to take back control of their video and win the hearts and minds of consumers by transforming passive video into an active and engaging interactive experience.

Today, the lion’s share of video spend goes to cheap ineffective pre-roll (currently 60%). It generates a 78% completion rate and is 5 times more likely to be abandoned compared to mid-roll units. In a recent study, pre-roll click through rates only registered 0.5% and it can be somewhat easily argued that 50% of those by mistake. If that’s success, we’re living in the twilight zone! Consider 1,000 people walk into your shop and 5 peruse merchandise, and out of those 5, 2 were lost. Would that be considered an effective business day? Of course not, so then why should we have a double standard for digital ads?

According to the IAB, the number one obstacle to spending more on digital video is ROI. We believe that video in 2017 could be a lot better if this issue is addressed head on. Here’s what best-in-class brands are doing to add a fourth dimension (in video click) to their digital videos.

Making Passive Video Active

The beauty of digital video and video advertising is that you have an embedded engagement opportunity with every placement you purchase or distribute. Digital video has the opportunity to get you through the marketing funnel much quicker than most other placements. In fact, enjoyment of video increases purchase intent by 97%.

But the current standard video is flat and passive, and will not lead people to take further action. At best, you send consumers on a product hunt through endless pages on your website, only to cause frustration and the potential for negative brand association. Interactive video, on the other hand, is built for engagement and enjoyment. Consider that user-initiated rich media video unit today with their limited capabilities have a 2.3% engagement rate – almost 5x higher than preroll.

Brands are taking note and are expected to spend over $12 billion on rich media units by 2019. Rich media add an additional level of “engagement” and it’s a unit that works even better on mobile. With swipes, taps, and custom animation, the possibilities are nearly endless. And while many brands are experimenting with rich media, these tend to be one-offs and are not necessarily part of a larger strategy.

Luckily, there is a new format that can drive awareness, interest, desire, and action in a single session; Shoppable/Interactive video. This could not have come at a better time given that, by 2019, 9.8% of U.S. retail sales will be completed online. Shoppable video makes passive video active and helps turn an “ad” into an experience. Custom interactive shoppable videos drive nearly 39% more awareness than standard pre-roll. What’s even more fascinating is that 56% of people in a recent study said they would use shoppable video to make a purchase directly.

Top brands are realizing that if you could generate more ROI out of videos, why would this not be pursued aggressively? Tommy Hilfiger, for instance, uses shoppable video to showcase their seasonal collections on Tommy.com and Kohl’s in collaboration with Under Armour uses shoppable video on Facebook and on Popsugar.com Both approaches have led to substantial increase in engagement and sales.

But not all shoppable or interactive video is created equal. The viewing experience needs to be very user friendly, intuitive and non-intrusive. Make it clean, make it simple and don’t overly force information. Not all consumers are created equal and everyone has different likes and wants. So, why force certain information on all viewers when it’s not applicable to everyone?! By allowing viewers to engage with only the items they are interested in, brands are creating a custom and individualized experience for every viewer.

Interactive video also isn’t just for retailers. It’s used by the travel industry to showcase vacation destinations, by the real estate industry to conduct virtual tours, and by the auto industry to highlight the various features of a vehicle. People are 64-85% more likely to buy a product after watching a product video.

Final Remarks

The growth of digital video has been explosive and brands are considering more immersive ways of utilizing videos to better connect with their consumers and drive sales activity. However, video is still largely used as an awareness tactic and as a traffic tool, not a conversion platform itself. Just 16% of brands have used shoppable video. However, given the recent success of major brands using shoppable video, we can expect to see much more of it in 2017 as brands take control over their creative assets and make passive video truly active.”

Also Read: TMB Study Reveals How Social Media is Driving Returns on Digital Videos

The Case for Insights Communities – Empowering People, Progressing Brands

By
Bill Gullan and Thomas Finkle
-
0
Online Communities
Online Communities

Technology has impacted virtually every facet of our lives – in the marketing world, it has fundamentally altered the relationship between brands and consumers. The balance of power has shifted, and consumers now expect far greater transparency from brands.

Fortunately, technology not only heightens expectations; it also offers solutions. For marketers and research professionals, now is the time to consider an insights community: a collaborative, contemporary way to engage consumers and yield game-changing insights.

An insights community is a group of consumers who gather online on an ongoing basis to share their thoughts, feelings, and attitudes about a category/brand. These folks are recruited once and deployed frequently across a wide variety of research topics and methodologies. The net effect is a continuous flow of consumer input to support key strategic and tactical decisions.

Community members can talk to each other and build off each other’s ideas while the brand can pose important questions and test concepts before going to market. Answers to questions using qualitative and quantitative market research techniques can be obtained almost instantaneously, and the use of mobile technology can enable community access at any time.

Community

Insights communities reflect the convergence of consumer culture and research industry best practice. In today’s commercial culture, consumers increasingly use social media to express their opinions and have come to see their relationships with brands as an extension of their personal values. They have a stake in, and expect to have a say about, the brands they choose to trust.

In this new world, brands that put consumers at the center win – to drive innovation, shape marketing, and express brand beliefs. With the stakes so high, insights communities facilitate an ongoing, mutually supportive, highly productive consumer-brand connection.

Until recently, however, the market research industry has been slow to adapt to changing circumstances to adopt new approaches. The old model of gathering primary consumer insights doesn’t foster the ongoing conversation required for true customer centricity, and it no longer meets the needs of today’s brands for speed, efficiency, and diversity of learning approach.

Custom research is time-consuming, expensive, and yields isolated pockets of information. This type of research (slowly) yields a fresh batch of (expensive) respondents who have no frame of reference in terms of the work that has come before. Fundamentally, traditional primary research involves a series of transactional projects – when what the modern, customer-focused enterprise needs is a cohesive insights program.

For this reason, we have seen and are leading a shift to insights communities. Communities promote better data and more engaged respondents – faster and at lower cost.

With many options out there, what makes an online community successful, and how do you choose the right partner? In our experience designing online communities, Finch Brands has boiled success down to six key elements:

Member Engagement is Critical: Community member involvement leads to high participation rates and more genuine answers. Gamefication approaches, for example, make insights activities novel and enjoyable, helping to drive engagement. Consumers must have fun.

Analysis & Guidance is What Counts: On its own, data is meaningless. You need a team who can read between the lines and turn data into actionable businesses insights. To do this, look for a cross-disciplinary analysis team that possesses a mix of research and marketing skills, and a background in analyzing both primary and secondary data.

