SharePoint Fest Chicago Welcomes Rightpoint as a Gold Sponsor

Olga Andrienko
Head of Global Marketing, SEMrush

Sandwiched between positive and negative website content performance indicators, marketers are forced to make assumptions without questioning the validity of the results. While numbers don’t lie, it is obvious that they can certainly be manipulated to make traffic stats look great, or in some cases horrendous. We spoke to the Head of Global Marketing at SEMrush, Olga Andrienko to understand how brands should leverage competitive intelligence and website analytics to drive ROI growth for their omnichannel SEO efforts.

Html code here! Replace this with any non empty text and that's it.

MTS: How should brands leverage competitive intelligence and backlinks audits to align their marketing and advertising for seamless customer conversation?
Olga: Word-of-mouth advertising has transformed into referral traffic on the web. People like your website or content – they link to you. Or to your competitors, if they like them better. Or, what’s worse, there is a term “negative SEO”, when your competitors link to you from untrustworthy websites to harm your visibility in search.

So backlink analysis and backlink audits play an essential role in online marketing today. Firstly, having a lot of quality websites that link to your content increases your traffic and builds your authority. And links are one of the ranking signals for Google – in our latest Ranking Factors Study, we have identified that the number of referring domains has huge importance to your page’s position in SERPs. The TOP-1 had almost twice as many referring domains as pages on 10th position. So the more backlinks and more domains link to you, the more likely the conversation with the customer will happen – you’ll get more visitors to your website.

The analysis of competitors’ backlinks gives a great advantage in order to properly build your reference strategy and determine the most important sources for the reference profile. The potential customers may be clicking on the links leading to your competitors’ websites, instead of yours, especially if their trust score is high. So pay close attention not only to your backlinks but also to pages and websites that are linking to your competitors. You can always do the proper outreach to writers and website owners – maybe they didn’t even know you existed and that is why they were linking to someone else.

Moreover, a company’s website is often not a place for a healthy discussion about the product or service. People feel safer to discuss your brand somewhere else, and a post on some blog highlighting your product might not only be a backlink but a valuable source of information if you scroll down to comments. Take part in the discussion and win more hearts over by indicating that you actually listen. In my experience, listening mattered more than actually fixing the problem – people do understand that there are things beyond company’s control.

MTS: To what extent do social media efforts and conversations impact website traffic analytics?
Olga: Traffic from social media platforms generally is not really high compared to direct or organic, yet it should not be neglected. Social media is where the conversation about your brand is happening. Dissatisfied customers link to your site to ensure their friends never buy from you, satisfied clients give referrals and prospects in doubt ask their audience if they should consider buying from you. In 2017, social media requires you to spend to reach the audiences as well as invest time in conversation. The latter is more important, as content distribution on social platforms is generally free and if you have an engaged audience, they will amplify your content. It won’t go viral, as you might wish, but the reach will definitely be bigger. So by engaging your audience more and creating a bond between your brand and your community, you have a pretty good chance of increasing the traffic to your website. It happened to SEMrush with every social media platform we have invested our time in.

Key to engaging the audience on social is to support the readers with not selling, but educational content. You should explain why this article is important for reading and what conclusions the user can make by reading it and what advantages he or she can have if he/she uses your site or your product. That will lead the potential customer to the website and existing users will really love you because you are not only the product, you are the service from where they learn. Show users an interesting infographic, make sure that they share your findings and your posts, this will help not only bring traffic to the site, but also draw new loyal customers.

MTS: What message should e-retail and online marketing companies take from this study? How does this study influence the adoption of SEO and content marketing tools in the current scenario?
Olga: The main goal of this research is to give an idea to companies about how to build a strategy based on the insights of big players in the travel business, take into account their strategies and solutions to make customers choose you.

First of all, this research shows how the big travel brands build their strategy. In March of 2017, Wired published an article in which it questioned that the use of aggregators would bring great benefits to travelers. That’s why we decided to see if it’s true. Judging from the data from our study, aggregators have a great popularity based on their traffic.

Taking the most popular sites, we looked at their strategy in action. The study showed that search traffic is the biggest driver for these sites. Companies must adopt the idea that the top companies are focusing their strategy on being clearly visible in organic. It is also worth noting that the amount of paid traffic and referral traffic for the UK is almost the same. The backlink strategy that is correctly built can bring almost as much traffic as paid advertising, on which companies spend large budgets. These budgets also need to be built correctly. Having learned the main travel destination which large companies advertise in different seasons, the other companies can also correctly distribute budgets and give out correct offers for tourist destinations without spending extra money.

Building content for the travel industry with the keywords that have a huge amount of search will be certainly quite difficult for smaller brands, but ideas for paid advertising can be very useful.

We have identified a sufficiently large number of insights for the competitive travel market. Surely, there is much more information in SEMrush which every user can discover by looking at their competitors.

MTS: How has the paradigm of search engine optimization and website analytics evolved in the last two years?
Olga: People still search for products and services and anything they’re interested in. In fact, the number of searches has increased and the biggest growth comes from mobile. And Google doesn’t care about desktop anymore to an extent that they are rewriting parts of their algorithms that handle page speed only to consider mobile websites. They are not the only ones, Baidu has implemented AMP – accelerated mobile pages, – right after Google did it.

But the shift is not only to mobile. We’ve gone way beyond mobile usage in our daily lives. Last week, I heard one happy dad saying that his daughter was doing her homework with (Amazon) Alexa. Personal assistants, wearable technology bring us to a whole new era of life, and of search as well. 20% of mobile queries are voice searches. Welcome to the 21st century. Search is one area that is adapting to all the new stuff that arrives.

So how should companies adapt to these changes?

First of all, the websites need to evaluate, whether they are mobile-friendly; if not, it’s time to start changing their strategy. In May 2015, according to SEMrush data, in the UK, the average share of mobile search queries was 35.6%, and by May 2017 it had increased to 48.5%. In the US, in May 2015, it was 48.8%, and by May 2017 it was 58.4%.

I mentioned AMP earlier and this is now something that is a must in the media world. Soon, Google will be implementing AMP for eCommerce and then we’ll see more websites adopting it. Although, many experts say it’s not a silver bullet and wouldn’t necessarily work for everyone. We’ve received a great number of requests for implementing AMP audit checks, which we did last month for our Site Audit tool. Our audience is more advanced in SEO than most, so it clearly shows that frontrunners of the industry are really looking closely to this Google feature.

Other issue on the web that now really impact search is security. Data should be secure and Google takes it seriously, flagging websites that are not secure in order to alert its users. So moving from HTTP to HTTPS is definitely a good idea. The correct implementation of the HTTPS protocol guarantees the security of the site and the protection of user data. It was important during the last year. When there are errors in the operation of the HTTPS protocol, the browser displays warning messages, which adversely affects the experience of using the site. People will bounce back to SERPs which increases bounce rate, which alerts Google that users were not really happy with the website and such user signals in large amounts will get your websites to rank lower. Also, from October, Google will start identifying non-secure websites with a special label directly in SERPs. Users should really love your brand and know it in order to click on a website that is flagging as non-secure.

