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Imagine, for a moment, a world in which reality corresponds to your deepest desires almost as soon as you start entertaining them. Something along the lines of getting back home from work while cursing your car dealer and, suddenly, your digital device starts displaying video content featuring links to corresponding competitive solutions. You decide to dismiss it as a fluke or a figment of your imagination, so you try to cure exhaustion by watching a favorite TV show and dreaming of crunchy pizza when, all of a sudden, the…

Marketing is constantly changing as the underlying technology for many key marketing functions is innovating and enabling new insights and achievements for global marketers. Although change does not happen overnight, we still expect to see massive shifts in marketing technology in 2019 on both the B2B and B2C sides. This is in part driven by the increasing need to target key companies, accounts and targets with buying power in efficient, effective and measurable ways — increasing revenue for companies, while decreasing cost.…

Consumers aren’t the only ones to benefit from holiday sales; small business owners can find plenty of Black Friday deals this holiday season on business products. Whether you’re in the market for a new POS system, a great deal on a merchant account, or discounted accounting software, there’s a little something for everyone this year. And if this holiday season is anything like last year’s, you’re in for some real savings. Read More: How Marketers Can Ensure their Brands get a Bigger Piece of the Holiday Pie Accounting…

The voice assistants are coming and there is nothing you can do about it. Trust me, the genie is out of the bottle and it is never going back. Voice will bring a totally new way for users to shop and discover — one that is instant and always on, ready to listen to anything they might say. The ongoing rise of voice assistants really comes down to two key things: the first is that the device quality is only getting better and better when it comes to recognizing our voices and providing the answers we need; the second is…

We looked forward to DMEXCO 2018 in Cologne, Germany, with special excitement. Not only does Europe’s largest marketing conference take place in our own backyard, but we also had a shiny new product – the recently launched free influencer marketing search engine influencerdb.com – and a shiny new logo to show off. As if that wasn’t enough, we also were thrilled to host two influencer marketing themed sessions for a conference that boasts over 40,000 attendees. 5 Things We’ve Learned from Our Influencer Marketing Sessions…

Horizontal videos – out; vertical videos – in. The rise of Instagram TV (IGTV), Instagram’s vertical video platform sets the stage for marketers and brands to showcase their products, tapping into the format of choice for today’s consumer. New Kid on the Block Instagram’s foray on the vertical video comes as no surprise, as mobile devices garner 60% of all video views worldwide. First to take advantage of this trend was Instagram’s competitors, YouTube and Snapchat. While YouTube reigns supreme when it comes to…

Remember viewability? It seems like only yesterday that it was the digital ad industry’s cause de guerre. After all, what good is an ad if it can’t be seen by the consumer. Ads that are served “below the fold,” or that fail to load sufficient pixels to be read and understood, have no chance to influence consumers purchasing decisions. In 2015 wave-making CMOs like P&G’s Marc Pritchard and Unilever’s Keith Weed dominated the conversation with public calls for digital to clean up its act and provide guarantees that…

Ask any marketer about the biggest events of 2018 so far and you’re not likely to hear about the results of an election, the passing of an iconic celebrity, or even the outcome of The World Cup. For marketers, the year’s defining moment arrived on May 25th when the European Union officially rolled out The General Data Protection Regulation commonly known as GDPR. The regulation is designed to protect consumer privacy and give individuals more control of their online footprint. GDPR places new limitations on how customer…

Marketers agree that understanding customer need is key to any business. Forming that understanding however can involve scrambling in the dark for insights on audiences. As companies build increasingly unwieldy datasets, the access to behaviour that the internet has allowed us can sometimes mean that overload of information is just as bad as not having enough. The good news is that there are some easy ways to tap into how your customers feel – with the context of who is buying from you and listening to their feedback.…

Apply Insight, Not Hindsight, to Boost B2B Marketing Success With buyer data at an all-time high, it’s ironic that many B2B marketers still rely on gutfeel and hindsight over knowledge and insight. We’ve found that many brands are essentially gambling on six of the most important aspects of strategy development and implementation. But it would be much better to apply market intelligence and get more scientific with marketing spend. Here’s how. Product roadmaps: Where are you going? The intuition and vision of product…