The Value of Full Service Community Management: A full-service approach to community management includes content creation, analysis, and reporting. Having all three is the most efficient way to make communities the centerpiece of your market research program.

Best in Class Platform is Mandatory: To keep users coming back, your platform (the site that houses the community) should be engaging and include modern design elements. It is also essential that it is scalable, and can be customized to accommodate communities of any size. Finally, member-to-member communication and functionality must be available quickly and at any time.

Think Through The Partner Role in the Workflow: Take an honest look at your company’s strong suits, as well as where will you need additional support. The right partner for your company is the one who fills these gaps, while complementing what your brand does best. Some community vendors see themselves as technology companies first; others as researchers – make sure your partner is strong where you need it.

Leveraging the Power of Communities for Innovation: While communities can answer questions across the product lifecycle, innovation leads to the refinement of product concepts at each successive research step. Communities are designed to promote creation and collaboration, so activities should allow for innovation and an engaging member experience. The result – validated, authentic innovation!

Insights communities simultaneously address two of the most important issues in market research – embracing customer centricity while streamlining the cost and process of gathering data. Market research is based on the belief that consumer input can help companies make good decisions. Given where we are in our commercial culture, this is true now more than ever – and communities are often the most effective way to listen and lead.

Bill Gullan is President of Finch Brands. Thomas Finkle is Chief Innovation Officer at Finch Brands.

Also Read: “User retention plays a key role in driving retention”

Customer Reference Friendlies, Allies & Champions

By
Susan Thomas
-
0
award
award

In my previous article in this series on customer references in technology marketing, I provided a few best practices for getting to know your customer champion and answering their upfront questions so they’re suitably prepared for marketing activities.  Internal customer champions who are not especially ambitious or outgoing could be hesitant to speak in a public forum. The fear of saying the wrong thing, being misquoted, or treading on the toes of their own corporate marketing departments can deter people from participating in brand advocacy.

In this post, I’ll examine the various stages of customer advocacy that can help you determine the activity that is the best fit for that particular customer champion.

Finding The Right Fit

Understanding your customer champion’s preferences, constraints and interests is the most critical element in developing a customer champion as an asset for your company. Most companies underutilize customers – as the opportunities may not be as obvious. The graphic below defines a wide range of possibilities in which your customer can begin to participate in your marketing and sales initiatives.

At 10Fold, we look at customer advocacy in three key stages.

Advocacy_LogoThe first stage, which we call “Friendlies,” encompasses customer participation that can typically take place without formal approvals. However, it is important to note that a non-company-specific thought leadership quote attributed to an individual at a specific company may require approvals, depending on the title of the individual.

The second stage, “Allies,” offers your customers safe ways to participate in programs where they can review what will be published, or in other ways have control of the situation. All of the opportunities listed are pre-written/created and approved by the customer prior to being submitted or published.

The third stage, “Champions,” refers to the group of customers with whom you have developed strong trust, has experience with your solution, and is very competent in expressing the value of your product and company in a wide range of fora, including “live” situations such as media interviews and customer events.

Flybits Raises $6.5 M Series B Round Led by Information Venture Partners

By
Sudipto Ghosh
-
0
Flybits

Flybits, which was Deloitte’s 2015 “Company to Watch,” has announced that it has raised $ 6.5 million in Series B funding from investors, led by Information Venture Partners. The funding round also included new investor Portag3 Ventures LP and existing investors Robert Bosch Venture Capital and Trellis Capital.

Flybits is a context-as-a-service company that enables enterprises to leverage data intelligence with minimal complexity. Robert Antoniades and David Unsworth, Co-founders and General Partners at Information Venture Partners, will join Flybits’ board of directors.

Read Also: AI-First Startup Cien is Salesforce’s Customer Hero

Flybits has raised a total of $ 14 million in funding since launching in 2013 and has experienced sizeable month-over-month growth this year. The latest funding round comes soon after the conclusion of a number of new global partnerships and the release of Flybits’ new Experience Studio, an intuitive visual interface that hides the complexity of semantic computing so that enterprises can deliver highly personalized customer experiences.

Dr. Hossein Rahnama, Founder and CEO of Flybits, said, “This funding will allow us to ramp up our sales efforts in the United States and Europe, reinforce our existing global presence and expand our product and engineering teams to strengthen Flybits’ unique machine learning capabilities. Our product focus now is simplifying how our customers leverage their data ecosystem and drive customer engagement.”

Recommended Read: Apple Acquires Artificial Intelligence Firm Lattice Data for Around $200 Million

Robert Antoniades said, “We are excited by the prospects for Flybits. Financial institutions, and other enterprises are sitting on troves of customer data siloed throughout their organizations. Flybits has identified a unique opportunity to give them the ability to make sense of these disparate sources of information and leverage machine intelligence to engage customers in an innovative and unique fashion.”

Flybits makes it easy for enterprises to harness the complexities of context so that they can become their customers’ lifestyle concierge – giving them what they need, when and where they need it.

Read More: Arkadium Brings Artificial Intelligence to Content Generation

Interview with Clint Oram, Co-founder and CMO at SugarCRM

By
Avinash Duduskar
-
0
Clint Oram
Interview with Clint Oram, Co-founder and CMO at SugarCRM

[mnky_team name=”Clint Oram” position=” Co-founder and CMO at SugarCRM”][/mnky_team]
[easy-profiles profile_twitter=”https://twitter.com/sugarclint” profile_linkedin=”https://www.linkedin.com/in/clintoram/”]
[mnky_testimonial_slider][mnky_testimonial name=”” author_dec=”” position=”Designer”]“If the CRM doesn’t provide an easy user experience that makes their job simpler, marketing folks just won’t use it.”[/mnky_testimonial][/mnky_testimonial_slider]

On Marketing Technology

MTS: Tell us a little bit about your role and how you got here

I helped found SugarCRM in 2004 with the goal of empowering companies around the world to transform their customer relationships and turn their customers into loyal fans. I was one of the original architects and developers of the Sugar platform, and focused on building out the product, company, partners, and community. I currently SugarCRM’s CMO, lead the global marketing team as we disrupt the CRM status quo.

MTS: Given the massive proliferation of marketing technology, how do you see the martech market evolving over the next few years?

Video is going to be huge. With the rise of mobile, video is in high demand because people love visual storytelling. This includes short form, long form, snippets, streaming, etc.

Augmented and virtual reality will also become part of the marketing stack. I can see, in the not too distant future, auto dealerships allowing customers to choose and design their new car’s features and interiors using AR from their mobile device. Or, real estate agents selling homes entirely with VR headsets.