Optimizing voice search is all about keyword optimization strategy and text-based queries, because users with the voice search expect direct answers. I mean, people don’t speak the way they write so there is the need to speak about more personalized content based on an in-depth analysis of your target audience.

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

eRelevance Appoints Chris Greta As Chief Creative Officer

By

-

October 26, 2017

Greta Will Help eRelevance Deliver Creative Excellence Previously Beyond The Reach Of Small Businesses

eRelevance Corporation, the leading customer marketing automation service for small- to medium-size businesses, announced the appointment of Chris Greta as its first chief creative officer. With 36 years of experience in the advertising, branding and creative industries, Greta will lead the company’s overall creative vision and strategy, including creative direction for client marketing, as well as the company’s corporate marketing programs and product experience.

“We are delighted to welcome Chris to the team. With his unparalleled success developing cutting-edge creative for companies in a variety of industries, he will drive a culture of creativity that will guide every facet of our business. For our elective healthcare and other small-business clients, he will be instrumental in redefining the level of marketing sophistication, creativity and effectiveness available to them,” Bob Fabbio, CEO and Co-founder, eRelevance said.

Greta will help eRelevance deliver creative excellence previously beyond the reach of small businesses.

He has held various senior art director and creative director roles at several direct marketing, advertising, branding and creative agencies. He founded The Ad Ranch, a full-service agency, which he sold to Catapult Systems. He later formed Slingrock.com, an award-winning interactive, branding, design and marketing agency. Most recently, he served as senior brand architect, creative director and creative facilitator at The 24 Hour Brand.

This appointment reflects eRelevance’s ongoing commitment to making enterprise-level marketing sophistication affordable for small businesses such as elective healthcare practices.

For a small business, choices for customer marketing to generate repeat business were once limited to paying slow, expensive consultants or trying to do the work on your own with antiquated tools. eRelevance makes sophisticated marketing available to small businesses as a tech-powered service. Moreover, it’s easy to use – no complicated software to use or expensive marketing consultants required.

Their marketing experts leverage innovative technology to market to customers on behalf of small businesses using everything from data and analytics to targeting specific groups of customers and digitally surround them — giving smaller brands sophisticated marketing that would otherwise be out of reach.

180byTwo and Nikaza Announce Innovative Partnership

By

-

October 26, 2017

Partnership Will Enable Marketers To Target Consumers And Business Professionals By Combining Precise Location Data With Highly Accurate Deterministic Data

Global Audience Solutions provider 180byTwo and Location Intelligence Platform Nikaza announced their partnership in creating new, leading-edge mobile first audiences. By combining 180byTwo’s deterministic B2C and B2B data with Nikaza’s highly precise location intent data, advertisers are now able to target across consumer and professional personas seamlessly via programmatic channels.

180byTwo’s ‘LOCi’ Mobile Audiences powered by Nikaza provide marketers with a true 360-degree view by combining deterministic consumer and professional audiences with precise location data. Through this partnership marketers are able to reach highly accurate audiences based upon the places they’ve been along with any combination of 6,000-plus personal or professional attributes.

“Nikaza’s precise location data is a great addition to 180byTwo’s authoritative Audience Suite. We’re extremely excited about the opportunities and value this partnership creates for our clients and partners. Together, we’re enabling advertisers to launch highly targeted and effective marketing campaigns that provide a superior advertising experience,” Eric Shaffer, Founder and CEO, 180byTwo said.

“We are very excited to be partnering with 180byTwo; together we will take audience targeting to new heights by incorporating Nikaza’s location-based data with 180ByTwo audiences. Location intelligence plays a key role in helping marketers better understand customer intent, as they navigate between the physical and digital worlds. This partnership helps marketers take advantage of best of the breed B2C and B2B audience solutions and unlock better targeting opportunities,” Mano Pillai, CEO, Nikaza said.

180byTwo delivers data-driven, audience solutions bringing together technology, analytics, expertise, and strategy to help transform our clients marketing programs. Their strategic data advisers provide decades of experience working with data across leading marketing service providers, agencies, brands and technology platforms providing tailored solutions to meet their unique business needs. They help clients to deliver tailored experiences to their customers and prospects across channels, and content in order to build a deeper 1:1 relationship.

CRMXchange Announces November Customer Support Webcast Schedule

By

-

October 26, 2017

CRMXchange Schedule Includes A Multi-Sponsor Discussion On Self-Service, Digital Media And Workforce Optimization

CRMXchange, celebrating its 21st year as the leading online information resource for customer care/contact center professionals, announces a series of free educational events to address these vital issues. The schedule includes a multi-sponsor discussion on Self-Service, Digital Media and Workforce Optimization.

10/26 – Workshop: SMS Text – What’s Right 4 U? – West
With 64 percent of people preferring text communication to on-the-phone customer support, texting is no longer a mere alternative to the phone call; it’s the channel of choice. Without the right strategy, moving forward with a proactive messaging plan can be a headache. One big mistake – failing to consider future requirements. During this interactive workshop we will: walk you through a strategy assessment, help clarify your proactive messaging criteria, and show how texting can help you achieve your specific CX goals. You will leave this webcast with a document outlining your specific needs so you can make the best SMS decisions for your customers and business.

11/7 – Stop Asking Customers What You Already Know: Enter the Age of Intent– [24]7
The Age of Intent is a new era for business. Consumer expectations are higher than ever and customer experience is paramount. It’s an era where the companies that understand, anticipate and act on consumer intent will thrive, and those that don’t will be disrupted. There is a simple way to deliver these experiences. In this webcast we detail the benefits of intent-driven engagement. Join us to learn how: intent-driven engagement is being used to anticipate and act on what customers really want, AI and predictive analytics are delivering personalized customer experiences at scale, and to enhance customer interactions while lowering costs.

11/9 – An Adaptive Response to the Changing Workforce – Engaging Employees in Today’s Contact Center – NICE
A changing workforce requires an adaptive response from employers. Today’s contact center workforce is mostly millennial, a generation demanding both active engagement in the workplace and an unprecedented degree of work-life balance. Many employers are struggling to meet employee expectations and to retain high performers in the effort to meet ever increasing customer service challenges. Join this webcast for insight into the current workforce landscape and adaptive tactics employers can deploy to help achieve employee satisfaction and retention, and recruit high-performing talent – all while reducing operational overhead.

11/14 – Tech Tank – Enhancing Customer Engagement with Omni-Channel Self Service– Aspect, Inbenta, and inContact
For many, customer self-service is the preferred way to initiate interaction with a company. Self-service done right is a win-win proposal. This roundtable explores the most effective methods of providing customers with expanded capability to resolve issues on their own first, then seamlessly move to other channels.

11/15 –Bringing it Together: How Better Contact Center Plans Lead to a Better Operation – Genesys
When organizations improve capacity plans, better manage seasonality, determine the best way to schedule agent training, and develop individual agent performance plans – the contact center sky rockets. In this webcast, we will discuss the benefits to improve these critical planning functions, highlighting how to quantify the ROI for embarking on these important improvement projects.