Digital platforms have transformed how we communicate. From the introduction of email to the new social media apps that pop up every day, communications platforms have created big opportunities for marketers to find and reach customers (both current and prospective). The next communications frontier for marketers is messaging apps. While not necessarily an innovative or new concept, messaging platforms are fundamentally changing how consumers connect with friends, family, and their favorite brands. In fact, recent data…

Trish Bertuzzi from the Bridge Group once told me, “a great marriage begins with the first date, and a quality sales process originates with the discovery call.” A discovery call is a two-way call for the prospect to understand your solution and whether it can help them solve a real problem, and an opportunity for a sales rep to determine whether they should invest more time to develop the account. As a sales rep, time is your limiting resource. A good discovery builds rapport, establishes trust, qualifies a…

Everywhere you look, B2B businesses are urged to think more like their counterparts in the B2C space. We’ve seen article after article talking about social selling, the importance of omnichannel commerce, the value of influencer marketing in B2B, and more. And in many ways, this advice is sound. After all, buyers are consumers as well, and they expect engaging, convenient and simplified experiences from B2B businesses. Still, many strategies that work in the consumer space simply won’t gain ground in B2B. That’s because,…

Understand what matters to your customers – and show you care Authenticity in marketing. Illusion or reality? I am encouraged that companies are inching closer to creating bonafide, meaningful connections, and interactions with their consumers – a challenge that marketers have struggled with for decades. In my experience, to achieve genuine brand relationships, companies must be vocal and heartfelt about the social issues that are bringing people closer together today – impacting brands and consumers alike. Companies…

On Monday, July 17 (or Prime Day, depending on who you ask) Amazon’s stock hit a new all-time high, making Jeff Bezos the richest man in the world worth more than $150 billion. This is certainly significant, but not entirely surprising given B2C ecommerce’s massive growth; in 2017, online retail sales worldwide reached $2.3 trillion, a nearly 25% increase over the previous year. Less celebrated, but no less noteworthy, is the even more rampant growth of B2B ecommerce. While B2C ecommerce sales closed 2017 at $2.3 trillion…

Let’s face it, our industry is going through a major transformation. While progress is being made for women in the workplace, this is go time- not time to rest on our laurels, and be satisfied with our achievements.  Lean In, #TimesUp and #MeToo are more than marketable phrases and hashtags — they’ve evolved into supercharged movements. And companies are listening. In the wake of these national discussions, the onus is on leaders to practice what they preach and ensure that gender, inclusion, and the advancement of women…

It’s no secret that digital experiences are what drive today’s consumer forward, and companies that don’t operate digitally are severely limiting their chances of maintaining a positive brand reputation. Not only are customers demanding more online offerings, but they’re also expecting those experiences to have the same level of individualized service that they would receive when working directly with a customer service representative. This evolution has had a particularly strong impact on the travel industry, which once…

Social media marketing has become overwhelming and confusing for many marketers. As social platforms like Facebook have changed their algorithms, many brands, companies and small businesses have struggled to adapt. It’s left them with one really big question: Is social media marketing still a good investment of time and money for your small business brand? The short answer is “Yes, but…” Yes, social media marketing still works. It’s one of the most efficient and authentic ways to find customers and engage them as fans.…

The Internet is a scary place. With everything from divisive politics and hate speech to terrorism and pornography to worry about, it’s no wonder that digital advertising professionals ranked brand safety as the most important media quality metric to measure in 2018. Over two-thirds of US marketers say they’ve suffered from brand safety issues, and more than half of them say it has happened more than once. So marketers are fighting back the best way they know how: with their budgets. Companies such as Unilever and Procter…

Inclusion and diversity are two of the industry’s top concerns and a focus of this year’s Women Now Master Class, presented by the Advertising Club of New York for women of diverse backgrounds at various levels of their career. The conference covered a range of topics, from elevating women to the C-suite, to men in the “Me Too” era, to the misunderstood millennial. All of these topics are at the forefront of an industry going through major transition. It's not just technology that’s a force for change - employees are…