MTS: What do you see as the single most important technology trend or development that’s going to impact us?

Advances in health technology will impact humanity starting at a very young age. I sit on the board of trustees at a school for dyslexic children. The school recently partnered closely with University of California, San Francisco, to complete some groundbreaking research on how to medically diagnose learning differences in people through the combination of MRI technology and standard education testing. Together, they have uncovered a path to being able to diagnose learning differences. Their vision for the future is for a three- or four-year-old child to play a “game” on an iPad, helping diagnosis dyslexia or another learning disability. From there, they will be able to tailor a learning program to that specific child so their “learning disability” disappears. This will not affect the whole world by any means, but research shows that 10 percent of the population is affected by dyslexia or another learning disorder. This is a cause I am truly passionate about.

MTS: What’s one opportunity for using CRM that marketers often overlook, but has the potential for making a significant positive impact?

Marketers actually overlook CRM itself as a primary tool! Often, they see it solely as a sales tool, when it can actually help them do their jobs better. CRM can, and should, be tightly integrated with top-of-funnel marketing tools like marketing automation and the website. Building on that, CRM is the starting place for segmenting your customer base for install base campaigns. Rather than just blindly running marketing campaigns to your entire database, segmenting your customers and prospects by size, geography and industry helps you be more strategic and efficient. For instance, you will want to run a financial services campaign in New York and a manufacturing campaign in Detroit. CRM helps you do that.

MTS: What about challenges with CRM tools? What’s the most common challenge you come across and how can marketers get past it?

For marketers, CRM user adoption is a challenge. Marketers are smart people, and unlike our friends in sales, there isn’t the same mandate from management to use CRM. So, if the CRM doesn’t provide an easy user experience that makes their job simpler, marketing folks just won’t use it. As an organization, it’s the responsibility of your CRM selection team to not forget about their users when they select and deploy a new system. At SugarCRM, we have some wonderful examples of customers setting up creative on-boarding programs to make sure employees are comfortable and understand all the benefits of the CRM.

MTS: Marketers can use CRM tools to support initiatives across the customer lifecycle – from generating awareness to maintaining loyalty. Where are marketers currently under utilizing CRM tools? And what can marketers expect from increasing its use in that area?

Building loyalty by running marketing programs for current customers is underutilized in many companies. All the data tells us retaining and expanding relationships with current customers is much more cost-effective than turning leads into new customers. Marketing teams should ask themselves, ‘What else can we do to build loyalty, turn our current customers into advocates and offer additional products to increase revenue within the current customer base?’

MTS: There’s no escaping customer experience as a hot topic today. Marketers can use CRM to enhance many aspects of CX; some areas more than others. Where should marketers focus their use of CRM technology to make the biggest positive impact on CX?

Here’s why the customer experience is so important today: with a few exceptions, different companies in the same industry usually offer just a variation of the same services or products. And every one of those competitors is just a simple Google search away from the next. How you win customers is now based as much on how you treat them as it is what you sell to them. That means the need for an exceptional and unique customer experience is more critical than ever before. Think about it: I’ve stayed in many business-class hotels all over the world. There are some minor differences, but they all offer a comfy king-sized bed and a bathroom. The list goes on: airlines, rental cars, even Uber vs. Lyft. How do you differentiate yourself when you offer similar goods or services as your direct competitors? The answer is your customer experience. The companies that win in this era of empowered and intelligent customers win because they create better relationships with their customers. That makes sense, but a natural follow-up question is “How can you create a better customer experience when you are using the same, uninspired CRM system as your competitors?”

MTS: What startups are you watching/keen on right now?

As an advisor to EverString, I am keenly interested in how predictive analytics will shape the future of marketing and customer engagement. PandaDoc, a SugarCRM partner, is doing a great job reinventing what it means to deliver sales quotes and proposals. I’m also keeping an eye on BrainSharp and Engagio, as both companies are very interesting.

MTS: What tools does your marketing stack consist of in 2017?

For SugarCRM’s 2017 marketing stack, we’re using Drupal and WordPress for our website, Marketo for marketing automation, EverString for predictive analytics, Influitive and Jive for customer engagement, and Pipl for data enrichment within our sales department.

MTS: Could you tell us about a standout digital campaign? (Who was your target audience and how did you measure success)

Our home run campaign was our “It’s not me, it’s you” campaign that was targeted at unsatisfied customers of a certain CRM company. We rolled it out in stages and different geography and it generated a record number of net-new opportunities and forecast GARR. It was an example of the power of a coordinated effort between our content creators, digital marketing team and the sales team.

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

No doubt that artificial intelligence is hot right now, but quite frankly, the technology industry has overhyped it a bit. We won’t wake up one day and be in the era of artificial intelligence. Instead, it will slowly creep into the marketing industry just like most other technologies. I will say this: Adding cognitive intelligence will free up CRM users from tasks like searching for and organizing data — both things for which machines are better suited than humans. This will allow humans to focus on what they do best — communicating with other humans and focusing on other business-critical tasks.

This Is How I Work

MTS: One word that best describes how you work

Experimental. No idea is a bad idea.

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

The way I manage myself throughout the day is through Evernote, Hipchat, email, and calendar. As far as getting my job done, I live inside of Sugar. This is where I am able to measure our leads and opportunities. Lastly, with all of the traveling I do, I would simply be lost in a random country without TripIt.

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

For those who travel internationally on a regular basis, I highly recommend TripIt. Within the application, you can track your travel plans and map out your entire itinerary in one place.

MTS: What are you currently reading? (What do you read, and how do you consume information?)

I read sci-fi books all day long. In fact, I read about 70-80 sci-fi books a year. I love exploring the “what if” scenarios, where we are going in the world, and how technology is impacting us and will continue to impact us. I’m also an avid Flipboard reader and collect my daily news through my personal hashtags, #technology, #spacescience, #Starwars and #humor.

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

The best advice I have received came from my dad, who was also a software entrepreneur back in the ‘80s. I was always told to hire people that are smarter than me and give them the authority to run their parts of the business and collaborate with them, but stand back and give them authority and accountability. I have taken that advice to heart and that is one of the things I feel I’ve done well at SugarCRM.

MTS: Something you do better than others – the secret of success?

Persistence. It is my biggest strength and my greatest weakness.

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

Jimmy Carter – I feel like not enough has been said about his career.

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

[vc_tta_tabs][vc_tta_section title=”About Clint” tab_id=”1501785390157-b58e162d-0ae25a4b-c27a226d-d471″]

Helping people build better business relationships through technology.