Matthew Leger Joins Eyeota as Director, Agency Sales, Americas, to Strengthen US Sales Team

By

MTS Staff Writer

-

October 26, 2017

Leger Is Responsible For Developing Strategic Relationships With Some Of The Major Holding Companies In The Region

Expanding its US sales team, Eyeota has Added Matthew Leger as its newest Director Of Agency Sales, Americas. Matthew is responsible for developing strategic relationships with some of the major holding companies in the region. He will report directly to Elizabeth Christensen, Managing Director, Americas.

https://media.licdn.com/media/AAEAAQAAAAAAAAnZAAAAJDhiOTRhOWYyLTE4OTctNDM3OC1iNGEyLTE5MGYzY2JlZTg5ZQ.jpg — Matthew Leger

“With more than 15 years of experience working on data-driven media and unique data sets, I’m eager to join the Eyeota team to help drive the company’s success in the region. Combining my passion for helping clients meet their marketing and sales goals and Eyeota’s global data and insights, I am excited to help evangelize those products,” said Leger.

Previously, Matthew was Senior Sales Executive at Samsung Ads, the advertising monetization arm of Samsung Electronics, where he was responsible for CTV and cross device media sales. Prior to Samsung, Matthew was at Yahoo! Advertising Platforms, where he developed go-to market plans and marketing solutions for key clients nationally. He was instrumental in the launch of Yahoo Gemini, its marketplace for native and search ads, and Yahoo Ad Manager Plus.

https://media.licdn.com/media/p/6/000/20a/3d0/34e08fd.jpg — Elizabeth Christensen

“Matthew’s extensive background in data and sales will help to strengthen our foothold in the US market. The demand for audience data will continue to grow as programmatic surges to new heights across the region. Matthew’s proven track record in developing key relationships and achieving business results will be an asset to Eyeota. We are excited to have him join the team,” said Christensen.

As brands strive to engage and connect to their audiences, the ability to deliver relevant content to the right audience is more difficult now than ever. Using audience data, brands are able to bypass the noise to get their message directly to the consumer. Eyeota is the global leader in audience data, allowing brands to target their campaigns with precision. With more than 3.5 billion unique profiles, we offer data with scale and depth to paint a fuller picture of your audience.

Main Street Hub Launches New Branding and Content Products for Small Businesses

By

-

October 26, 2017

The New Customer Experience Includes A Professional Photo Shoot For New Customers To Power Authentic, Data-Driven Customer Service And Outreach

Main Street Hub, the marketing platform for over 10,000 small businesses across the United States, announced the launch of a suite of new branding and content products for small businesses. This new customer experience includes a professional photo shoot for new customers to power authentic, data-driven customer service and outreach.

The photo shoots, powered by Main Street Hub’s nationwide network of experienced, freelance photographers, enable small businesses to elevate their online presence and win new customers with compelling photographs that tell their story. The new products also include one-of-a-kind branding tools that enable every small business’ online messages to be extensions of what makes their business unique. These tools combine a business’ brand colors, fonts, and photos with their voice to create authentic content for thousands of small businesses. In the background, data on design and performance enable machine learning to continuously improve customer results.

The company’s small business customers can also continue to oversee their marketing closely with personalized tools, dashboards, and reporting — taking advantage of Main Street Hub’s pioneering “Do-It-For-You” customer experience.

“Every small business has a unique story, and we’re privileged to be able to tell those stories every day. Through a radically customer-centric approach, we’re delivering a customer experience that’s unlike anything that’s ever been done for local businesses,” Andrew Allison, Co-CEO said.

“No other technology company possesses this depth of understanding of each of their small business customers. We are still at the beginning of our work to create thriving local economies, and we’re excited to raise the bar in terms of what technology, creativity, and data can do for small businesses across the country,” Matt Stuart, Co-CEO said.

Tomorrow TTH Selects Mapp As Their Data Management Platform Partner

By

-

October 26, 2017

Mapp Will Enable Tomorrow TTH And Its Clients To Deliver Relevant, Effective Ads To Customers And Prospects And Take A Data-Driven Approach To Omni-Channel Marketin

Mapp Digital announced that Tomorrow TTH, a leading independent marketing agency, selected the Mapp Customer Engagement Platform to drive media efficiencies for its clients, and complement its existing advertising and performance offering.

Mapp will enable Tomorrow TTH and its clients to deliver relevant, effective ads to customers and prospects and take a data-driven approach to omni-channel marketing. The Customer Engagement Platform includes a DMP and biddable media service that integrates directly into Tomorrow TTH’s trademark ‘Adgnosis’ methodology and technology stack, powering the agency’s trading desk and complementing its existing customer tracking solution.

Tomorrow TTH is an independent marketing agency with a proud heritage in performance media services, and works with a number of household names, including: Amazon, Speedo, Boux Avenue, Game, Time Inc. and 118BET, managing a number of marketing channels including programmatic display advertising, paid social and paid search. The integration with Mapp will help to drive media efficiencies for clients and improve consumer data matching.

Matt Langie, Chief Marketing Officer, Mapp said, “Our partnership with Tomorrow TTH highlights the fact that Mapp is not just a provider of technology, but a global strategic partner that enables businesses to drive growth and success. We are experts in search, social, display, and mobile; what’s more, we have some of the most effective and easy-to-use marketing software on the market. It is that magic combination that generates great results for our clients, whether they are brands or agencies, campaign after campaign.”

Justin Thomas, Director, Tomorrow TTH said, “Our partnership with the Mapp Customer Engagement Platform and its integrated DMP ensures we reach consumers in the right place, at the right time, with the right message. Data and, most importantly the business practices and processes that enable us to collect high quality data, are the keys to creating a successful marketing strategy in the long term. By engaging the Digital Marketing Services team at Mapp, I’m confident Tomorrow TTH and our clients have gained a considerable edge on the competition, and set themselves up for success for years to come.”

Independent Consulting Study Finds Pluralsight Delivers 295 Percent ROI

By

-

October 26, 2017

Total Economic Impact Study Shows Pluralsight Empowers Faster Product Development, PV of $11.3 Million

Pluralsight, the enterprise technology learning platform, announced the results of a new Forrester Consulting study that examined the financial impact companies gain from using Pluralsight’s technology learning platform. The Total Economic Impact Of Pluralsight, an October 2017 commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Pluralsight, found that Pluralsight customers realized a return on investment (ROI) of 295 percent after three years and saw a payback of less than six months.

To quantify the value of Pluralsight, Forrester interviewed current enterprise customers across several industries and regions. With the information and data gathered during the interviews, Forrester created a composite company and analysis model, revealing the following quantified key benefits:

Faster product development: Pluralsight fosters faster, better product development due to faster talent development—via upskilling and closing the technology skills gaps quickly. A conservative three-year present value (PV) estimate of this benefit sums to $11.3 million.
Retaining employees: Pluralsight aids in retention by offering tech staff an enrichment opportunity not available elsewhere. If employees who might otherwise depart instead decide to stay, that can be worth more than several million dollars annually—nearly $6 million PV over three years.
Faster onboarding of junior—and experienced—new hires: The time to get junior developers and experienced new hires ramped up and productive can be reduced from months to weeks. Over three years, the shorter learning curve is worth $1.8 million.

“The ROI of using Pluralsight to close their technology skills gap and develop better products faster is a major reason leading companies around the world rely on us. It’s no longer enough to arm technology teams with the skills they need today; CIOs and CTOs need to plan ahead and help their teams acquire the skills they need next, and Pluralsight empowers them to do just that,” Aaron Skonnard, Co-founder and CEO, Pluralsight said.

Interview with Mike Brown, CEO, FISION

By

Sudipto Ghosh

-

October 26, 2017

1

[mnky_team name=”Mike Brown” position=” CEO, FISION”][/mnky_team]

[easy-profiles profile_twitter=”https://twitter.com/MBFision” profile_linkedin=”https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-brown-236b857/”]

[mnky_testimonial_slider][mnky_testimonial name=”” author_dec=”” position=”Designer”]“Great Digital Asset Management empowers a CMO to pull all of that information together and to furthermore understand how their content is really being used.”[/mnky_testimonial][/mnky_testimonial_slider]

On Marketing Technology

MTS: Tell us about your role and how you got here? What inspired you to start a Digital Asset Management and Sales Enablement company?
Before starting FISION, I was the SVP of Operations at Life Time Fitness. While I was there, it was my job to create a national roll out of health and lifestyle fitness clubs. We were creating these fabulous third places – you have your home, your work, but where do you spend your time: the third place. We would spend tremendous amounts of time and energy around the brand experience to create these incredible spaces costing between $20-30M. I’d walk up to the front of this new building and someone would have this piece of paper taped to the door: “pool closed”. We’d spend all this money on the brand experience, but we’d tape white paper signs with handwriting scrawled in sharpie marker to the front door. No one had mastered the ability for a front-line employee, in a simple way, to be able to localize brand message and keep it legally compliant for whatever material they need, whenever they need it.

So I said, I’m going to build this technology, and pulled a tremendous team of experienced software executives together to build it. We wanted to create a technology so that every single user had a specific relationship with that technology so that they could create really specific content that is legally and brand compliant.

I wanted anyone who uses our technology to be able to specialize and make relevant the engagement that they have with their prospects and their customers. If FISION doesn’t allow me to create that relationship, then it’s useless. That concept then evolved into a multi-tenant, multi-tiered, system that we’ve built into FISION. We’ve received a patent for that technology recognizing that the way we move digital content between organizations and individuals while being able to establish very specific business rules at either end of that process is extremely unique. Today, we have an incredible team working on all of that, some amazing customers and partners, we’re a public company, and I couldn’t be more thrilled about where we are heading as an organization.

MTS: How do you see sales and marketing technologies converging for simplified brand distribution?
There has been a tremendous explosion in the MarTech space, from roughly 500 companies to well over 5,000 that are all taking different approaches towards a similar solution. We see customers that want to get their technologies down to a single technology provider. With that, we believe you need a content repository. Then you need tools like the ability to print, download, move, and email content etc. All that functionality needs to be in one place that is extremely simple and intuitive to use. Finally, you need intelligence: who are the people that we’re targeting and how are they responding to our messaging.

So how do I see this happening? By focusing on the user, like we do, and creating a simple platform solution where multiple capabilities are included in one instance so that things like social, print, email, etc. are no longer individual products but are pulled together

Furthermore, sales and marketing need to think like one homogenous brain, and they need to serve the customer. They need to work together to say, “Here’s our brand, here’s our message, and based on the data we’re getting, we’re able to provide our local people with very specific tools to drive home our message, and then we need to be able to measure it.” That allows the organization to think as one single-celled amoeba. My prediction is that, as we are doing at FISION through our recent acquisition of Volerro, technologies will converge, there will be acquisitions, and platform services will emerge that enable organizations to think better, react quicker, and execute more consistently around their brand messaging and engagement with customers.

MTS: How should CMOs drive consistent brand alignment using Digital Asset Management and marketing technologies?
CMOs need a single source of truth. When we, as individuals think about problems in our lives and business, we never rely on one data point. Instead, we leverage our entire brains, and thankfully our brains have multiple departments filled with a myriad of experiences: creative, emotional, logical, etc. That one brain brings that all together at one instance so that we can say: “here’s the answer, here is my decision”.

Inside of a company, CMOs need to look at sales and marketing technology as one brain that has all of these experiences, data points, and capabilities rolled up into one platform. Great Digital Asset Management empowers a CMO to pull all of that information together and to furthermore understand how their content is really being used. From there, they need marketing technologies that then allow them to quickly make decisions and deploy them globally with little to no resistance.

MTS: Would it help businesses to grow if they rely on customer lifecycle intelligence platforms to deal with Sales Enablement and Productivity management solutions?
Absolutely. Let’s use the example of a bank: a kid walks into the bank at the age of 17 to open his first checking account. If the bank knows he’s going to college soon, they can empower their salespeople to offer him a college loan. Say he goes to college and then gets married, their technology should empower their sales teams to know when and how to best reach out to him and offer him a home loan. As I mentioned before, the platforms that can help track all that data, empower sales teams to act on that data in a way that is customized for the customer will make huge strides in the MarTech spaces in the years to come. The companies that use those platforms will see dramatic growth in their businesses in comparison to those that don’t cater to their customer at the right time with the right message.

MTS: Is Performance Marketing the next frontier for all Digital Asset Management companies? How does FISION enable marketers to expedite performance marketing using DAM and distributed marketing solutions?
Some Digital Asset Management companies are not focused on marketing material, but for those that are, absolutely. With FISION, we create a single source of truth so that everything is at a sales person’s fingertips 24/7, allowing them to bring exactly what they need into their sales communication at exactly the right time. Being able to see where your customer is in your pipeline is only as good as the relevant information you can deliver, tailored to his needs, his language, his buying pattern, etc. We work with systems like Marketo that are great at bringing in leads and showing you how close they are to a sale so that a salesperson can deliver them the content that will help close business.

MTS: What startups are you watching/keen on right now?
I’m obviously really excited about Volerro, the company we just purchased that allows marketing teams to work collaboratively in real time, sharing their intelligence and material, and incorporating their product into FISION will create an incredible agile marketing suite with robust DAM capabilities.

NUVI is a social listening platform with stunning visualizations that I think is also really interesting.

Collabrio is another contact center and workforce optimization tool that optimizes customer experience, engages call center workforces, and ensure that teams are risk compliant.

MTS: What tools does your marketing stack consist of in 2017?
I don’t want to give away our own secret sauce, but I will say we are huge fans of Marketo, as our main form of marketing today is email. We are starting to do more with video, we do a lot of social, and we work to intercept social engagements and convert them into more qualified leads.