I have a profound belief that business is about two people helping one another achieve their goals. One person has a problem that needs to be solved…a customer. The other person has the solution to that problem…your employee. Let’s connect them together.

[/vc_tta_section][vc_tta_section title=”About SugarCRM” tab_id=”1501785390320-2d44fa50-740c5a4b-c27a226d-d471″]

SugarCRM logo

SugarCRM enables businesses to create extraordinary customer relationships with the most innovative, flexible and affordable CRM solution in the market. The company uniquely places the individual at the center of its solution—helping businesses transform the customer experience and enable highly personalized interactions that drive customer excellence and loyalty throughout the entire customer lifecycle.

SugarCRM delivers a fully transformed, personalized user experience that is immersive, engaging and intuitive. Sugar fuses the straightforward simplicity, mobility and social aspects of a consumer app with the business process optimization of conventional CRM. Recognized by leading market analysts as a CRM visionary and innovator, Sugar is deployed by more than 1.5M individuals in over 120 countries and 26 languages.

[/vc_tta_section][/vc_tta_tabs]
[mnky_heading title=”About the MarTech Interview Series” link=”url:http%3A%2F%2Fstaging.loutish-lamp.flywheelsites.com%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.

Social is the Foundation for Great Customer Experiences

By
Ragy Thomas
-
4
Social
New Research: Social is the Foundation for Great Customer Experiences
Social
Social is the Foundation for Great Customer Experiences

The business world is undergoing an unprecedented shift. A revolution that’s forcing every organization, from every industry, across every market to rewire how it operates.

Contrary to what you might be thinking, disruption is not being driven by the internet, mobile, or digital – it’s being driven by the customer.

Connected and empowered like never before, customers expect to be served on-demand and on their terms.

Two billion people are connected and empowered like never before. They expect to be served on-demand and on their terms. They advocate and criticize with equal and forceful power. And how they choose to apply that force is a direct result of one thing: their experience. A feeling that’s shaped by each interaction with your brand.

Everything a brand does – the way it does advertising, marketing, commerce, and care – all play a role in shaping the customer experience. Advertising? It’s about seeing a real person with a real need and making them aware that you exist. Marketing? It’s about creating advocates who want to evangelize on your behalf. Commerce and sales? It’s about delivering value from the very start. Care? It’s about sustaining that value so they’ll go on to tell others.

To adapt to this change, businesses need to put customer experience first. They have to map their strategies to customers’ interests and behaviors, and deliver personalized experiences across every touchpoint.

This may seem like a challenge, but according to a new research report from Harvard Business Review Analytic Services, select companies are already well on their way.

Leading Companies Integrate Social Media and Customer Experience Management

In the new report, Sprinklr and HBR surveyed 600+ managers and executives from some of the biggest companies in the world. The study found that leading companies have one crucial tactic in common: They integrate social media and customer experience management.

The report’s interesting results:

  • 86% of business leaders agree that customer experience is vital for success
  • 75% say social media will be extremely important over the next three years
  • Only 34% of companies have the tools and skills to deliver superior customer experiences
  • Leading-edge companies are breaking that pattern by spending heavily on customer experience and social media
  • Leaders in customer experience have more dominant market positions and post stronger revenue growth (compared to Follower and Laggard counterparts)

As the results show, businesses that deliver comprehensive customer experiences will enjoy stronger growth and more dominant positions in their markets.

It can’t be overstated: Integrating social media with customer experience is the single most strategic investment your enterprise can make. This isn’t just a trend. It’s a global mandate for modern enterprises that want to drive value for their customers and revenue for their businesses. It will pay off in revenue, reduced costs, and improved risk management. Most importantly, it will help you reach customers across all touchpoints, setting your company ahead of competitors in an ever-changing marketplace.

Also Read: 3 Brainstorming Exercises to Fuel Your Next Social Media Campaign

 

TechBytes with Doron Sherman, Vice President Evangelism at Cloudinary

By
Sudipto Ghosh
-
0
Doron Sherman
TechBytes with Doron Sherman, Vice President Evangelism at Cloudinary
TechBytes with Doron Sherman
Doron Sherman, Vice President Evangelism at Cloudinary

Last month, the leading Content Management solution provider Cloudinary announced its partnership with WebPagetest. Together with WebPagetest, Cloudinary is providing measurable and actionable information about how to go beyond simple compression to optimize web performance. The Cloudinary Website Speed Test Image Analysis Tool will enable WebPagetest users to discover how changes to image size, format selection, quality and encoding parameters can drastically improve website speed and ultimately result in a better user experience for web visitors. We spoke to Doron Sherman, Vice President Evangelism at Cloudinary to understand the rise of visual internet and the optimization of content delivery networks.

MTS: Tell us about the size of your marketing team? Which are your current markets?

Doron Sherman: Currently, there are five people on the marketing team and several contractors. In terms of markets, Cloudinary benefits businesses that operate a website with a lot of assets that need to be managed, in particular images and videos. Cloudinary is particularly essential for any business where user experience of its website and mobile app properties impacts business performance. For those, Cloudinary improves page load time via optimal delivery of high-quality content, personalized for each and every user, based on device type, network bandwidth, and geographical location. That said, we see the strongest demand for our services in the e-commerce vertical.

Recommended Read: Content Management Systems with Web Analytics & Social Media Integrations Key to Industry

MTS: Cloudinary uses advanced algorithms for Image Management. Could you elaborate further on the technology? Does it run on AI/ML?

Doron Sherman: Cloudinary shows users how to encode, optimize, and resize images, and the impact that will have on page load time. Cloudinary takes into account many factors, from device type and viewport size to the type of browser on which the image is viewed. Advanced algorithms, including the use of AI and machine learning, are dynamically employed to achieve results that otherwise are only possible via manual human editing and decision making. For example, Cloudinary can automatically detect the type of image content in order to encode it in the optimal format and quality settings. Another example is art direction where Cloudinary performs face detection (or objects of prime interest) within the image in order to automatically crop the region of interest. Yet another example is calculating image breakpoints for optimal delivery of images according to responsive design principles (responsive images). Our customers expect us to continue releasing smart features that save them from tedious manual work and that means Cloudinary will increase use of AI and machine learning going forward.

Read Also: Arkadium Brings Artificial Intelligence to Content Generation

MTS: Do you offer integrations with any of the marketing automation and cloud platforms?