MTS: Would you tell us about your standout digital campaign? Who was your target audience and how did you measure success?
We’re engaged right now in conversations with a lot of top tier banks and financial institutions, and many of those conversations have been the result of a specific email campaign. The campaign revolved around two very specific points: asking the banks how they get their message out there and how do they ensure that it’s legally and brand compliant? Because we knew our customers, and we knew that financial institutions in particular really struggle with this problem and are not yet empowered with the technology to solve it, we immediately saw an incredible response that has led us to just recently signing a top tier financial institution, and we expect more to follow.

MTS: How do you prepare for an AI-centric world as a business leader?
I think the key thing is to find as many ways as possible to pull in data. AI will very quickly allow us to make decisions faster and with far less energy and knowledge that was needed before, but it will be heavily reliant on the data and inputs we provide it. The best thing businesses can do to prepare for an AI-centric world is to ensure that they are capturing as much information as possible so that they can feed that brain I talked about before.

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?
In my personal life, I can’t live without MyRadar – I’m a boater and a golfer, so within 15 minutes I can tell whether or not it’s going to be a good day on the course or the water.

I’m also engaging with our tool Volerro to stay intimately more connected with what’s going on within our teams specific to our customers. I see what our teams are talking about, and I can drop in when and where I am needed.

As a manager it enables me to get data I need in real time and to then empower my people to make better decisions.

MTS: What’s your smartest work related shortcut or productivity hack?
We’re big fans of the Entrepreneurial Operating System based on the book by Gene Hackman Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business. The methods and processes outlined in the book allow us to get far more accomplished with less people that we would be able to do otherwise.

MTS: What are you currently reading? (What do you read, and how do you consume information?)
I read mostly good old-fashioned newspapers and online articles. My central philosophy around reading is that if you’re reading and getting all of your information from a single source, then you’re wrong. You need to blend as much information from as many sources as possible to fully understand any issue in the world or in business.

MTS: What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?
My mother told me years ago: “Brush your teeth because your hair is going to fall out.” She knew I was going to grow up with male pattern baldness…which was sadly true. But the brilliance of that quote is that we’re all given talents and weaknesses, but you must take what you have and be the best you can be with it.

MTS: Tag the one person in the industry whose answers to these questions you would love to read:
Tom Goodmanson- President and CEO, Callabrio

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

[vc_tta_tabs][vc_tta_section title=”About Mike” tab_id=”1501785390157-b58e162d-0ae25a4b-c27aca64-108e0e21-3b45″]

Mike is the founder of the company and Chief Enthusiasm Officer since its inception in 2010. Mike has been an accomplished corporate executive for more than 25 years while serving in various senior operations, sales and marketing positions. His extensive senior management experience includes having been Senior Vice President of Sales, Operations and Marketing at LifeTime Fitness from 1997-2008, where he successfully managed and oversaw annual revenue growth from $7 million to nearly $700 million. He was a member of the executive leadership team that navigated the company through a successful IPO in 2003. Upon his retirement from LifeTime Fitness in 2008, LifeTimes’ market cap was just under $2 Billion. In 2001, he completed the Executive MBA course at the University of St. Thomas. He has also proudly served as a US Navy Submariner and a certified US Navy Diver.

[/vc_tta_section][vc_tta_section title=”About FISION” tab_id=”1501785390320-2d44fa50-740c5a4b-c27aca64-108e0e21-3b45″]

FISION logo
FISION’s Digital Asset Management / Sales Enablement solution solves real marketing problems at every point in the sales process. Our cloud-based SaaS enables corporate and local marketers, sales teams and vendor partners to efficiently control, distribute and measure multi-channel communications. By having all sales and marketing communications centralized, organizations are able to drastically improve efficiencies, optimize distribution channels, ensure brand integrity and increase sales.

[/vc_tta_section][/vc_tta_tabs]

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

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

Tethr Secures $15M in Funding to Grow AI-Driven Conversation Intelligence Platform

By

-

October 26, 2017

The Northridge Group and Tethr Announce Strategic Partnership

Tethr Raised $15 million In Series-A funding Led By Grotech Ventures With Participation From MissionOG And Strategic Investors

Tethr, the conversation intelligence company, has raised $15 million in Series A funding led by Grotech Ventures with participation from MissionOG and a number of strategic investors. This latest round represents the first institutional investment in Tethr’s four-year history after raising seed capital primarily from individual investors. The company will use the funds to build out its team, scale business operations, rapidly expand sales and marketing and advance key enabling technologies to support today’s top enterprises.

“The customer phone conversation is a vital means of engagement, filled with valuable insights about a company’s products, brands and competitors. Unfortunately, the enterprise hasn’t had access to solutions that extract the full value from customer calls, leaving companies with a massive blind spot that could cost them millions of dollars annually. Companies have tried unsuccessfully to capture voice-of-customer insights by manually listening to phone call recordings, using outdated tools that provide proxy insights via sentiment or emotion, or distributing surveys that reinforce their bias. With Tethr listening to, analyzing and surfacing actionable insights from every customer phone conversation, companies can finally use the information customers are telling them directly to improve business performance and drive better outcomes,” Mike Mings, CEO, Tethr said.

Tethr’s platform combines artificial intelligence and human intelligence, leveraging customer loyalty insights from major consulting and research institutions to help companies gain business value from each customer conversation. The platform provides organizations with a full and accurate understanding of what is said and meant by customers and employees during phone exchanges, and makes it easy to apply these insights to other engagement channels and business units through simple integration with popular BI and CRM tools. Now, organizations can quantify the immediate and long-term financial impact of each customer call, identify opportunities for improvement and take steps to achieve operational excellence, increased revenue, stronger products and services, impeccable compliance and devoted customers.

“While customer experience is a priority for every executive, many companies are still falling short of providing an experience their customers truly love, simply because they aren’t really listening to their customers. What excites us about Tethr is their use of cutting-edge machine learning approaches that make it easy for companies to quickly and accurately turn large amounts of unstructured customer conversation data into information that fuels smarter business decisions,” Lawson DeVries, General Partner, Grotech Ventures said.

Tethr’s intelligent and intuitive platform makes it easy for users from the contact center to the C-Suite to surface and apply relevant insights right out of the box and to train the platform to find new insights via an easy-to-use wizard. With its simple pricing model, rapid setup and resource efficiency, users realize the full value of their customer conversations in days – not months. Tethr complements current investments and super-charges people, processes and technology with the power of AI-driven customer insights.

This financing builds on an exceptional year for Tethr, which saw the company gain significant market momentum and rapidly grow its roster of clients within the Fortune 1000.

“Tethr is one of the fastest growing software companies that we have encountered. The solution can quickly integrate with any existing phone system and adds value to enterprises on ‘Day One’. We are excited to work with this extraordinary team as they usher in the next generation of customer experience software,” George Krautzel, Managing Partner, MissionOG said.

Conversion Logic Extends Its Breakout Year of Growth With 3 New Executive Appointments

By

-

October 26, 2017

Marketing Intelligence & Attribution Leader Names New Chief Client Officer, Chief Revenue Officer, and VP Marketing

Conversion Logic, the industry’s most innovative unified marketing attribution platform, announced the appointment of three leadership positions: Juan Pablo Pereira has been appointed as Chief Client Officer, Matt Camassa has been named Chief Revenue Officer, and Tony Yang joins as the VP of Marketing.

Over the past nine months, Conversion Logic has been able to attract and recruit top talent from other companies in the attribution space because of its unique approach to marketing measurement transparency, accuracy and speed to insights at scale. Forrester Research highlighted this commitment when they named Conversion Logic as a Breakout Vendor in Marketing Measurement and Optimization Solutions, this August.

“2017 has been a banner period for Conversion Logic. As consolidation in our space continues at a rapid pace, options for agnostic attribution solutions continue to shrink. In parallel the CMO’s appetite for (un-tethered) attribution analytics and a cross-channel marketing intelligence layer that can provide a holistic view of marketing continues to grow dramatically. By adding JP, Matt, and Tony to the team, we are continuing add the talent necessary to continue to execute on our vision of becoming the leading SaaS platform that solves for cross-channel marketing measurement, attribution and optimization – powered by the most advanced machine learning,” Brian Baumgart, Co-founder and CEO, Conversion Logic said.

Tony Yang comes to Conversion Logic from Mintigo, where he built, led, and scaled the demand generation and marketing operations functions for the B2B predictive analytics vendor. With 15 years of experience in enterprises as well as startups, Tony has been recognized in the B2B marketing community as a thought leader in areas such as Account Based Marketing. Tony will be leading the marketing function at Conversion Logic as the VP of Marketing.

Juan Pablo Pereira is joining Conversion Logic as Chief Client Officer. He has extensive experience managing account teams as well as analytical and consulting teams for firms offering services in marketing analytics, market research, and strategy consulting. JP was SVP at MarketShare/Neustar for six years, where he was responsible for the teams managing a number of global and domestic clients in technology, auto, retail, and Internet services.

Matt Camassa will assume the role of Chief Revenue Officer. His mission is to enrich the revenue lifecycle of existing and incoming clients. Matt comes to Conversion Logic after leading sales and development at TeleSign and other several successful startup exits. He brings 20 years of deep knowledge and experience scaling enterprise SaaS sales, support and marketing teams on a global scale.

IDC: Salesforce Economy to Create 3.3 Million New Jobs by 2022

By

-

October 26, 2017

By 2022, Salesforce Partner Ecosystem Will Gain $5.18 For Every Dollar Salesforce Earns

Salesforce, the global leader in CRM, announced new research from IDC, commissioned by Salesforce, detailing how Salesforce and its ecosystem of customers and partners will drive 3.3 million new jobs and more than $859 billion in new business revenues worldwide by 2022. In addition, by 2022 the Salesforce partner ecosystem will gain $5.18 for every dollar Salesforce earns. The Salesforce Economy’s largest impact on industries will be in financial services, with the forecasted creation of 584,995 new jobs and estimated $164 billion in new business revenues by 2022. Last year, IDC forecasted the Salesforce Economy would create 1.9 million jobs and $389 billion in new revenues by 2020.

According to the IDC White Paper, the new findings demonstrate the benefits of cloud computing, which underlies increases in IT innovation, which in turn supports business innovation that leads to accelerated development schedules, faster project completion, shorter time to market for new products, and lower operational costs. Cloud computing is currently growing at a much faster pace than IT as a whole. Annual growth is forecast at 17 percent, anchoring investments in products and services supporting digital transformation projects that will reach $2 trillion by 2020.

“IDC’s latest results underscore strong momentum from the Trailblazer community of Salesforce customers, partners and developers who power the Salesforce Economy and growth of cloud services worldwide. Salesforce continues to innovate to address the transformation needs of our customers across every industry,” Tyler Prince, EVP Alliances and Go-to-Market Innovation, Salesforce said.

Because organizations that spend on cloud computing subscriptions also spend on ancillary products and services, from additional cloud subscriptions and professional services to supporting software, hardware, and managed services, the Salesforce ecosystem in 2017 is nearly four times bigger than Salesforce itself. By 2022 it will be more than five times bigger. IDC estimates that in 2017 for every dollar Salesforce will make, the ecosystem will make $3.67 and will reach $5.18 by 2022. By 2022, Salesforce will drive nearly 5 million indirect jobs, which are created by spending in the general economy by the people filling the 3.3 million direct jobs.

Industry Economic Benefits of the Salesforce Economy
In this study, IDC looked at how the Salesforce Economy will impact revenue and job growth for six specific industries.

Financial Services industry will gain $163.7 billion in new revenues and 584,995 new jobs will be created by 2022.
Manufacturing industry will gain $159 billion in new revenues and 638,296 new jobs will be created by 2022.
Retail industry will gain $92.6 billion in new revenues and 401,355 new jobs will be created by 2022.
Comms and Media industry will gain $89.8 billion in new revenues and 360,451 new jobs will be created by 2022.
Healthcare and Life Sciences industry will gain $68.2 billion in new revenues and 244,096 new jobs will be created by 2022.
Government industry will gain $50.9 billion in new revenues and 221,640 new jobs will be created by 2022.

The Power of the Salesforce Ecosystem
The Salesforce ecosystem is the key growth driver of the Salesforce Economy.

The ecosystem includes thousands of partners, including ISVs and consultants; four million developers; a community of 2.5 million ‘Trailblazers’ — individuals and companies who use Salesforce to drive innovation, transform their companies, and grow their careers; more than 400 local, industry, and special interest User Groups; and more than 200 Salesforce MVPs, prolific product experts and brand advocates.
The Salesforce AppExchange, the world’s largest enterprise cloud marketplace, is home to more than 4,000 solutions that have been installed more than five million times. Today, 87 percent of Salesforce customers and 89 percent of the Fortune 100 are using AppExchange apps.
Trailhead, Salesforce’s interactive, guided and gamified learning platform, allows anyone to learn the skills that empower them to land a job in the workforce of the future. To date, Trailblazers have earned four million badges for completing trails. In addition, more than 300,000 job postings ask directly for Salesforce or Salesforce-related skills; and the average salary for Salesforce or Salesforce-related job openings is more than $80,000 annually. Indeed, the world’s #1 job site, found that two of the top ten jobs in its 2017 ranking were related to Salesforce: #4 Salesforce Administrator, #6 Salesforce Developer.

Anaplan’s Connected Planning Platform Significantly Improves Dufry’s Key Planning Cycle

By

-

October 26, 2017

The Anaplan Platform Provides Clear View Of Buying Process And Ability To Quickly Adjust Plans

Anaplan, a leading platform provider driving a new age of connected planning, announced that Dufry, a leading global travel retailer, has deployed the Anaplan platform to improve its buying process for seasonal fashion merchandise.

Dufry operates over 2,200 duty-free and duty-paid shops in airports, cruise lines, seaports, railway stations, and downtown tourist areas. The company, headquartered in Basel, Switzerland, operates in 63 countries on five continents, and employs over 31,000 people.