Doron Sherman: Integration with marketing automation solutions isn’t currently available out of the box. However, Cloudinary offers open REST APIs following standard URL syntax that can easily integrate into any platform and programming environment. We have customers doing that today without our help. In some cases, we engage our solutions team to customize such integrations for customer projects. Last but not least, the developer community releases third-party integrations created as open-source projects that albeit not commercially supported by Cloudinary, are valuable for implementing system integrations.

Read Also: Social Native Unveils Content Optimization Engine; Becomes the Youngest Instagram Content Marketing Partner

MTS: Considering the increasing focus marketers now give to User Experience, do you think videos will ultimately replace images as digital assets in next few months?

Doron Sherman: I don’t see that happening wholesale anytime soon but interest in video content is growing in a number of application segments, particularly those involving social sharing and social networking. Currently, images are 60 percent of a website’s weight, and we are still seeing developers and companies struggle to get those properly optimized.

Video presents an even bigger challenge of content management and optimized delivery, an area in which Cloudinary keeps investing heavily to offer compelling solutions that are flexible and easy-to-use. A big part of the challenge is providing a satisfactory user experience on mobile devices that entail unreliable communication bandwidth and a wide variety of device types (in terms of both computing power and display resolutions).

Cloudinary is focused on technology that enables striking the right balance to effectively display high-quality video content utilizing file sizes that adhere to the prevailing end-user delivery constraints. It’s important to note that the internet is not an unlimited resource and isn’t currently setup to support the amount of bandwidth required for everyone to switch over to large video content.

Recommended Read: 5 Ways to Disrupt Video Marketing in 2017

MTS: How do you see the B2B video marketing market evolving with the advent of new technologies? How is Cloudinary positioning itself for the competition?

Doron Sherman: Marketers are relying more and more on video content because it is a new and effective way to engage with consumers, but the current way we leverage video content is unwieldy and time-consuming. Most marketers have to drop video content into a file share service like Dropbox to share content because they aren’t able to send these size files over traditional methods, such as email. It is also important to make sure you are using modern video formats such as WEBM vs GIF, which is a 30-year-old format.

At Cloudinary we were ahead of the curve as we started working on video optimization in 2015. We offer the same solutions for video content as we do for images, helping our users to optimize their media without sacrificing the quality of what is being delivered. As we look towards some exciting announcements in the pipeline for this year, we plan to make the management of video content even easier.

Read Also: Searchmetrics Content Experience Creates New Paradigm For B2B Content Marketers and Story-Tellers

MTS: Thanks for taking the time to chat with us Doron. We look forward to having at MarTech Series again for more insights.

Stay tuned for more on business insights on marketing automation, content marketing, video ad tech, programmatic and header-bidding technologies. To participate in our Tech Bytes program, email us at news@martechseries-67ee47.ingress-bonde.easywp.com

10 Tips for Naming Your Company

By
Ross Kimbarovsky
-
0
Company
10 Tips for Naming Your Company
Company
10 Tips for Naming Your Company

I’ve started numerous companies and have talked with and advised thousands of entrepreneurs and small business owners around the world. Here’s something we’ve all had in common: we all struggled to come up with a great name for our new company.

If you’ve never named a company, you’ll discover that naming is very time consuming and frustrating.  77% of consumers make purchases based on a brand name.  A great name can make a big difference.

We spent over 50 hours in 2007 when we came up with “crowdSPRING”. Some entrepreneurs can easily spend hundreds of hours searching for a perfect name, only to hit a wall.

Naming is hard.

This is one reason why many years ago, we added company naming as a project category on crowdSPRING. Today, instead of spending dozens of hours looking for a name for a new company, I post a crowdSPRING project and let the community of 200,000+ creatives help me with a great name (and domain!). That’s how I come up with names for my other businesses.

Whether you find a name on your own or work with the crowdSPRING community, here are good tips to keep in mind to be sure you’ve found the right name for your new company.

Think about what you want the name to convey.

Your company’s name is an important part of your company’s identity. The name will appear on business cards, letterhead, website, promotional materials, etc. to identify your company and its products and/or services.

Service-oriented businesses should consider whether it will be easy for their prospective customers to recognize what services the business provides, based on the name of the company (example: Friendly Dog Walkers, Bright Accounting or Quickly Legal).

Marketing Technology News: Gartner Survey Shows Inside Sales Organizations Risk Losing 24% of Employees This Year

Brainstorm to identify possible names.

Once you understand what you want your company name to convey, you should set aside some time to brainstorm.

Think about words that describe your industry or the products or services you offer. Think about words that describe your competitors and words that describe the differences between your products and services and those of your competitors. Also, consider words that describe the benefits of using your products or services.

While brainstorming, look up Greek and Latin translations of your words – you might find new ideas from doing that exercise. Look at foreign words too (Swahili is often a great choice).

Expect this process to take some time. It took us about 40+ hours to brainstorm and then another 10 to finalize names before we picked “crowdSPRING” – we went through many possible names.

Keep the name short, simple, and easy to write and to remember.

The companies you admire typically have names that are short, simple, easy to write and easy to remember. (Examples: Apple, Chanel, Virgin, Southwest).

Obscure business names are often difficult to write and even more difficult to remember. This is a problem because for most small businesses, wordof-mouth advertising is the most successful form of marketing. If your customers can’t remember your name, can’t spell it or can’t properly pronounce it for others, it will make it difficult for them to help promote your business.

Don’t forget to consider the acronym of your company name (an acronym is composed of the first letter of each word in a phrase). You might not use an acronym, but your customers might refer to your business by an acronym. A name such as Apple Support Services can result in an unfavorable acronym – ASS.

Avoid names that are too narrow or too literal.

Think about how your business may evolve over time and make sure that the company name can evolve with the business. For example, if you name your company iPhone Accessories and later expand to sell accessories for other products, your original name will be too narrow and restrictive.

The same advice applies even if your company sells a niche product. For example, if you sell antique lamps, you should consider whether in the future, you might sell more than lamps. Naming your business Joan’s Antique Lamps may be too limiting when you later start selling antique clocks and furniture.

Avoid decisions by committee but “test” your name with others.

It’s tempting to involve friends, family, employees and customers in finding a name for our company. Sometimes, this can work out really well. But there are risks. People might be upset if you don’t pick a name they think is great. You’ll also find yourself trying to find consensus – which can lead to a very plain name. If you must involve others, pick a small group of people who understand you and your business (and pick a mix of right-brain types and left-brain types so that you can have some variety). Once you’ve selected a few possible choices, you should share them with a few trusted friends, family and customers to get some feedback about the name.

Marketing Technology News: Mono Solutions Joins Bauer Media Group to Strengthen SME Marketing Services Across the Globe

Avoid plain words.

Plain words make it very difficult to differentiate your company from your competitors.

For example, there were many logo design businesses around the world when we came up with the name “crowdSPRING.” Many of them had design or logo design in their name. But we knew that we would be expanding to many different industries (logo design, print design, graphic design, web design, industrial design, company naming, and many more) and we didn’t want to name the business Great Logo Design or ManyDesigners – it would have been descriptive, but not memorable and certainly not unique.

There are exceptions. General Electric is one of the most successful companies in the world and its name is composed of two plain words. But, General Electric was one of the first companies in its product/service category and was able to get away with a plain name by spending billions of dollars on marketing and advertising.

Be careful with geographic names.

Some people use their city, state or region as part of their company name. If you plan only to work in your city, this might serve you well. But a geographic name could hinder you later. One great example is Minnesota Manufacturing and Mining. Initially, the name worked because the business was focused on Minnesota. But once the company grew beyond their industry and the state of Minnesota, they needed to find a new name – 3M.

Avoid obscure words.

Company names that help tell stories can be powerful and memorable (think about Google, for example). But obscure words or references might be difficult to spell or pronounce. Be especially sensitive if you’re trying to reach a mass audience, such as one on the Internet. Obscure or invented names can work – Xerox is a great example – but this often requires a huge marketing budget and tremendous effort.

Avoid trends.

You’ll want your company’s name to evolve as trends evolve, so be careful to identify the trends and to avoid following them. For example, in the late 1990’s, it was trendy to use a “.com” after your company name if your company was an Internet business. After the Internet “bubble” burst, the “.com” became synonymous with having no business model and those companies who survived very quickly dropped “.com” from their names.

Consider whether you can register a domain.

It’s important to make sure that your competitors are not using the same name in your industry. It’s not uncommon to find similar, or even identical, names in different industries, but this can result in confusion for your customers and vendors. If your competitors are using the same name – you’ll expose yourself to possible litigation and you’ll likely be unable to obtain trademark protection for your company name.

Look for a company name that is also available for registration as a domain (ideally, a .com domain). This is not easy because .com domains are very popular and you’ll struggle to find available domains that match your company name. This is one reason why every naming project on crowdSPRING is accompanied by a domain name.

Today, URLs are becoming less important because most people are searching online and clicking on links. But it’s still important that your URL is short, easy to pronounce and easy to spell. And, whatever you do, don’t make the mistake of operating under one name but having a URL pointing to a completely different name.

Marketing Technology News: Adobe Survey Says That Voice and Screen Combined Are the Future

Developing Customer References for Technology Marketing: Some Things Have Changed While Others Remain the Same

By
Susan Thomas
-
0
Customer Reference

Things Remain the Same

CollaborationIf you hold a marketing or PR title for a technology company, no doubt you have been challenged with finding customers who will go on the record to support a corporate marketing or sales initiative. The validation of a customer using your solution — and better yet, customers who can talk about a return on investment based on your product/service — is likely the most powerful and compelling content for any PR, marketing or sales opportunity. (1) Customer testimonials (as we began calling them in the ‘80s) have been critical for decades, and the importance of communicating this level of detail about a customer experience is higher than ever as marketing, sales and PR strategies have become more sophisticated and targeted.

What also remains the same is the delicate balance between protecting the customer from sales and marketing overuse and/or being sensitive to a customer who may be in the process of renegotiating their contract. The delicate balance of understanding what the sales team needs to be successful with a customer, while understanding the (2) lifetime value of that customer from a sales perspective, must be considered as you approach them for marketing support. The risk of losing sales with a customer should be measured against the value of the contributions that the same customer may make to your company from a marketing perspective. By sharing a story that will attract new prospects and/or provide the validation that a prospect may need when they are evaluating your solution against that of your competitor, your customer’s value may be even greater as a marketing champion.

Things Have Changed

Marketing has evolved dramatically in the last couple of decades, and nowadays there are (3) many new creative options for partnering with your customers to generate marketing campaigns or support sales initiatives. However, we still see companies frequently making the mistake of prematurely asking a new customer – or one who hasn’t been engaged in any marketing or sales activity in the past – to participate in a media interview (sometimes with an influential business reporter). Rushing your customer to the altar, so to speak, without taking the time to build a relationship and trust, frequently results in an immediate “no thank you.”

Instead, you should approach your customers in the same way someone might try to get to know someone they’re interested in dating. Here are two best practices that will help you get to know your customer champion and help prepare them for the kinds of activities you have in mind for them:

Get to Know Your Champion BEFORE You Ask Them to Help

Start with the proverbial “coffee date” to understand the role of your champion in their organization.  Do your best to understand their attitudes toward participating in marketing and sales opportunities. Ask if they have done this type of activity before (in their present or past positions). Qualify and quantify what they have done in the past (activity and frequency). In this meeting (which may be a phone call or an actual meeting over coffee), also gather an understanding of their org chart and their influence in the organization, as it’s critical to get a handle on the approvals they will need to participate in your marketing/PR activities. Many large organizations have formalized the reference process by developing a form, such as the one (4) here from EMC, that formally describes the opportunity. Finally, ask about the activities your champion would consider most beneficial for their own growth, development or industry influence.

Be Prepared for Common Questions and Responses

For internal customer champions who are not especially ambitious or outgoing, there may be a fair amount of hesitancy to speak in any kind of public forum. The fear of saying the wrong thing, being misquoted, or treading on the toes of their own corporate marketing departments can deter people from participating. Choosing less challenging situations and activities as your customer champion gains confidence in speaking on your behalf will help you build trust. Following are frequently asked questions and comments from customers requested to participate in marketing and sales initiatives:

– How long will this take?
– How often do you want me to participate?
– Will I be quoted?
– Who will I speak with?
– Where/when/how often will this be used?
– Can I speak off the record?
– Can I speak anonymously?
– Who is covering expenses to travel to this event/activity?
– What benefits can I expect as a result of my participation?
– Do I have the opportunity to review what is being published before it is published?

As is the case whenever you are building trust with someone: be specific, be truthful, share all aspects of the opportunity, and offer support in preparing them for any activity you propose. And most of all, have your responses to the questions listed above worked out BEFORE you contact your customer champion.

So, now you’ve gotten to know your customer champion and have answered their upfront questions so they’re suitably prepared. Now you need to examine the various stages of customer advocacy to determine the activity that is the best fit for that particular customer champion. Stay tuned for my next blog post, where I’ll go in depth into what those stages are and the types of activities that are commonly associated with them.