“We’re greatly impressed with Anaplan because it has enabled us to quickly improve a key planning process—not with a costly, complex big bang. The Anaplan platform helps us consolidate the planning cycle on a global level and bring together all key elements in an instant. Anaplan also gives us a clear view of data coming from different IT systems,” Philip Kew, Global Category Head of Demand Planning and Pricing, Dufry said.

Before deploying Anaplan, the primary seasonal planning tools at Dufry were time-consuming spreadsheets. With Anaplan, demand planners at Dufry can plan for multiple stores and brands in collaboration with country and procurement teams. The results are a clear view of the process and the ability to adjust plans when needed without involving the Dufry IT organization.

“With the Anaplan platform, clients like Dufry can connect with their customers’ expectations, make quick decisions based on better data, and improve their long-term plans. We are excited to see the initial success of Dufry’s connected planning journey, and we are looking forward to continuing to help the company reach its growth targets,” Edouard Fourcade, Managing Director, EMEA, Anaplan said.
Anaplan is driving a new age of connected planning. Large and fast-growing organizations use Anaplan’s cloud platform in every business function to make better-informed decisions and drive faster, more effective planning processes. Anaplan also provides support, training, and planning transformation advisory services. Anaplan is a privately held company based in San Francisco with 16 offices and over 150 expert partners worldwide.

The Best Email Marketing Software According to G2 Crowd Fall 2017 Rankings, Based on User Reviews

By

-

October 26, 2017

2

G2 Crowd Finds MailChimp Tops Satisfaction Ratings And Salesforce Email Studio Earns Highest Overall Market Presence Score

G2 Crowd, the world’s leading business software review platform, released the Fall 2017 Email Marketing Software Grid report to help businesses make the best Email Marketing technology buying decision. MailChimp, Constant Contact, and GetResponse were named Leaders in the report, receiving a strong customer satisfaction score with a large market presence.

Robly, Campaign Monitor, Emma, AWeber, iContact, OpenMoves Email Marketing Platform, Adestra, Klaviyo, Mad Mimi, SendPulse, FreshMail, Elastic Email, ExpressPigeon, Moosend, Delivra, and Mailigen were named High Performers in the report, earning strong customer satisfaction marks with smaller market presence scores. MailChimp had the highest overall satisfaction score while Salesforce Email Studio earned the highest overall market presence score.

This report also breaks down the Email Marketing category, based on customer satisfaction score and market presence, for Small-Business, Mid-Market, and Enterprise reviewers. At the small-business level, MailChimp had the highest overall satisfaction score and Constant Contact earned the highest overall market presence score. In the mid-market segment, MailChimp received the highest overall satisfaction score and Salesforce Email Studio earned the highest overall market presence score. Finally, at the enterprise level, MailChimp earned the highest overall satisfaction score and Salesforce Email Studio received the highest overall market presence score.

The Grid leverages customer satisfaction data reported by authenticated users along with vendor market presence determined from social and public data. Based on a combination of these scores, each software solution is categorized as a Leader, High Performer, Contender or Niche.

Key Findings:

Not-so-fully functional — The majority of reviewers acknowledged that email marketing tools are distinct from marketing automation tools; however, users mentioned unavoidable pain points that arose from email marketing software that ended up being too simple. A few reviewers mentioned the lack of depth in automation capability, such as triggers, and analytics of click and open rates. Others complained about the lack or elimination of A/B testing functionality that would have helped marketers understand which email template would have the most impact. And still others lamented the difficulty in synchronizing their chosen email marketing solution with third-party integrations, existing CRM tools, and list management.
Lack of personalization/customization — Users pointed out that the ability to customize email templates was a significant factor in their like or dislike of an email marketing solution. While users appreciated the simplicity and ease of email templates, they struggled with the rigidity and lack of flexibility within those same templates. Users wanted to keep their emails consistent with their existing brand logo or imagery, and some email marketing solutions didn’t allow for those kinds of customizations.
Unintuitive at times — The majority of reviews said that the learning curves of a majority of email marketing solutions were easy to overcome, thanks to the user-friendly interface and quality customer support. However, users said that it was when an email marketing platform’s interface was clunky and unintuitive that pain points arose. According to users, an intuitive interface is key to mastering the creation of an appealing newsletter or email blast, especially if the solution is chock-full of features. Users said that when the implementation and overall usability of a tool is difficult, that frustration gets in the way of making the most out of the tool, which in turn compromises the quality of an email marketing campaign.

Allant Group and Aginity Announce Landmark Strategic Partnership

By

-

October 26, 2017

Collaboration To Accelerate Value For Clients’ Marketing Efforts Through Analytics

Allant Group, a nationally recognized, data-driven analytics firm, announced a partnership with Aginity, a leader in enterprise analytics management software. The partnership accelerates Allant’s ability to develop analytics in a fraction of the time, allowing customers to share Allant’s proprietary analytics across a range of applications to drive more personalized customer engagements across marketing channels and customer touchpoints for clients in retail, consumer products, financial services and other industries.

Previously, up to nine months might elapse from data set-up to analytic insights in support of marketing decisions. With this partnership, such insights can be in market in a matter of weeks.

“Combining the power of Allant’s OneTouch real-time data enrichment APIs with the Aginity Amp solution places us in a unique position to help clients fully leverage analytic solutions to advance their marketing objectives. We found Aginity to be the only technology provider that allows our analytics to be easily reused across the organization, which not only speeds time to customer insights but also ensures that a single point of truth is presented through marketing automation and reporting applications,” Gaurav Issar, CEO of Allant Group said.

Analytic reuse enables analysts to share and build upon each other’s work enterprise-wide, explained Tzaras Christon, CEO, Aginity. “At scale, our customers have reduced time to market up to 90% while ensuring that analytic results are consistent in every application across organizational and geographic lines,” Christon said.

“Aginity’s industry-leading customers have benefited from greater analytic efficiency and consistency when designing programs to increase customer loyalty and lifetime value. Our partnership with Allant leverages their deep set of capabilities in marketing analytics, enabling customers to share them within and across organizations,” Christon continued.

Aginity Amp is a solution that enables businesses to create, catalog and manage all analytics as assets which then become reusable across the enterprise. This can reduce analytics-related operational costs by as much as 90% and deliver 10x-100x improvements in efficiency through analytic reuse.

Hubble By insightsoftware.com Wins Gold At UK Oracle User Group Partner Of The Year Awards

By

-

October 26, 2017

Hubble’s 98% Customer Satisfaction Reflected In Awards Voted by End Users

Hubble by insightsoftware.com, a business performance platform, was awarded two gold distinctions by the UK Oracle User Group (UKOUG) for the 10th Anniversary of its Partner of the Year Awards. Hubble received the highest honor for ISV Partner of the Year (Independent Software Vendor), and Innovative Product of the Year.

The awards validate Hubble’s customer-centric approach to solving real business performance challenges with reporting, analytics, and planning needs for finance, operations and IT end users of major ERP technology. UKOUG winners were decided exclusively by Oracle customers, portraying an accurate reflection of the community and recognition of the value that select Oracle partners bring to its customers.