Also Read: Five Successful Digital Campaigns

TechBytes with Josh Speyer, CEO at AerServ

By
Sudipto Ghosh
-
1
AerServ Quantifi
Josh Speyer, CEO at AerServ
Josh Speyer, CEO at AerServ

Last month, AerServ announced the launch of DataServ, a new data-as-a-service (DaaS) product that will connect CRM and offline data to mobile data and offer an additional revenue stream for mobile publishers. The leading ad management technology and SSP for mobile publishers and advertisers is offering DataServ to advertising, research, behavioral, analytics, and marketing companies to help them identify new and existing audiences across devices. We spoke to Josh Speyer, CEO at AerServ, to understand how DataServ customers would benefit from this development.

MTS: Tell us the vision behind launching DataServ for mobile advertising?

Josh Speyer: We felt that there were two things happening in the market. First, mobile publishers possess and have access to an incredible amount of data regarding their users, audience, and behaviors. Through our conversations with customers and publishers in the market, this data presents a largely untapped resource.

Second, a significant amount of advertising budget is tied up in cookies, with no way to bridge the gap into the cookie-less in-app world.  Many buyers are addicted to cookies, and need help identifying their audience within apps, via device identifiers, to efficiently buy media in-app.

Many companies come from a traditional media (TV, newspaper, radio, print, offline, etc.) background and have lots of data about users, but do not have the ability to tie this data to online digital users. If they were able to tie a digital user to an email address or some other identifiable data point then they could port some of their media spend to digital to target these users.

AerServ has the ability to facilitate this user mapping from offline to digital with the assistance of our publishers. This benefits marketers by allowing them to target digital users and it benefits publishers by allowing them to be compensated for their first party data and create an additional revenue stream.

As a mobile-first company that is deeply embedded with our app partners, AerServ can surface and bring a level of understanding and value to the market that traditional data providers can’t provide.

Read More: AerServ Launches DataServ to Supplement Mobile Advertising Revenues

MTS: Who will be the customers for this data service product?

Josh Speyer: Mobile publishers, apps, and marketers. Mobile publishers have a lot of valuable first party data that marketers want to use. By sharing this data through more structured channels, they can receive proper compensation for their data and create a new revenue stream.

On the flip side, marketers have a lot of offline data that they want to connect to individual mobile digital users, but they are not able to make these connections.  Connecting their offline data with AerServ (i.e. email addresses) enables us to make these connections for them so they can identify and target the same users on mobile devices. As this service continues to develop, we have plans to introduce novel and highly granular data offerings to the market, which we feel will drive even greater value for our publishers.

MTS: What are the key analytics offered by DataServ to generate revenue for mobile publishers?

Josh Speyer: The advertisers we’re working with are interested in a wide variety of audience data including email addresses, accurate location via geo targeting, demographic data, and others depending on the specific advertiser. Because our system is so flexible we can support any kind of data being passed and even encourage it. For now, we’re focused on creating the identity mappings and then developing expanding our data offerings to pair with it.

Recommended Read: Programmatic Tech Bytes with Andrew Gerhart, COO at AerServ

MTS: DataServ connects to CRM and offline data to mobile data. Which integrators and connectors are AerServ using to make this possible?

Josh Speyer: At the moment we aren’t directly connecting to CRM platforms, but we certainly see CRM integration as a longer-term opportunity. Publishers currently send us their data directly.

Publishers utilize all kinds of CRM data that they pass to us and then we connect the data to the Identifier For Advertising (IDFA). For example, address, email, phone, etc. are all common components of a CRM data set. Previously, this data had limited use in a programmatic mobile marketing environment. But once it is connected to IDFA or Android ID, the data has new value in this environment because it is now targetable, trackable, etc. This allows us to bridge valuable CRM datasets into the mobile world.

MTS: Which CRM platforms will DataServ connect to? 

Josh Speyer: Over time we anticipate connecting to all major CRM platforms. We currently store the CRM data that publishers pass to us—from any CRM partner—in a secure and non-pii way.

Over time we look forward to deepening efficiencies for our publisher partners to further alleviate some of the manual, labor intensive work within their CRM systems.

Read Also: AerServ Introduces Ad Pods for Disruption-Free Multi-Display Video Ad Experience

MTS: Is DataServ an extension of programmatic ecosystem for mobile advertising?

Josh Speyer: Absolutely! DataServ helps enable and facilitate programmatic buying for buyers who need to connect data to device IDs and users in-app. One of the primary goals of DataServ is to bring additional programmatic ad spend to mobile apps. We view our work in data as supplying a better platform for intelligent buying through targeting specific behaviors, mapping users across multiple devices, or improving the algorithms that guide value and prediction in the programmatic environments.

MTS: How will DataServ help deliver relevant mobile content? How is mobile content different from website content?

Josh Speyer: By enabling marketers to leverage mobile publishers’ valuable audience data, DataServ is helping marketers develop more highly targeted and personalized content to consumers. For example, let’s say Tom is an avid runner, and loves Nike running shoes. Tom ordered Nike shoes online before using his Macbook, but not in the past three months. When Tom placed that order, he registered for an account using his email address and opted-in to their newsletter to hear about new Nike running shoes and gear.

Previously, if Nike wanted to reach Tom on a mobile device, the information they have on Tom (cookie from Macbook purchase, and his email address) is useless in-app. With DataServ, Nike can now identify Tom as he uses different mobile apps, and provide him specific content that they know he’ll be interested in. Additionally, Nike can find Tom in-app and deliver personalized ads with special offers or discounts for running gear.

At AerServ we focus on in-app inventory, which differs from mobile website content opportunities in a few ways. There are obvious differences between the environments in how they are programmed and the way they interact with the user. In terms of data, Apps have the capacity to continually collect data with a level of granularity in ways that mobile web cannot. Much of this is rooted in how an app lives on the device.  Apps have permissions that browsers typically lack, they capture IDFA and Android ID while websites typically do not; and in general, the way a user interacts with app content allows a level of insight and understanding we would not be able to receive from web content.

MTS: What would be the key to deliver best experiences on mobile –audience data or device management data?