“We’re thrilled that insightsoftware.com, and our flagship product Hubble, was given the highest accolades by the Oracle community. Our company is dedicated to helping our customers improve their businesses, with the most innovative business performance management platform on the market. The ERP is at the heart of Hubble, and our solution’s connection to real-time data lets our customers forecast and model continuously, streamline and accelerate business processes, report and track KPIs, and analyse company performance at all levels of the organisation,”Alwyn Welch, Executive Chairman, insightsoftware.com said.

Hubble by insightsoftware.com is an integrated suite of business performance management apps for JD Edwards and Oracle E-Business Suite. It offers reporting, analytics and planning in a single real-time solution that fully understands your ERP. Hubble integrates your critical business systems so users at all levels have access to live data extraordinarily fast. With this type of visibility, everyone can easily understand, manage and predict the business.

Pega Accelerates Customer Service With Expanded AI and Virtual Assistant Enhancements

By

Sudipto Ghosh

-

October 26, 2017

New Features in Pega Customer Engagement Solutions Improve Resolution Time Across Online Chat, Email, and Phone

Leading customer engagement software provider, Pegasystems, has announced new artificial intelligence and virtual assistant capabilities within Pega solutions. The new capabilities would enable faster and more effective responses to customer service requests across channels. These features instantly analyze incoming chat messages, emails, and phone calls in real time so organizations can immediately understand their customers’ needs and more quickly connect them to the right information. This helps shorten time to resolution, eliminate errors, and improve customer satisfaction while reducing the burden on service agents.

Don Schuerman, CTO and VP product marketing, Pegasystems, said, “When it comes to satisfying your customers, every second counts in the digital world. This is why many of our clients turn to our AI-powered solutions to help bring fast and accurate resolution to service cases coming in from any channel. These latest features reinforce Pega’s vision on the role of AI in augmenting the workforce – giving them access to insights and knowledge that elevates their performance. This, in turn, will allow organizations to deliver unprecedented experiences in the most demanding competitive environments.”

Marketing Technology News: With Infobip, Daraz Enhances Customer Experience Through Mobile Messaging Solutions

Consumers have increasing channel options to connect with customer service to resolve an issue, check on an order, or request information. With the latest version of Pega® Customer Service application and Pega® Platform, Pega delivers additional intelligence and robotics functionality for its market-leading AI-powered customer engagement solutions to ensure businesses deliver consistently superior experiences across their highest volume channels. New capabilities include –

Pega AI-Augmented Agent assists live agents with AI-powered responses to speed up online chat conversations. The feature contextually analyzes each message in real time using natural language processing (NLP) and then suggests the most relevant responses. Part of Pega Customer Service, the Pega AI-Augmented Agent capability saves agents from spending critical moments researching requested information – such as product information or service procedures – that would slow the conversation. As agents select and deliver the most appropriate response, machine learning helps the software understand the nuances of online chat and become smarter over time.

Pega Intelligent Virtual Assistant for Email automatically segments incoming emails instead of relying on human agents to manually read and process each message. Available in Pega Platform and Pega Customer Service, this AI-driven bot uses NLP to understand the request and sentiment of each email. It then automatically opens a new service case and routes the work to the right resource – either a live agent or another bot – best positioned to respond quickly and accurately. New service cases are pre-populated with customer information relevant to the case to save agents additional time.

Pega Intelligent Interactive Voice Response (IVR) bypasses irrelevant phone menu options that famously frustrate customers by adding intelligence to existing IVR systems to personalize the call-in experience. Pega IVR uses AI to understand the most likely reason for an inbound call by analyzing the customer’s previous brand interactions and account information. Using these insights, Pega cues up the most relevant assistance options based on the customer’s needs and real-time context – either by dynamically reconfiguring their menu options, offering the appropriate self-service option, or connecting customers immediately with an agent for escalated cases.

Marketing Technology News: Thomson Reuters Closes Acquisition of Confirmation

Part of Pega’s suite of customer engagement software, Pega Customer Service enables organizations to predict and manage the complexities of customer journeys on a global scale. It anticipates customer needs, connects customers to the right people and systems, and automates or intelligently guides each step of each interaction.

The application is built on Pega Platform, an industry leading model-driven application development environment that simplifies and automates operations so organizations can reduce costs and improve business agility. The solutions are powered by AI through the Pega Customer Decision Hub, which enables businesses to continually adapt their customer engagement strategies using historic and contextual data throughout the customer journey.

These new capabilities will be available to customers by the end of October with the release of the latest version of Pega Customer Service and Pega Platform.

Marketing Technology News: Televerde Joins United Nations Global Compact

Tech Startup Qutee To Incentivize Key Influencers With Stake In The Business

By

MTS Staff Writer

-

October 26, 2017

1

Qutee Changes the Online Conversation with Launch of Data-driven Discussion Platform

Three Tech/Gaming Influencers Have Already Been Granted Stock In The World’s Most Advanced Digital Comments And Discussion Platform

In an industry first, US/UK startup Qutee, developer of an advanced new data-driven comments platform for collecting digital community insights, has announced that it is offering key influencers a stake in the business as an incentive for growing its user base.

The firm, whose platform is currently in beta, has already granted stock to emerging tech/gaming influencers – and committed Qutee users – Huzzy, MarzBar and Phylol. All three have successfully migrated their audiences over to the Qutee platform, where they can, for the first time, categorize, filter and analyze comments and poll data in real time, gaining deeper audience insights and feedback to help improve their YouTube content and also collect feedback for brand and agency partners.

In a bid to democratize the success of the platform, Qutee is offering other influencers/bloggers who successfully build a strong digital community on the platform the opportunity to become early-stage partners in the business.

Tim Wilson, Qutee founder and CEO, said, “Our vision from the outset has been to put our technology in the hands of the people and transform the value of online conversations. In doing so, we’re creating a new breed of ‘data influencers’ that we want to reward for their commitment to our cause. Bringing on Qutee evangelists such as Huzzy, MarzBar and Phylol as early-stage partners will help us to further grow our user base, and we plan to grant stock to more influencers over the coming months.”

League of Legends influencer Huzzy added, “Unlike the comments chaos on YouTube and other social channels, Qutee gives me a constant feedback loop: it allows me to ask my audience questions and sort and analyze their responses in real-time. Using this knowledge, I am able to tailor my content to better meet the needs of my audience. Qutee’s decision to offer stock to committed influencers such as myself is a great strategy – and something that I think will be seized upon by other startups.”

Qutee’s technology platform makes online discussion trackable, archivable, discoverable and permanent so that insights and commentary can be easily identified, categorized, filtered and analyzed. Qutee analyses and organizes every comment made within a community, collects poll data and sentiment analysis on every discussion started, and provides a world-class analytics dashboard that influencers can use for free, making it easier to filter out inane or irrelevant comments and quickly hone in on useful insight.

Outside of the influencer space, Qutee is already in talks with many leading media publishers around embedding the Qutee platform on some of the world’s most widely visited media websites.

The Evolution of Presentations

By

James Ontra

-

October 25, 2017