Josh Speyer: Audience data is critical to delivering the best experience on mobile, for both advertisers and publishers. Without data, advertisers would be employing a spray and pray approach with subpar results.  With audience data, advertisers can identify and target their specific consumers, with a tailored message. A beautiful user experience is one that relies both on general audience data as well as an understanding of the way a user interacts, on different devices, so they have the most custom and well-tested content. It’s an experience that dynamically changes over time as new information and devices are brought into the user’s world. Many publishers inherently understand this, but unless you are the largest publisher in the world you most likely don’t have access to user data in a consistent or broad way. By partnering with AerServ you do.

MTS: How do you see the mobile advertising ecosystem change with the proliferation of AI and programmatic in the next 5 years?

Josh Speyer: With AI, we’ll undoubtedly see the volume of data around consumers and their interactions with brands (offline and online, across all devices) increase exponentially. As we see more data fed into the system, machine learning will only get more effective in delivering accurate predictive scenarios about consumers. This sets the stage for endless opportunities to surface new types of insights and strategies to engage individual consumers at a smarter, more personal level.

Mobile advertising partners who are able to help marketers empower this evolution; specifically, those focused on accelerating the machine learning process and creating more intelligent predictive models on emerging devices such as VR over the next several years, stand to gain significant competitive advantage.

Read More: AerServ and STRATA Join Forces to Bring Premium Video Ad Inventory for Mobile Businesses

MTS: Thanks for taking the time to chat with us Josh. We look forward to having at MarTech Series again for more insights.

Stay tuned for more on business insights on marketing automation, content marketing, video ad tech, programmatic and header-bidding technologies. To participate in our Tech Bytes program, email us at news@martechseries-67ee47.ingress-bonde.easywp.com

Nevion to Showcase the Future of IP in Broadcast at IBC2017

By
MTS Staff Writer
-
0
Nevion to Showcase the Future of IP in Broadcast at IBC2017

Convergent software-defined equipment and orchestration will take center stage

Nevion, award-winning provider of virtualized media production solutions, will be showcasing how its IP-based solutions for contribution, facilities, remote production and digital terrestrial TV (DTT) can enable broadcasters to ‘connect better, share better and broadcast better’ at IBC2017.

This year’s show, which takes place between 15-19 September at the RAI in Amsterdam, will see Nevion announcing and demonstrating a range of new features delivered as software updates for its flagship products, VideoIPath management orchestration software and Virtuoso, the software-defined media node platform.

These updates are designed to deliver the convergence required by broadcasters as IP blurs the distinction between the local area networks (LANs) being deployed in their facilities and wide area networks (WANs) used for contribution, remote production and distribution.

Marketing Technology News: Khoros Launches New Data Hosting Location in Sydney, Australia

The new release of the VideoIPath software will extend further the existing WAN-based media software-defined network (SDN) capabilities into the LANs. Some of the highlights of the new release are the new Flow app and the Panel app, which provide advanced workflow connectivity within facilities.

Nevion Virtuoso’s latest software upgrade adds studio-over-IP functionality to its existing WAN capabilities, including support for the SMPTE 2110-30 (audio over IP) standard. It will also extend its support for 4K transport with TICO encoding.

Marketing Technology News: Skafos.ai Appoints Jody Stoehr as Chief Revenue Officer as Part of Surging Sales Growth

Nevion will of course also be showing the latest developments across its product range, including Flashlink (optical transport), Media Gateways and Ventura (encoding and transport), nSure (monitoring), cProcessor (TS processing) and VikinX (baseband and IP switches).

Johnny Dolvik, Chief Product and Development Officer, Nevion, says: “There is no doubt that the broadcasting industry is in the midst of a major business transformation, in which lean production will play an increasingly important role. IP and IT technology can help deliver this transformation, but only if considered across the whole production chain – not just in the studios as seems to be the focus at the moment. With IP, production resources can be connected more readily and shared with unprecedented agility, over great distances, enabling production to be leaner and nimbler. Nevion’s latest developments showcased at IBC should be seen in that context – enabling better broadcasting.”

Marketing Technology News: Ruby Has Triples Las Vegas Space to Support Accelerated E-Commerce Demand

Use These 3 Brainstorming Exercises to Fuel Your Next Social Media Campaign

By
R. J Talyor
-
0
Social Media Campaign

Brainstorming, creating, and executing a social media campaign requires a lot of research, time, and effort from your marketing team. Experimenting with new social media channels and audiences has the added weight of uncertainty that the campaign won’t deliver the ROI needed to validate your marketing budget’s investment.

As marketers, we have to keep innovating and trying new things, so this can put us in a tough spot. With new technologies emerging from advancements of AI and personalization, now more than ever is the time to experiment with new social media channels and different strategies on current channels where brands have seen success.

We all start with the same question: Where do we start? Here are three simple, effective brainstorming strategies for your next social media experiment.

For the Content Marketer: The Target Table

Social media agency Vireo Media outlines a simple brainstorming strategy for campaigns on Facebook, Twitter, and more. The idea is to use the table to break down audiences, segment their wants, interests, etc., then develop content that would engage them from there. This is built for small businesses, but the idea can be used on an enterprise-scale for brainstorming purposes. Take a look at Vireo’s video for an example.

When Brainstorming in Groups: Brainwriting

Brainwriting is great for groups at larger companies. Instead of a team leader calling out an idea and team members commenting out loud, they are encouraged to write them down for later discussion. This still allows for team members to be stimulated by each other’s ideas, but it doesn’t sidetrack an individual’s initial idea, with the possibility of being not baking out their first thought.

A professor at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University stated that “brainwriting groups generated 20% more ideas and 42% more original ideas as compared to traditional brainstorming groups.” Mediapreneur and creativity speaker James Talyor breaks down the concept in more detail in the below video:

For the Dreamers: Wishing

Hubspot shares this brainstorming exercise as one that “[asks] participants to dream up the most unattainable, extreme, and impractical solutions they can think of to a given problem.” Once you come up with your wish-list, scale ideas down to something that your team (and budget) can realistically achieve today. Not only does this get your creative juices flowing, but it forces team members to think outside of the box — and not simply curating ideas everyone else is doing.

1...4,3424,3434,344...4,358Page 4,343 of 4,358

About Us

MarTech Series covers marketing technology news, editorial insights and digital marketing trends from around the globe. Updates on modern marketing tech adoption, martech interviews, tech articles and events.

Quick Links

Visit our Other Sites

Follow Us

Interested in our Customized Editorial Services? Please fill your details and we'll get in touch with you!

FILL YOUR DETAILS
Brought to you byiTechSeries LogoCopyright © 2026 MarTech Series. All Rights Reserved.Privacy Policy
To repurpose or use any of the content or material on this and our sister sites, explicit written permission needs to be sought.